Posted by
stevo on Monday, September 11, 2006 3:04:07 AM
When the Twin Towers were knocked down, the American people not only saw a gaping hole in New York, they felt it. Only the most callous-hearted were able to avoid shedding at least a few tears in the following days. We all felt a sense of loss. Cameras were often drawn to the faces of our Greatest Generation, as they experienced the pain of Pearl Harbor anew. Perhaps the most closely scrutinized group after 9/11 were those of older parents and professionals. Tears filled their eyes too as the last vestiges of 60's/70's idealism was dramatically ripped from their hearts. The Utopian dream was dead.
But where were the youth? Where were the profiles of the adolescents and collegians, each shaken and shattered in their own unique way? Perhaps the stereotypes of selfishness and indifference kept social investigators at bay. We didn't experience Pearl Harbor, nor did we experience the Utopian dream of earlier decades.
Yet, we cried as well.
Perhaps on that day more than any other, we were shaken out of our materialistic, comfort-induced slumber and awakened to the realities of the world. As little children, we clung to our mothers' skirts, knowing that we would find protection within their folds. How we longed for those folds on that fateful September morn.
When the events of 9/11 unfolded, high schoolers found themselves in lockdown within their schools. Collegians around the nation gathered around TV's in their dormrooms and watched the tragedy with ashen faces. Our lives were changed too.
Many don't seem to realize that the younger generations in our society do not remember the Cold War firsthand. While those raised in the last half-century lived in the shadow of death--the awaiting of the inevitable cataclysmic nuclear holocaust--those who are children of the 90's found this fear to be almost mythical and surreal. For us, the shadow existed only in textbooks.
In that way, the response of our nation's youth must be viewed as entirely unique and immensely important. Like our forebears in decades past, we have been denied our sense of invincibility. When we ride airplanes, we imagine terrorists, box-cutters, and heroism. Speeding along in a subway car, we imagine lethal gasses dealing fatal doses to nearby passengers. Opening mail, we imagine anthrax making contact with our skin. Even snipers threaten the daily stroll through the neighborhood.
No longer should we consider those raised in the 90's to be the pampered benefactors of temporary peace and wealth, but rather, we are now the "9/11 Generation." We should attain that label because we have borne witness. Our minds are forever emblazoned with the image of American power, pride, and security being mercilessly leveled.
I watched the towers fall during my freshman year of college. Every moment of that event found itself captured within my tears. I cannot fathom invincibility. My view and treatment of the world now operates around principles like vigilance and fortitude. I now live within the valley of the shadow of death. I belong to the 9/11 Generation.