Waking up in the morning to find a single parent trembling in front of a television screen a television screen, an eleven year old boy asks his mother what’s wrong, only to look at the screen to see scenes of a tower exploding and people leaping from the tops of a building in a desperate attempt to escape the flames that would soon cover the greatest city in the world in smoke and flame. Fear sets in shortly as the child remembers that his uncle lives in works somewhere in that same city. It’s a Tuesday and he has to be at school in an hour. His seventh grade teachers do the best to maintain the routine but the strain is palpable. The lunchroom was quiet that day no jubilant screams are heard echoing down the halls. Even though most are only 13 years old they talk quietly, trying to understand what happened that morning, afraid for their relatives that lived in the city.
That day: Tuesday, the eleventh of September, 2001 was the definitive moment of my generation...
Every person in my school had a relative, or had a friend with one, in New York on that day. Living in Oregon, most of us had never been there, it was simply a mythical place, where everything was big and colorful; an emerald city almost 3000 miles away. At that age to me New York was more the center of the country in my mind than Washington DC. As we struggled to understand what had gone on, our parents watched the news, and we heard the television talking about Islamic terrorism, two things that became inextricably linked in our minds. Not unsimilar to the manner in which we repurposed the theme to Barney to tease our friends, there were soon verses, using cute rhyming couplets, describing how we would murder the Taliban, and slaughter Osama Bin Laden.
As the nation franticly struggled to regain its footing, and come to terms with the disaster that had befallen us, our worst nature was displayed. The propaganda of fear that would ultimately lead to the Iraq war and the death of thousands more Americans was already beginning. My classmates and I became familiar with the newly formed Homeland Security Department’s color code of danger. Rumors of attacks on various bridges, and Building swept the nation from Portland, and San Francisco to Houston and New England. The press began forcing new phrases like Islamic Extremism/Fundamentalism, and Islamo-fascism into our national lexicon. Without the knowledge to understand what these terms really meant, we latched onto that part which we did understand. Indeed my middle school exposed me to the term towel head long before I ever heard that word in mainstream culture. As the war began and ramped up and we started High School, our world became increasingly political and dichotomist. We began to see brutal explosions on TV. Knowing that those explosions could be killing our friend’s parents, or our teacher’s brother made them all the more terrifying. As we began to learn more about the world and American History, everything began to be viewed through the lens of Terrorism. We studied biology as anthrax terrified the nation, chemistry as the news was spouting about the dangers of dirty bombs, all the while watching as our parents tried to hide their financial troubles from us.
These problems continued to escalate, I watched as my friend’s lives were ripped apart, some by the growing trend of divorce that took hold in the ninties, others who had lost someone in the war, or simply gone bankrupt. My parents lost both their jobs, and I watched over the top of my math homework for the next year, as they desperately looked for a job that would higher a forty something, without a college degree. I discovered how critical it would be for me to get one for myself, just as my friends and I were coming to realize the staggering cost that it would entail.
I made it. Many of my friends didn’t though; due to cost, time, or helping pay the family bills. I finally understand what islamo-fascism is and the resentments towards the president that I inherited from my family has gained a personal foundation. More than that though, I finally have the necessary perspective to look back on my life and try to understand what has happened. I’m nineteen-years-old, and I have watched since I was 12, my parents, and grandparents, generation squander my future. If you have an earnest discussion with most college students today I think you’ll find much the same sentiment. From our eyes, it seems like the adults that we’ve been told to respect and look up to our entire lives have no common sense, and a great deal of hypocrisy. They’ve polluted our environment, while meanwhile preaching the importance water conservation to us since the first grade. They’ve cut our afterschool, and in-school, programs, and then chastised us as we turn to video games, and other activities to pass the time. They bemoan the skyrocketing rates of obesity among children while our school cafeterias charge $5 for three ounces of salad, but only $2 for three slices of pizza. They take 20% out of every paycheck that I got to help pay for my families car, but didn’t give me a vote to say how to use it. They send our friends to the other side of the world, telling us we’ll see them in 6 months then 12 then 20, until one day we learn that we’ll never see them again
This government, aided and abetted by our role models have, for my entire life, made huge decisions that will radically affect the future far beyond their own lifetimes with little to no regard for the consequences or the implication on our future.
This is the reason why there has been a resurgence of ‘the youth vote’ this election. The 9/11 generation has sat by long enough, this year all those of us who were old enough to remember the events surrounding that fateful day at last have power over our own future. We dream of a world very different form the world that we grew up in, one where our parents aren’t constantly in fear of losing their job, and their home, where we aren’t forced to say a last goodbye to our friends. Where our grandparents aren’t forced to sell their home to cover the cost of treatment for their disease. Where we aren’t forced to live in fear of a collapsing economy, a terrorist attack, and irreparable damage tour planet.
The children of September 11 have seen an opportunity to make our dreams a reality. Our lives, and our futures are at stake and we are placing our bets on this new direction for our country. I pray that it pays off.