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9/11: Six Months later..

Has it really been six months already? Time sure does go by quickly.

Today marks the six month anniversary of the “attacks on America” by some really horrible people living on the other side of the world. Attacks that changed our economy and country forever. Six months later, we are still feeling the affects of what happened that day.

Its one of those days that will definately be a defining moment for alot of people. For our parents generation, the question is “where were you when Kennedy was shot?”, for us, it’s where were you on 9/11. It’s really a date that will always stand for what’s so horrible in the world. Part of me felt like it should be a national holiday, like Memorial Day – National Remembrance Day.

Last night, Wifey™ and I watched the documentary that was taped on 9/11 inside of the World Trade Center. For those that didnt watch, it started out as a documentary following a guy in training to become a firefighter, then he joins a New York City fire department and was meant to follow him through his first big fire.

Midway through the documentary, this particular squad is sent out on a gas leak call and while their they hear the first crash into Tower One of the World Trade Center. They immediately respond to the building and find the lobby in ruins. All of the windows are blown out and the marble on the walls is on the floor. Eventually, most fire departments from around the city respond and they begin their response tactics. Occasionally you can hear loud, thunderous bangs, which sounds like debris falling onto a roof – they tell us every one of those noises is the sound of someone jumping from 70 stories up.

They take us through the second crash, while they are inside of Tower One, they take us through the collapse of Tower Two and then through the collapse of Tower One. Feelings of anxiousness follow as I watched and hoped they’d get out in time. Tower One collapsed just minutes after they left the building.

In the end, the entire fire department turned out to be safe – they didnt lose a single guy, except for the chaplain.

Although many have criticized the show as being a way to profit off of the events on 9/11, I thought CBS handled it very well. They didnt air commercials, but instead aired breaks with ways to contribute to the various causes. It appeared that they aired the footage pretty much as the two brothers taped it, with the exception of any bodies that they might have caught on tape. I found it to be extremely interesting to see the event from the inside. Not from a reporters point of view, but from an average person following a team of firefighters.

So, it’s six months later and I’m sure that 9/11 is still on the minds of people … it’s hard not to have it on your mind. But did it teach anyone anything?

I hope it did, but how long will it last. Give it a year and 9/11 will be something for the history books and people will get back to their normal routines of flipping people off and starting fights over silly things.

I hope it doesnt happen that way, but unfortunately people forget pretty quickly, what doesnt affect them directly. Face it, a small portion of our country was directly affected. The rest of us, really have no clue.

Back to learning from this. Hopefully it taught us all to appreciate what we have and to definately not sweat the small stuff. Think about that husband and wife or boyfriend and girlfriend that had an argument the night before 9/11 and then went off to work leaving it unresolved. They never had a chance to fix things and now they have to live with it for the rest of their lives. It’s got to be horrible to have that the last thing you remember of your life with someone.

What’s really unfair is that these people were just going to a normal workday and unknown to them it would be the day they died. Ever think about that. The day you die. It’s really an unknown. I mean, we all tend to think we will die of old age, that we have at least until we are fifty or sixty before we have to start thinking about these things. I’m sure that twenty year old working in the cafe on the bottom floor of Tower One didnt think she’d die that day. When was the last time she told her parents that she loved them and appreciated them, when was the last time they said it to her. Did she leave her boyfriend on good terms that morning, or did her boyfriend think he’d make it up to her later that evening after work? Too late.

And the same goes for those people that boarded those planes that morning. Just another business trip or family vacation. Little did they know that it would be the day they died. The day their planes would be hijacked and crashed into buildings or fields all over the country.

Here we are six months later. Have we learned anything? Besides the fact that we have to wait alot longer to board a plane, or even have some fear when boarding a plane, hopefully we learned to appreciate the people closest to us, to take time out from work to enjoy what you have, and to make sure that the people around you KNOW how you feel about them. Moreso, hopefully it taught us that we need to make the best of the time we have because it could end before you know it.

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