We’re part of a group of people that can say we were there during that time. We were in the United States. when the towers fell. We were there, confused, watching our parents and loved ones cry as they watched the buildings collapse on TV. We were there watching rescue teams run to the sides of the injured and even back inside the building to search for those still trapped. We saw America go on lock-down and mourn together.
We were there.
We are a part of the generation that grew up with Sept. 11. But ten years ago in 2001, in our elementary and middle school classrooms, we really had no idea what it was.
Our teachers tried to protect our innocence, but some boldly turned on the TV for us to watch. Our parents tried to explain the idea of war and our family members discussed the big event in length, poring over the TV. Mom or Dad tried to explain why they might be late in getting home from across the country.
We knew the situation was tragic, that we shouldn’t be watching these towers collapse, that there was a reason for all of the tears and sorrow. But still, we really didn’t get it.
Now that we see our country reflecting on what happened 10 years ago — we finally do.
We see family members mourning over lost loved ones. We see children tracing the names of those commemorated in the memorials, the parents they never got the chance to meet. We see our president and politicians addressing the country, explaining the loss and the recovery the U.S. as a whole has faced.
We even saw and understood more closely how that tragedy ten years ago hit our own MU community. John Charles Willett, a MU 1995 graduate, died in the destruction that plagued the Twin Towers. He was one of our own, and UMKC took the time to dedicate a memorial bench in his name. He is one more contribution to our understanding of what really happened that day. One more way that the attacks touched home. One more reason to remember.
Some people title the younger generation, our generation, as the iGeneration, Millenials, Generation Y or even Generation Me, but part of our group will always be the young people affected by Sept. 11. American generations before us have been characterized by other world wars, depressions and tragic times for the country. Ours is Sept. 11.
If anything, this tragic event and its memories should instill in us one thing: acceptance. Ten years ago almost to the day, The Maneater staff editorialized about how developing racist ideas and extremist viewpoints about different groups of people makes us just as bad as them. It’s not the haters against the haters, or us against them. It’s not one ethnicity against another. It’s not even one country against another.
It’s one thought process against another thought process. It’s one sense of triumph and liberty against another sense of hate. It’s one people, one entire country, coming together as one people and saying we aren’t going to take this and these tragic events will not make us turn on one another.
These tragic acts were not the fault of one ethnic group or race or country. And it would be a true dishonor to those who have fallen from them for us to believe that. We can remember forever, and as we do, it’s time to take a step in the right direction and act as one people.
We’re not going to understand the reasoning for the attacks. We’re not going to be able to get back the lives of those who we lost that day. We’re not going to be able to rewind through time and try to handle the situation differently. But the future will be determined by how we move forward as one group of people, regardless of race, skin color, ethnicity, background, preference, appearance, culture and beliefs. One group of people that blends together to make one nation, that looks at others as people who this war on terror and these tragic events have affected just as much as they have affected us.
Ten years ago we wrote: “This is the defining moment of our generation. WE must define this moment as one of unity, not one of hate. We owe it to ourselves, and we owe it to the thousands of Americans under that rubble.”
You better believe we do — and we’re forever going to owe that to them.