Looking Back: 9/11 Across America

Selected Examples of the Reactions We've Received

This tragic event still brings tears to my eyes when I see news flashes from a year back. Today it still seems more like a bad dream, then an event which really (could've) happened. The trouble is, that bad dream doesn't go away. Sept. 11th is the day the world changed. Forever.

Bru Schmidt, New Jersey, age 42
9/9/2002

I remember watching the tragic events unfold right on my TV screen, in real time. I was stunned. I remember it as clear as the day I remember (John F.) Kennedy's assassination. There are some moments in time that will never fade.

Over and over I kept trying to imagine what it was like for those people who were going about their daily business when all of a sudden, disaster struck. The sadness was more than I could imagine. These people would not be going home to see their kids' smiling faces anymore. These people would not hear their partners laugh at their jokes anymore. All the little things you take for granted, just being alive, was over for them. Their time on earth was over. The human experience can be such a wonderful thing and a tragedy as well. The horrendous acts of violence that others in the world have experienced have now touched us in the U.S. in a very real way. The false security we have enjoyed for so many years has been revealed to us to be just that.

Love and protect your small circle of friends and family and hopefully if we all do this the world will be a much better place.

Michael Heralda, Los Angeles, CA, USA, age 51
9/10/02

I can't imagine what it must have felt like to have been there in the Twin Towers - it must have been like being trapped in a burning church in Rwanda, or having your home shelled in Palestine or your market bombed in Jerusalem or your village destroyed in Afghanistan or your home firebombed in Belfast or... 9/11 - the day that America discovered terrorism.

Tomas, Tucson, age 50+
9/11/2002

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