Flashback Friday: Remembering 9/11
Posted on September 9th, 2011Although this blog is fairly new, my writing career isn’t. I’ve been a newspaper columnist for a bit over ten years now. And on September 11, 2001, I was an inexperienced columnist of 2 months, trying to make sense of what had just happened to our country. This is my original column, which was printed on September 14, 2001. It’s not my usual writing style, but it certainly reflects how I felt at the time.
Today
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September 9th, 2011 at 4:23 pm
Beautifully written. It is still true today. We ask ourselves, are we really Americans? Do we always fly our flags? I wear many of the ribbons you mentioned. I still wear them . I fly my fla all year. I always have. It it time for remembrance, healing and hope. I worry about what the schools are teaching about 9/11. While I understand that we are a diverse nation, I know the schools are skimming the top, and leave out a lot of background . They are worried about offending students and often do not mention 9/11. Anyway, thank you for writing this, and posting .
September 9th, 2011 at 11:46 pm
Hi Gina, Thank you so much. The weirdest thing of all…Junior is now a sophomore and it really is taught in his history class. He doesn’t remember much of it at all, except that he always called it “the bad thing.”
September 10th, 2011 at 3:57 am
I was a sophmore in high school and I remember I was in the World History class and our principal came on the intercom system and told all the teachers to turn the tvs on and for the rest of the day we just sat in class and watched the news and just kept seeing the repeated broadcast of the buildings getting hit and then falling. My parents signed me out of school early for the first time ever that day. It was pretty terrifying.
September 10th, 2011 at 5:42 pm
I am very pleased to hear about his history class! I spoke to numerous teachers of varying grade levels, and they are going to have ” subject branch discussions”. This enables them to discuss events / subjects at age appropriate levels, even digressing from the standard answers. So hopefully this will not be taught like Vietnam and Korea, and take years to have it taught correctly and historically true. As a soldier,wife of soldier, and descendant of a long military line, it is hard to see our youth mislead in history classes. I have had the pleasure of speaking to a lot of classrooms and groups of children and teens about 9/11 and Iragi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. Luckily the teachers and group leaders were fellow service members. There was not a lot of disapproval f the staff or parents about any lessons I taught.
September 11th, 2011 at 2:54 pm
@Neha, it was a terrifying day, that’s an excellent way to put it. I just remember watching CNN over and over and thinking, “this is so not happening.” It was an awful, awful, terrifying day.
@Gina, Good for you for speaking to classes. I think it’s important that our children realize that history is created by someone, that is, someone lived through it and fought through it. By having you there to speak about it, it makes it more real to them.