9/12/01
Sayward Russell
When I found out yesterday that the World Trade Center had been destroyed, I was
shocked. I had come from jazz class where everyone's cell phones were going off
like crazy. I had been in class since 8 so I had no idea what was going on.
Finally, I walked into ballet class at 11:00 and saw two of my friends in tears.
They explained to me what was going on. Earlier in the morning, a plane had
crashed into one of the twin towers in NY. Everyone thought it was an accident.
But as my friends and the rest of the world watched the news, another plane flew
in and crashed into the second twin tower. Thirty minutes later the building
collapsed. While people were trying to rescue others from the first building to
collapse, the first one did. Also, another plane crashed into the Pentagon in a
similar manner. The planes obviously had been hijacked by terrorists. The fourth
plane went down in Pittsburg[Pittsburgh]. Some think the pilot decided to take it down before crashing into
something else. My first reaction was disbelief.
It hadn't hit me what exactly was going on. My friend Katie had gotten into a huge argument with her family the night before. And she said all she could think was how their conversation ended and how trivial it was. The attack really brought things into perspective. All those people who were at work, doing their everyday things, most of them for our country, lost their lives and we don't even know why. all those people who died or escaped (and have no place of work anymore) and the families of those dead and missing are truly in my prayers. People are still alive and trapped inside the buildings. I have lots of friends in the NY area and though I knew they were not near the buildings themselves, I was terrified for them. One of my friends saw the second plane hit from his apartment window. What human could resort to these cruel things? And how can any real person cheer for it as the Palestinians did.
