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September 11, 2001 WTC NEWS & LINKS

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the terrorist attacks
Posted by: Shannon from (then) Williamsburg, VA (now) Battle Creek, MI Friday February 06, 2004 @ 11:05 PST
“breaking news! the world trade center, known as the twin towers, has just been attacked!” terrifying words like these were heard on almost every channel of every television across the nation. september 11, 2001, now infamously named, “the 9/11 attack”, was the start of something terrible. the citizens of the united states were preparing for what many thought would be the beginning of world war iii. my family and i were among the many people affected by the attacks. i was living, in virginia, with my aunt, uncle, and cousin at the time. it started out like any other day: “lanay! time to get up for school!” i yelled to my cousin as i was getting myself ready, “come on, your mother told me not to let you be late! hurry up!” it was her birthday. she was to turn 9 years old. i dropped her off at her friend’s house, so she could catch the bus, i picked up my friends, and stared walking to school. my first class was the same as always, we stated the pledge and continued with our algebra lesson. we had a ten-minute break after that class, to hang out, or study, or whatever we had to do. i had choir next, so i decided to show up early that day to practice the songs we had learned. when class had started, we always turned on the t.v. to catch up on “world events” as our instructor called them. i don’t think any of us were prepared to hear what we heard or saw at that time. as the whole class stared in awe, the news reporter announced, “building 1 of the world trade center has just crumbled to the ground. police have not yet released whether or not anybody is trapped, or if anyone is missing.” an afghanistan pilot flew a jet, carrying people and children, into the building. he was called a “suicide bomber”. we all watched in wonder and amazement, and i thought, “who could have done something like this? why did this happen?” as we all watched and listened, another “suicide bomber” flew a jet into the second tower. minutes later, it to, crumbled to the ground. despite of what many think, the attacks not only affected major cities, like new york city, but they affected smaller cities as well. the city of williamsburg, virginia is not too far from newport news, virginia, where one of the largest naval bases in the united states is located, the newport news weapons base. my aunt and uncle worked at the base, my aunt made reading glasses at nostra, and my uncle was an optometrist for the united states navy, but once a month, he was an emt for 24 hours. on any other day before the attacks, my aunt and uncle could leave for work no more than 30 minutes before they had to be there, and arrive a couple minutes early. after the attacks, they had to leave no less than 11/2 to 2 hours before they had to be there. the officers at the base had to check every vehicle, and everyone’s belongings before they could even enter the base. in the mornings, you had to wait in line for about and hour before your vehicle and stuff was even checked, then it took about thirty minutes to inspect everything. they had to check for things like guns, bombs, anything considered to be weapons, and anything thing that seemed suspicious. naval bases were not the only places where personal belongings had to be searched; schools, airports, bus stations, train stations, and places where large groups of people were gathered were included as well. my school, lafayette high school, was one of the schools inspected. after the attacks of 9/11, going to school was like visiting someone in jail. everything from backpacks to purses, and gym backs to wallets were searched, including lockers. lockers were inspected before school, after the ten-minute break, after lunch, and before students could go home. the normal lessons in different classes were replaced with heartfelt discussions about what had happened. in every class, we talked about how the attacks affected us, how it affected our families, what we thought might happen next as a result, and about what we thought could have been done to prevent this from happening. for weeks we had assignments related to the attacks, things like cutting out stories in newspapers about it, writing our feelings down, things like that. a lot of the students weren’t there for a few days to a week, for many different reasons. i remember there was girl in my choir class that started crying and asked if she could leave as soon as she heard the news. a very close relative of hers worked at the world trade center, she stayed out of school for a week. when she came back, she had told us that she found out her relative had not gone to work that day, that something had told him to stay home that day. if only something had told all the innocent people who died in the buildings, and in the planes, to stay home that day, they might still be alive today. as you can see, the attacks affected more people then just those in new york and new york city. people all over the world were affected in some way, shape or form. the attacks eventually, somehow, lead into a war with iraq, and a full-out search for osama bin laden, and saddam hussein. saddam was recently caught, and we are still, currently, searching for osama, but we don’t have time for that, we will save that for another time, and place. hopefully, we will catch the man behind all this and we will be able to live our lives without the worry that we might be attacked again. osama bin laden is out there, and one day, even if i have to join the military to help, i will.