"WAKE UP!"
It was my dad. Why the fuck was he in my room? He never woke me up. I didn't work today. My head was throbbing from a killer hangover, I'd got in sometime early that morning, and my first thought was "What the fuck do you want?!". Instead, I just ask "What?".
"Turn on the TV!" He said as he turned on my TV and flipped through the channels. I stared at him dumbly. It's finally happened, I mused, he's cracked. It was only a matter of time.
The pictures I saw on the television didn't make any sense to me. There was the World Trade Center's north tower. American Airlines Flight 11 had already smashed into it, but I didn't know that yet. and smoke was pouring out of it. Someone was talking frantically about something I couldn't understand. Suddenly, from the side of the screen a large passenger jet, United Airlines Flight 175, appeared. It disappeared just as suddenly on impact, transforming into a ball of angry orange flames, thick black smoke, and falling debris.
"What movie is this?" I asked him.
"This isn't a movie." He told me solemnly. "This is happening right now. They're saying it's a terrorist attack. Two planes hit the world trade center."
I didn't understand even then what he was talking about. I remember sitting there stunned and watching the footage over and over and over again. Even when the first tower fell I was in a state of complete disbelief. Even when I heard of American Airlines Flight 77 had hit the Pentagon, even when United Airlines Flight 93 fell from the sky and into a bare, green field in Stonycreek township, and even when the second tower fell, I just couldn't get my mind around it.
I remember walking to the store some time later that day. It was a gorgeous day in Dallas. The sky was bright and blue, as it usually was, and the sun was shining. I looked up at it and realized that it was empty, there wasn't a single plane, and that's when the magnitude what had happened finally hit me. The realization of the tragedy I'd just witnessed came so hard and so fast that I could barely function by the time I arrived at the store. I don't remember what I bought, probably cigarettes, but I remember fighting back tears when I did. I walked home again under that clear, silent sky and wondering if anything would ever be the same again. It wouldn't.
A year later I was chased off of a bluebird bus in Fort Benning, Georgia, by a screaming drill sergeant.
9/11 changed a lot of lives. For me, it got me off of my ass and into the fight. It was the wrong fight, they were Saudis and not Iraqis, but my dumb ass didn't know that at the time. Still, I wouldn't trade those years for anything. It's strange to look back on it now and reflect on the profound change that event had on me. That morning, a sleepy Tuesday for a lazy slacker, altered the course of my entire life.
I'll never forget it.
Coincidentally, a piece that I read back then, and have read over and over again since, is what inspired me to write. I'll leave you with it.
