My memories of September 11 2001

All day today there has been broadcasts about nine-eleven because of the 10 years-anniversary. Images from the attacks, from the memorial sights, interviews with witnesses, then-politicians, and so much more. One of the most interesting things was to see clips from the initial news reports, and the chaos that occurred during the first hours

Therefore I thought that I should write down my experience from that day ten years ago. I have never done that before, so maybe that would be a good things to do.

Swedish time this happened on a Tuesday at 2pm. I was in my freshman year in high school, had just started a few weeks earlier. I had math when it happened. But then I didn’t knew anything. I went home along with some friends to go to the bus, still didn’t know that anything had happened.

Once I was home, I was met in the hall way by mom, who came rushing from the living room, looking horrified and said “have you heard what happened?”

By how she said it, and that she thought I heard anything, I assumed something big had happened, probably some big news. My first thought was that a famous person had died, and my first ideas were either the Swedish King, or author Astrid Lindgren.

“Airplanes have crashed into Trade Center.”

“No, it hasn’t” was my response. In Halmstad there is a skyscraper called Trade Center, which is right next to my high school Sturegymnasiet. I was there just half an hour ago. There was no plane crash.

“In America. Terrorists have crashed airplanes, the World Trade Center has collapsed and the Pentagon is on fire.”

I went in to the TV room and sat there for hours just silently watching.

In the evening I had judo practice with Magnus, and on the way in there we listened to the radio about the development in the US. There were many rumors going on then. That panes were heading for Chicago and Los Angeles too. I also remember that they thought a plane had hit the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

In school the next day there were no normal classes. We just sat and watched the news broadcast and discussed the events. The teacher asked us what we thought was gonna happen now. “World War III” was the common answer.

Thankfully that was wrong. Or was it? Ten years of wars followed in many countries with hundreds of thousands of deaths.

At the time I supported the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. But that was then.

September 11 affected the whole world, and of course me too. In one way, this led me to be involved in politics. Discussing the issue and America, I was “found” by youth-politician Gabriel Zsiga who got me into the liberal conservative Moderate Party, in which I have been a member since.

My love for America has always been great, and after going there for the first time in 2006 I knew immediately I was gonna come back. That happened many times, and after recently living there for two years I know that is the place where I will live in the future.

At the trip 2006 I visited Ground Zero for the first time (I’ve done it two times more since). It was so touching to be there. It will be really interesting to come back there again and see how it is now with the nice memorials and the new skyscraper. It will be nice to see the pools that represent the towers that no longer exists, and the names on the edges that represents the names of the people that no longer exists.

So today we honor the victims of that horrible day ten years ago.

September 11, 2001 – may we never forget.