Anyway, while I was on the site, I noticed a female had posted a comment referencing the tragedy of Sept. 11. I won’t quote word for word what was said, however it was along the lines of: some plane crashed into two buildings, people died, America went into war, we found the guy, we win that shit.
Her tactic in talking about 9/11 was to summarize exactly what happened. Most students were outraged, rightfully so, while some agreed with the sentiment. On all sorts of social medias, I found young adults had a sort of “what’s the big deal” attitude.
Minimizing what happened on that day is a complete injustice to the nearly three-thousand who died innocently. It minimized the pain their families feel, the suffering the soldiers have endured during the war and the impact it had on the entire world.
That comment that female left made me feel a lot of things, mostly discouraged though.
As Americans, we live in a country that allows us to speak freely whatever we want without persecution. Our Founding Fathers fought hard and many died so we can live in a free country. That female saying what she wanted was completely allowed; the only real consequence she will suffer is the disapproval of her peers. But like many Americans, I think we take this right of ours forgranted, speaking freely about whatever we want and damn those who are affected by it. We don’t really realize that we’re so incredibly lucky to live in this country.
If the 10-year anniversary of 9/11 has taught me anything, it’s that we take our rights as Americans forgranted. We are ignorant to what is really going on. For that young lady to think she can simplify what happened that day in a few sentences proves the fact that we’re not remaining informed enough.
What flight crashed into what tower first? At what time? Why did they? Who did we catch? Why did we catch him? Did we really win a war even though there are still soldiers being deployed to the middle east? Why are we in the Middle East? How do we “win” a war anyway, by agreeing whoever kills more people?
I’d be surprised if the majority of the people around me could answer these questions. Some of the questions, you really can’t answer. Let’s not pretend to know.
I’ve never really classified myself as a die-hard patriotic person, in fact I tend to be the kind of person to always be a little skeptical of the U.S. intentions. But I will not, and I will never, minimize the suffering of others when I only know a fraction of the terrorists motivations and what really happened.
Most of the people talking too loosely and coldly about 9/11 have no leg to stand on other than the fact it annoys them to have to constantly hear about it. How lucky they are to only be annoyed by tragedy and not be a causality of it, or their family be victims.
At work, an employee of mine told me during 9/11 he was annoyed because every television station was covering the twin towers. He wasn’t in grade school like many of us, he was 22-years-old.
I think as Americans we need to remember 9/11 every year. We need to remember those who lost their lives. We need to question our role in it, as well. Until we really are honest with ourselves we can’t begin to change anything. It’s not beneficial to view our role through rose-colored lenses.
I don’t believe a group of people would really rally together, hijack a plane and kill thousands of people (including themselves) if they really and truly didn’t believe their actions were justified.
I will always remember 9/11. But before jumping to anger in recalling the events, I’m going to set my judgments aside and just try to remember that day is an incredibly hard day for many people, and a day that should never be forgotten.