On September Eleventh, Two Thousand and One, I was Nine years old, counting nineteen days from turning Ten. The big One-Oh. Two-digit age. I was home, sick with the flu. So I saw it all unfold on television. My sky on Staten Island was darkened by what was happening across the bay. I still remember the news announcing the atom bombers had been set into standby flying mode, even though I have not ever found any official sources documenting what I know I heard and saw. Seeing a tiny plane in the sky capable of wiping out an entire small nation, flying to some unknown third world nation, was quite a revelation of the real drama of American power. Indeed, not a few of us thought the explosion and mushroom cloud that grew from the collapsing towers was some sort of nuclear device. I was too young to remember the ‘93 bombing, but I remember murmurings “next time” the bomb being bigger. We all kind of knew Al-Qaeda would try again. We never knew it would be such an unexpected method. Indeed, this is perhaps why the desert folk keep beating us in the long run. We believe lighting strikes twice, they believe lighting strikes differently. We’re never really prepared for the next strike, standing guard where the last strike hit.
20 years, etc
20 years, etc
20 years, etc
On September Eleventh, Two Thousand and One, I was Nine years old, counting nineteen days from turning Ten. The big One-Oh. Two-digit age. I was home, sick with the flu. So I saw it all unfold on television. My sky on Staten Island was darkened by what was happening across the bay. I still remember the news announcing the atom bombers had been set into standby flying mode, even though I have not ever found any official sources documenting what I know I heard and saw. Seeing a tiny plane in the sky capable of wiping out an entire small nation, flying to some unknown third world nation, was quite a revelation of the real drama of American power. Indeed, not a few of us thought the explosion and mushroom cloud that grew from the collapsing towers was some sort of nuclear device. I was too young to remember the ‘93 bombing, but I remember murmurings “next time” the bomb being bigger. We all kind of knew Al-Qaeda would try again. We never knew it would be such an unexpected method. Indeed, this is perhaps why the desert folk keep beating us in the long run. We believe lighting strikes twice, they believe lighting strikes differently. We’re never really prepared for the next strike, standing guard where the last strike hit.