Kyra Walton // Contributing Writer
September 11, 2001 will forever be a day that rocked the United States to its core. The mourning, the losses, the pain and grief, were more than I could handle, and I was just a child. I didn’t understand why. I didn’t understand why the events that took place that day happened, and why someone would want to hurt so many people. My understanding of the world was extremely innocent then and I though all things in this world were good. Seeing my mother and father cry hurt me more than anything, and when they finally explained to me what took place that day, it exposed me to reality.
I finally understood that the world was cruel, and people lost their loved ones in a terrible way. Seeing those planes crash into New York’s World Trade Center was absolutely terrifying for me, and I was only eight. I lost my aunt that day. She was aboard Flight 93. The phone was ringing off the hook. There was utter chaos. I wanted the comfort of my mother’s arms, and the happy smile from my father letting me know that everything was going to be alright, but little did I know the absolute disaster that caused on that day.
Two thousand seven hundred and fifty-three people lost their lives on September 11th when two planes crashed into the World Trade Center in Manhattan, New York. The first plane was Flight 11 which crashed into the North Tower at 8:46 a.m. The second plane was Flight 175, which crashed into the South Tower at 9:03 a.m. There was a third plane which was Flight 77. It crashed into the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m. There was a fourth plane. It was Flight 93, which was heading towards the White House, but was intercepted by passengers of the plane, whom overtook the plane from the hijackers and crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania at exactly 10:03 a.m. There were 19 hijackers involved in the attacks that took place all within an hour and seventeen minutes. None of the passengers survived.
I become upset from what I learned that day. Many people were hurting, including my family. We had lost someone we loved and it hurt us deeply. As a child, trying to understand death was not an easy concept to grasp, but when I did finally understand, I felt hurt and upset that a small group of people could take so many lives and not even apologize for it.
Back then I recalled the events of 9/11 through a child’s eye, but as an adult and a veteran of the United States Navy, I consider 9/11 an important aspect to the decisions I make today. 9/11 changed America. We are a cautious people now, but 9/11 also made us aware. This world needs love and to love each other, so events like 9/11 won’t happen again. I don’t want to question the problem of 9/11; I want to be a part of the solution.
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