Remembering 9/11

What happened on September 11, 2oo1 will forever be in the minds of Americans. This was a horrible tragedy that changed lives forever, especially those who had family that were killed in the New York attack. Every year there is a remembrance at the sight were thousands lost their lives on 9/11. Many Americans will never be the same after this terrible event.

On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, between 8:46 a.m. and 10:28 a.m. in New York City, New York 2 airplanes were hijacked and flown into the World Trade Centers causing an extreme amount of damage and killing thousands. The planes were hijacked by 19 Al-Qaeda terrorists. The terrorists were on a suicide mission. During this same time there was another plane that was crashed into the Pentagon in Virginia and soon later that was a plane that crashed near Shanksville, Penn. that was in the attempt of being taken over by the passengers when it crashed. This plane was in route to Washington D.C. to the White House. These four planes were from two airlines and the were American and United. No passengers were saved in the plane crashes.

In 2001, when the attacks were happening, I was in the 5th grade and I was attending Hagen Elementary School here in Sterling. I remembering being outside before school was starting talking with my math teacher Mrs. Hanson and she was explaining to a group of us what was going on and at the time neither one of us knew what she was talking about. I first understood what was going on when I turned on the TV when I got home from school that day. At the time I was scared thinking that there might have been a plane heading to Colorado to hit one of the skyscrappers but I wasn't to sure what to think, I honestly was just feeling bad for the people in New York. After things cooled down more that afternoon, I realized how bad it was and that there was 2,993, nearly 3000 people that were killed in the attack.

Some of those that were involved in the attack were Cantor Fitzgerald who was a investment banker on the 101-105th floors. Cantor was able to make it out but 658 of his employees were not able to make it out. Another American that was involved in the attack was Bob Jenkins, Bob was on the 39th floor of the second building when the first one was hit. He was able to get out before the second tower was hit. A fire fighter by the name of the Bill Butler was named a hero when he saved a elderly woman by the name of Josephine Harris who had walked down nearly 50 stories to escape the crash. Butler came upon her on the 28th floor where she was exhausted and didn't think she could go on. Mr. Butler was the strongest of the men in the building and was able to help her out of the falling building before it was too late. Another hero was David M. Weiss who worked for the NYC Midtown Rescue 1 company lost his life inside the building while trying to save others. The last hero I will mention was a police officer by the name of Cesar A. Borja who went in to save people with no protective gear and ended up dying from causes of not wearing a mask with all the particles floating around.

The 9/11 attack is something that I will never forget because it was an event that happened that I was old enough to remember when it happened and what all went on. I feel real bad for the ones who lost their lives and left their families behind. It could have easily been one of us if anything like that would have happened around here. I just hope that most of them will go on with life but I know that they will never forget what happened that Tuesday morning in 2001 that left them one or even two family members short.

http://www.globalethics.org/newsline/2007/02/20/debunking-911-heros-story-a-story-of-escalating-spin-arises/

http://www.firehouse.com/terrorist/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks