Always remember, never forget

In 9 days, America will reflect on the 10th anniversary of the most horrific terrorist attacks in United States history. The day Osama Bin Ladin's minions carried out a series of four "suicide attacks" that left nearly 3,000 people dead and a nation heart broken. 

I will never forget the morning of September 11, 2001. I was sitting in my journalism 101 class with Professor Denny Wilkins at St. Bonaventure University when Dean Coppola came to our classroom and told us all to immediately return to our dorm rooms and turn on the television. I arrived back at Shay/Loughlin just in time to see the second plane crash into the South Tower of the World Trade Center. At first I didn't know what had just unraveled on live television. As I started to process, I realized that our nation was under attack. That some sick people had flown not one, but two planes into one of New York City's most recognizable structures. As I sat glued to the television, I watched the first tower and then the second tower plummet to the ground. I watched in horror as people stranded on the top floors of the WTC buildings jumped to their deaths to escape the fury that was unfolding around them. We then listened to newscasters tell the nation that another plan had been flown into the Pentagon, and it was unclear, but it was a good possibility, that a fourth plane went down in Pennsylvania before hitting its intended target - the Capitol Building in Washington D.C.

No one was safe. Rumors spread through the dorm like wild fire that all airports were subject to terrorist attacks. I tried frantically to reach my family at home, but because everyone else in the nation was also calling their loved ones to find out if they were ok, it was hard to get through. When I finally reached my mother I sobbed into the phone. For days, weeks and months after 9/11 we mourned those who were lost in the Towers, at the Pentagon and the heroic efforts of the passengers on United Flight 93. We attended vigils in memory of those who died and those whose bodies were never recovered. We discussed the media coverage and ethics issues that were associated with the images of people falling from the sky. It's a day and a year I will never forget.

Last night, I watched a special on Ground Zero and what New York City was like on Sept. 11, 2001. I can't imagine being in the frenzy that unfolded that day.  I can't imagine being a wife of one of the ill-fated passengers on any of the flights that were hijacked that day. I can't imagine being one of the New York City residents who had a loved one lost forever in the wreckage of the downed Twin Towers. I can't imagine having a loved one in The Pentagon that day and I can't imagine being one of the survivors that lived through the most horrific attack on U.S. soil.

I can't imagine how I would feel, because although I wasn't directly affected or I didn't directly lose anyone that I loved during the attacks, I am still angry that my country was attacked. And I know that I'll always remember and I'll never forget how I felt on 9/11.