How I Remembered 9/11
By Jaime Luis S. Habitan
September 11th may be remembered as the day that changed the course of history. Four airplanes, three sites, one tragedy. That’s how people described that day that no one ever expected it to happen unless it’s only found in the movies. But let me tell you how I experienced 9/11 from my own pint of view.
It was 7:00 am, my mom woke me up and I have to take a shower. The TV is on and my mom’s watching FOX 5 morning news. I was very excited since tomorrow will be the day that our class was to have a field trip to the International Children’s Festival in McLean, Virginia. Ate Jade and Kuya Evan already left since classes in their schools starts earlier than ours. Breakfast was ready and I had a bowl of cereal filled with milk coming from a bottle. I still can’t get over that time on seeing bottled milk kasi I’ve been used to seeing milk I milk cartons except on those miniature ones I see in school (but that’s a different story).
It was 8:20 and my little brother and I have to leave to get to the bus stop on time. We live in an apartment in Falls Reach Drive but it looks more like a hotel. Falls Reach is complete with other apartment buildings and a neighboring complex that are filled with suites. By the time we got to the bus stop, we met up with our bus mates. Many are from different ethnic backgrounds, but I got used on seeing different people since we got here in Virginia a few months back.
Among my bus mates are two guys from my class. They’re Andy and Jon. Andy lives in the apartment building in front of ours while Jon lives in one of the suites in the other complex. We got along pretty and sometimes I go to their pads to do our homework together, most especially at Jon’s since were both Asians, we had a lot in common, but enough about that.
A few minutes before the strike of nine, we arrived at Haycock Elementary School. Awe were sent to the cafeteria where all the other students meet up with their friends and talk a lot of things. When I’m lucky, get a seat on my classmates table since it’s like a “get your own, it’s mine” game. When you got nowhere to sit down, manigas ka diyan! Those who haven’t eat breakfast have an opportunity to catch up since the cafeteria offers styrofoam bowls with cereal and a small carton of milk (plain, chocolate or anywhere in between are your choices).
By 9, I went straight to my classroom. My teacher, Mrs. Bachison, had already prepared some activities for us to do while waiting for the morning announcements. Five students volunteer every day to make announcements of the news. Our principal, Mr. Jay McLean, always have the last word starting after the recitation of the American Pledge of Allegiance (which I chose not to recite since I’m a Filipino citizen) followed by a moment of silence. By 9:15, classes officially start.
I didn’t care at first when the secretary from the Principal’s office called one of my classmates that his parents are sending him home. Later that morning, a couple of my classmates were also called from the office for the same thing. By lunchtime, a quarter of the whole class was gone. I didn’t realize that the kids from the other sections of the fifth grade were being sent home too.
It began to bother me when almost more than a dozen more from my class were sent home. By 3:15 pm dismissal time, they were a handful of us left in the classroom from more than around 30 that morning. I thought was very wrong but I couldn’t guess what it is. We got back to the apartment along with little brother Jorge and as I open our door using my keys, I was surprised to see that Ate and Kuya looked shocked and speechless on what they saw on TV. I was almost surprised that my mom was home early. I took a look on the TV to see what’s going on and I was terrified! An airplane crashed into a building and it was engulfed with a thick black smoke. The video being shown was caught on tape by a tourist. Minutes later, a second airplane crashed into another building sitting next to the burning building. No later after that, both of them collapsed in a matter of seconds. From this collapse came out a big grey smoke full of debris (on later videos, that thick smoke began spreading like wildfire and bystanders who there at that time began running for their lives as the smoke began to engulf everything on its path).
The two buildings were the North and South Towers. They made up the World trade Center, New York City’s tallest building until that fateful day. I thought it was already bad enough until learned something for the worst! Two other airplanes crashed in two separate sites, one at an open filed in Pennsylvania (a few states away from New York) and another at the Pentagon in Arlington County which lies west in Fairfax County where we live! People panic, and ambulances came running out from nowhere and officials don’t know what to do. I don’t what to do and I’m not sure what’s with all the details.
Mom was sent home, along with other employees, by the World Bank’s main office in DC, not tom mention all other workers in other establishments were sent home. I later found out that it was a terrorist attack. Most programs on TV were held off for the meantime to give way for the ongoing coverage what could be the worst man-made human disaster in history. Hijackers took over four planes which, according to officials, to be used as large bombs and their main target was the nation’s capital, Washington, DC. Though they succeeded on hitting the Pentagon and New York’s tallest building, the cost of human lives lost were tragically great. Thousands died from the airplanes with many more from those who were at the Pentagon and at the site from where the two towers of the World Trade Center once stood (now called Ground Zero).
Life will never be the same for many of my newfound American friends as many from my school, possibly others have lost their loved ones on those planes, on those buildings. I mean, many people died on that day, not only Americans but people from other nationalities including Filipinos. What kind of savage would try to do that? Why must he use hundreds or possibly thousands of innocent lives to do his evil bidding? These are all the questions people are asking to themselves even up to this day.
September 11, 2001 should not be the day people should mourn the death of so many people but the day that people must unite and work hard to make the world a safer place to live. That day shall be forever engraved in my memories of America for this when people from all walks in life united and worked together to save as many lives as they could. We should not let history repeat itself. It is in our hands that the world should head for the good and not for the bad.
Just to commemorate six years after 9/11
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