It is the 18th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attack. Every year I blog about this and I am going to do it again. Let’s talk about what I was doing that day. Let’s talk about other major events I had the honor and horror to experience in my lifetime and the disturbing trends I see with our kids today. And finally, as 9/11 becomes a historical event for our youth is it possible we could actually forget?
Where Was I?
It is six in the morning west coast time. I am a computer networking instructor that starts his class at 8 AM. I like to get to my classroom 30 to 45 minutes early just to check on things before the class starts. It only takes me twenty minutes to get ready and be on the road. I lived in Thousand Oaks, California at the time with my ex-wife and three children and I worked in Oxnard, which was about thirty minutes away.
During the drive, there is a very steep grade that can be a tad dangerous. It is very easy to go from 55 Miles an hour to 90 without even touching the accelerator. So you can imagine I really paid attention to my driving. It was at the bottom of that hill that I received a call from my ex-wife.
“A plane flew into the World Trade Center!” she said breathlessly.
“What?”
“The building is on fire!”
I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t even formulate a question. How could a plane run into a building? It didn’t make sense.
“Oh my God!” my ex-wife screamed. “Another plane just crashed into the other building!”
“What? When?”
“Now! Just now!”
“Both buildings are on fire?”
“Yes…”
I don’t know what she said then. I had goose bumps and really could not understand what was happening at the time. The United States had not really gone through a serious terror attack so that was the furthest from my mind at the moment. In fact, I’m not really sure when I did realize this was an attack.
Timeline for me gets really fuzzy. I got to work and was sitting in front of my computer, reading through the story on CNN.com. Now, mind you, the Internet then was not the Internet today. There was no YouTube and streaming video was very difficult. All I could do was refresh the web page and see if there was any more news.
That’s when the phone rang again.
“They’re gone. They fell,” my ex-wife says without so much as a greeting.
“What do you mean?” I ask her, not understanding.
“The buildings fell. They’re gone.”
I had a training in Philadelphia a few years before. When we completed, our training, my partner and I had a full day before our light. We decided to drive to New York because we’ve never been there before. We stopped off in Atlantic City and played a couple of games in Trump’s hotel. Weird how things change. We got to New York and parked on the edge of Manhattan. Parking and traffic were horrid. We took the subway to the edge of Manhattan. We were greeted by the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center (I didn’t know, at the time, that there was more to the Center than those two buildings.
They were huge. One building must have taken up ten square blocks. I practically put a crick in my neck looking at how tall they were. They were amazing. I could not conceive of what my ex-wife was telling me. They were way too big.
“How much of them fell?”
Looking back at the destruction, I must have sounded like an idiot.
“They are gone. Completely gone.”
I hung up. He words were confirmed when I refreshed the CNN page and a picture on the home page showed that iconic image of the rickety skeleton of what was left of the World Trade Center.
It Was Just One
The September 11th attack was a turning point in life. It was a realization that life as we know it had changed. After the terrorist attack, I knew we were in a world of terrorism and were going to be in a war that would probably last my entire lifetime, whether we had boots on the ground in a foreign country or just needing to protect our borders. But this wasn’t the only epic event through my life that made me. I wasn’t sentient during the moon landing or the Watergate scandal. But there were some heavy things that changed the direction of my life. Let’s talk about that.
The release of Star Wars. I know it sounds kind of dumb but Star Wars made me understand the core meaning of life: good vs. evil. Things are that simple. One can either be on the good side or bad side of life. I learned that controlling fear and anger are very important and I have been fighting that till this day.
The United States hockey team winning the 1980 Olympics and the election of Ronald Reagan. Those are the moments I became a patriot. I remember the U.S. beating the heavily favored Soviets and I could not keep my feet on the ground. And it wasn’t just me. Funny: I saw the game on a ten inch, black and white television in the kitchen of our house. I don’t even know who they beat to actually win the gold (the Soviet game was the semi-final) but I do remember the countdown. I’m getting chills just thinking about it.
Ronald Reagan was such a powerful figure. All he talked about was how great our country is. He did something no one did much at the time. When he won, I knew I wasn’t the only one who felt pride about being an American.
Ronald Reagan getting shot. I was at school when we heard the Reagan was shot and it was on video. This was when I learned that our President was no more than a human being. I also learned how people can be so hateful of others simply because of their politics. See, Donald Trump wasn’t the first who was hated by democrats and the media. They hated Reagan too. A lot of people don’t realize that the same things they say about Trump, they said about Reagan.
The breakup of the Challenger Space Shuttle. To that point, the space shuttle program was just going. It wasn’t even something exciting anymore. The shuttle launched, flew around the earth a few hundred times and landed. In short, no one cared. When that ship blew up, I realized how dangerous space travel is. I also realized why we stopped going to the moon. It is way too expensive and way too dangerous. I’ve come to realize that danger comes with the territory and there are always heroes. We should honor their bravery and continue moving forward. I prayed our space program would continue and advance. It did and is.
The fall of the Berlin Wall, the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. For me, this is sad. People today don’t realize what we went through during the Cold War. There was always the threat of nuclear war. I even had to have a debate as to why the United States should continue its nuclear build up during the Cold War. What did I learn? The power of capitalism, the vulnerabilities of socialism and communism and what “mutual assured destruction” is.
The Rodney King Riots in Los Angeles. This was my first real view of racism. At the time I didn’t know what happened. But I did learn. And I was concerned and angry because things didn’t seem to be covered correctly by the media.
The Northridge Earthquake. I had been through several earthquakes in the past. None ever scared me like that one. Heck, I was 200 miles away when it hit. But it changed my view on survival. No matter how much fun I make of my friend from Tennessee, whose scared of earthquakes, he’s right. I have ten gallons of water, dry goods, guns, a medical kit and a survival kit. The next big one is coming.
The OJ Simpson Trial. It became very clear to me that race was more important than a horrific crime. Even when reason and evidence left no doubt. I heard the verdict at Cal State Northridge while in class. The reaction was disgusting. All the black student yelled in joy and everyone else just looked in shock. We thought (and I talked with people about it) being black was more important than justice. Forget that his wife was white. Forget the huge amount of evidence. Racism is back.
The election of Barack Obama. I didn’t want him to win. But he did. He was my President and I supported him. He, needless to say, disappointed me. I knew, with him being elected twice, racism was a talking point. There was no “systemic racism,” I started thinking for myself.
Last, but not least: the Iran-Contra Scandal and The Monica Lewinsky Scandal. I simply learned that our politicians are corrupt. I trust non of them now.
There’s been a lot of stuff that’s happened during my life that made me what I am today. The September 11th attacks were huge but it was only a drop in the bucket.
I do want to point one thing out. The U.S. hockey team winning the gold medal in the Olympics and the election of Ronald Reagan really shifted me to be a patriot. Ask yourself something: What have the millennial and Gen-Z had that shifted their beliefs to being patriotic? I had some great things. Things I didn’t even mention here. That included the first launch of the space shuttle Columbia (forgot about that one).
But that topic is for another podcast.
Are We Forgetting?
I will never forget. Probably anyone my age or older won’t forget either.
I’m not going to harsh your mellow here but for millennial and Gen-Z folk, this is history. They only know of 9/11 based off the teachings in school (and we know how the education system works). I have tons of sound clips that came out today to prove this event was not that important. I won’t play them because I want to keep this positive.
What’s important is that we teach it. Everything about the terrorist attacks even if that means contradicting the twenty-something teachers that are educating out kids.
Do not forget and make it your responsibility that your kids don’t forget.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/51650/shapiro-did-we-learn-lesson-911-ben-shapiro