This started out as a “Forum Post,” but as I began writing, I realized that this was going to be far too long to post in a forum, so I have decided to turn it into a Hub instead. Thank you to Kimback08 for starting this topic. It is horrible, but I think it is wonderful that we are all still so aware of this tragedy, and I hope that we never forget it. After all, “Those that forget their past are doomed to repeat it,” so let’s be sure that this NEVER happens again!

It was a school day, I was a freshman in high school. I got up and the TV was on, which was weird because my family tweaks about energy. So, I sat at the kitchen table, eating my cereal, trying to wake up. I recognized the New York City skyline and thought it was some new movie I hadn't seen yet...until I saw the ticker rolling across the bottom of the screen. But, it still didn't register. This had to be a really realistic scene in a movie....at seven-something in the morning....on channel five....with today's date at the bottom.....OH MY GOD this is NOT a joke and it is most certainly NOT a movie...what the hell.....I dumped my cereal down the drain, ran upstairs, threw on some clothes and grabbed my books. Made a quick phone call to my mom and got her voicemail...

"Hey mom, it's me, I'm headed to school. Have you seen the news? Turn on your radio, some crazy person flew a 747 into one of the twin towers in New York City....I don't really know what's going on, but they're saying something about terrorists...I wouldn't be surprised if the other tower falls before I get home from school....anyway, hope everybody got out safe, have a good day, I'll call you when I get home. Love you, bye."

At the bus stop….it was crazy in a really sad but cool way….there was a popular kid that had his dad’s handheld TV, and he was doing his best to hold it so that we could all see…even those of us he didn’t like. When we boarded the bus, he sat in the middle so that half of us could see it and the other half of us could hear it. Suddenly, in the middle of the news caster’s update, we saw a plan streak across the sky as we heard “Oh dear god no!” CRASH! The plane hit the second tower. BLOOSH! It went up in flames. Most of us screamed. Some cried. We comforted each other, huddling together as though we would save ourselves and our loved ones by sheer force of numbers. We walked into the building in a daze, and the hallways were eerily quiet, the only sound, the hand held TVs and radios some students had brought with them. We hugged our friends, some cried, we didn’t want to let each other go. The kids with cell phones passed them around so that everyone could call loved ones they hadn’t seen or talked to in a while.

We entered our classrooms and sat quietly as the teachers explained what was going on, then declared the school day a time for current events. Some had family members that lived or worked in New York City….they couldn’t reach them…. For once prayer was allowed in school, and the Atheists held hands with the Jews, who held hands with the Muslims, who held hands with the Christians, who held hands with the Pagans, who held hands with the Buddhists, who held hands with the Agnostics…..and we all bowed our heads as one after another offered up a verbal benediction to the deity of their choice for the protection and well being of all. Then, a moment of silence, unbearably long, as the news reporters droned on and kids choked back tears. On to the next class, to repeat the process.

We learned more and more each hour, as new developments poured in, live news feeds in every classroom…..we watched survivors being hurried from the buildings and the Pentagon….we watched as people hurled themselves out of the burning windows, hundreds of stories in the air. We held our breath as firefighters dove into the flames and rubble, disappearing for what seemed like an eternity…..before emerging, choking, with the broken bodies of the injured but alive draped over them…..only to dive back in with empty arms moments later. Their uniforms and face masks turned black. Some went in with masks and came out without them, only to dive back in unprotected. Several times, we saw firefighters carrying people, holding the firefighters masks to their faces….and the firefighters didn’t get the mask back before jumping back in. Each trip took progressively longer…..until they went in….and the buildings collapsed. The fire fighters that weren’t trapped inside took off running for the rubble before it even hit the ground. They began pulling their comrades free….but some … too many….never made it back.

My mom picked me up from school that day, as did many of the parents. She took me to her work, where her coworkers clustered around me, hugging me, crying, asking me how I knew that the second tower would fall. They cried about how cruel the world had become, that a fourteen year old girl should know such things before they even happened. I still had not shed a tear. I couldn’t. I was numb. I guess I was in disbelief, I don’t know.

By the end of the day, we were all exhausted. We wanted this to all be a lie, some sick joke. I think we could have even forgiven the person behind such a cruel joke….but we woke up the next morning and it was horribly all the same.

My mom and I made arm bands and leg bands out of camouflage fabric, with the American flag sewn on, and I handed them out at school. I picked up miniature flags, stickers, anything with “Support our Troops” or the American flag on them, and scattered them around school. Several others did the same. Fundraisers were started, for the troops, ROTC, the victims of the crashes, the Red Cross. There were bake sales and food drives, to support those that were now in hardship because of this thing. There were blood drives, for which droves of people turned out.

For weeks, I watched the news reports, staring in stunned silence, enthralled and disgusted by the scenes unfolding before my eyes. “Al Qaeda”… “Bin Laden” … “Saddam Hussein” … “Terrorism” … “Suicide Bombings”… “Kamikaze Pilots” … “Jihad” …buzz words every news station used…it was everywhere...in the papers, on the radio, on the tv...what it all meant to me…a faceless and nameless enemy, millions of miles away, hiding in remote and inhospitable territories, scattered to the four winds. They attacked my country, hurt my friends and family….and for what reason…I still do not know. I wanted them dead. All of them. If I had had my way about things, I would have dropped an atomic bomb in the middle of the country that first night and killed every man, woman, and child. Innocent, guilty, military, civilian, it didn’t matter to me….kill them all and let their god sort them out. I never forgot that feeling, and I never will.

I don't watch the news any more.

I graduated high school a year early, and enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. I was discharged in Recruit Training for Fraud. While my discharge papers were being processed, I was required (and overjoyed) to continue my military education. One day, about a month into training (Marine Corps training is 13 weeks long, so we were still quite green) the Instructor was late….which NEVER happens….not that late. He came into the room, panting, on the verge of tears, blathering something about war, terrorism, “You’re all being shipped to Iraq tonight, our troops need you. I’m sorry that you can’t finish your training; you’re going to have to learn what you can in the line of fire. Godspeed to you all.”

The whole classroom went up in hysterical screams. Girls screaming for their husbands, children, boyfriends, fathers, mothers, sisters. Clinging to the Recruits closest to them. I grabbed my bunkmate’s arm. “I’m not letting you go without me, Dettlinger. We’re getting me on that plane.” She clung to my arm. I gathered the girls around me into a huddle. “Let’s go ladies, this is what we came here for…to fight and die for our country, now let’s get this shit done so we can come back home, HOORAH!” We all started barking and screaming HOORAH at the top of our lungs, empowering each other. Of course it was all a farce, a lesson in how things were during WWII….but it was beautiful in a sick way.

Needless to say, I never got the chance to put a bullet in the head of one responsible for scaring my country….and I probably never will….but I will never lose my anger or my hatred for those that did this. One day, somehow, someway, I will have my revenge, even if it has to be in the next life. But, the strangest part is that to this day, I have never shed a tear for all those poor souls lost in that tragedy. I don’t know why. It was a senseless tragedy in which a lot of really good people lost their lives needlessly. But I can’t cry. I stay angry….eternally angry….

So what was I doing on 9/11? I suppose you could say I was doing the same thing as the rest of America….I was having my life changed forever.