Day of Burning: 9/11 Ten Years On

In 2001, when the Manhattan's twin towers came down in the wake of a terrorist attack, I was eight years old. I have two vivid memories of this time. The first is sitting in my lounge room, my breakfast in my lap, turning on the TV to watch some cartoons before school. Instead, all I see are two, very tall, buildings. One is still standing, intact, but in the other there is a massive hole with smoke pouring from it. Distressed, I turned off the TV and went to find my parents. My next memory is of sitting with my friends on the floor of my primary school classroom, listening to my teacher tell us that something bad had happened in America and a lot of adults would be worried. One of the boys asked what had happened and my teacher said 'two planes flew into a building'. My thoughts: It must have been an accident.

Ten years on, I still struggle to understand how anyone, regardless of their religion, race, or political beliefs, could kill over three-thousand innocent people in one fell swoop. The footage of this terrible event  is shocking, and disturbingly graphic. The towers belch smoke, a massive fireball where the plane has struck the building explodes out of the images, those videos of the attacks are accompanied by the soundtrack of people screaming and general panic. As an eight year old, I couldn't understand it, so I put it to the back of my mind. As I grew older, the events of September 11 itched like an allergy and I would re-examine them from time to time. Like everyone else I asked the question: Why? Why would anyone do something like this? I think we will continue to ask this question as long as their is terrorism in our world. Now, as an eighteen year old with more of an understanding as to what the world is really like, I can no longer put the events of that day to the back of my mind. These events have been the catalyst to, what I believe, has become World War Three. But, this time, our enemy is not a nation (although the United States and its allies, Australia included, continue to cause unheard of damage and loss of life in their fruitless campaigns in the Middle East), but an idea: terror. Unfortunately, even with the death as al-Queda leader Osama bin-Laden, I do not believe we are any closer to wiping out terror than we were ten years ago.

The events that unfolded on September 11 2001 were to this century what the outbreak of World War One was last century, a baptism by fire, and a catalyst to spreading fear, hate, and intolerance. But we must never forget September 11, if only to remember that over three thousand innocent people lost their lives.

American Airlines Flight 11 struck the North Tower at 8:46am; 92 lives lost.
American Airlines Flight 175 stuck the South Tower at 9:03am; 65 lives lost.
American Airlines Flight 77 stuck the Pentagon at 9:38am; 64 lives lost.
American Airlines Flight 93 crashed into a field in Pennsylvania at 10:06am after passengers and crew overwhelmed the hijackers; 45 lives lost.
The Towers collapsed at 9:59am (South Tower) and 10:20am (North Tower); 2734+ lives lost.

Note: the above figures to do not include the hijackers aboard the planes, they are the innocent lives only.

~ Australian Kiwi