The catastrophic events of September 11, 2001 will stay with me forever. It was not necessarily the day the world changed, but for my generation, it was the day our world changed. The United States was fully drawn into the fight against global terrorism and Radical Islam. Of course, even a cursory glance at the prior twenty years' history in the Middle East shows America and other Western powers had been heavily involved already, but most of us remained ignorant to that until 9-11.
The sun is shining and the skies are clear, a warm and mild near-Autumn day as I'm typing this. The weather on that Tuesday was much the same; I remember sitting at the computer at my parents' house when my Mom called me from work and told me to turn the television on... trite as this may sound, the scenes of the first plane striking the World Trade Center was surreal. Could this really be happening? We stayed on the phone for awhile and kept watching, and then a second plane hit. What the hell was going on?
The rest of my morning at home is a bit blurry now until my twenty minute drive to Grand Valley State University. The local hard rock station, 94.5 WKLQ, had Howard Stern on in the mornings. On that morning, the perverse shock jock turned into an empathetic, serious journalist who many politicians and public figures called to be heard by the masses. His studios were within eye-shot of the Twin Towers and he was on the front lines of what soon was discovered to be a declaration of war against the USA and all of Western Culture.
I didn't know my Shakespeare class was cancelled until I arrived, so I lingered on an unusually subdued campus for awhile. At 19 and in college, the world had seemed so hopeful, with so much promise. Osama Bin Laden's attack shattered a lot of illusions for kids my age and younger. This was the first time we'd really heard of Al Qaeda or the Taliban, though they'd been growing in force for decades on the other side of the world.
I remember receiving e-mails from two friends in the military - one in the Navy and the other studying to become a Naval officer at the Virginia Military Institute. Both were okay but were understandably on high alert, and that communications from them could / would be limited until further notice. I was just glad my friends were unharmed.
I went to Jumpin' Java that evening, driving by Dewey Hill and seeing Grand Haven's beautiful waterfront looking so peaceful, a gorgeous sunset happening, as if nothing had changed. I was the only customer but didn't stay long. I went home to be with my family and we watched President Bush address the nation. I still believe on that evening, he did a magnificent job communicating what was happening and what the immediate plans were. Public speaking was normally not his strong suit but on that night, he shone.
I'm not going to debate the rights and wrongs of how President Bush and his team handled the war in the ensuing months and years. It would be a disservice to the 2,996 who died that day, and the tens of thousands whose lives were shattered. I wish people remembered the rise in patriotism shown in the months following, how there was a general feeling of unity in my community and across the nation. As of 9-11-16, our nation seems at its most socially and politically divided, more so than any time since the Vietnam era. We forget we have much more in common than we think.
My parents remember exactly where they were and what they were doing when President Kennedy was assassinated and I suspect the events of 9-11-01 will be the same for folks my age. My kids weren't even alive yet, so to them, it's literally history. In my mind's eye, much of it remains fresh and vivid. On that particular day and in the immediate aftermath, America was at its finest.
