(I’m only 14, so shut up!)
Patriotism
Why did they name 9/11 Patriot Day? Patriot may not seem like a relevant word, if you think about who patriots were. They rebelled against their own country, but through their bravery, this great new country was born. The word, however, has undoubtedly gotten some different meaning. Now we use ‘patriotic’ when someone has much pride for this country. And personally, I think many lack it. Of course, it’s a bit hard to be patriotic when there’s those facts that China will overtake us economically in a few years, or the fact that other countries are developing technology faster than us.
And of course, the country is divided into political parties, and argue and argue and argue. It gets us no where.
But a fact of society is that when bad times come, people have to set aside their disagreements, their differences. They must stop criticizing the people that are trying to do anything they can to fix the problems. It happened 8 years ago, as the country was shocked by one of the worst terrorist attacks in history. But the leaders of the country at the time chose to take action. And through time, we officially survived the attacks. We are lucky that the economy wasn’t destroyed or anything.
So they name the holiday Patriot Day years later. What do we do on it? Somehow, it seems to be becoming less important year by year.
Yet, on Patriot Day, when we choose to remember the holiday, will bring us together. No one insults Obama for remembering 9/11. That has nothing to do with actual politics.
So yes, the name is a good name. If the holiday is remembered, we ought to forget about normal politics, and remember the event that was so important to us 8 years ago.
Where were you?
I remember where I was when I heard the news. I remember the following days. I remember my thoughts. And I was only in first grade. So why does an event like this stick with you, even if you’re no where near the attack, you don’t know anyone who died, and you didn’t even see it?! I bet anything that your relatives remember where they were when they heard of Pearl Harbor, if they happen to be old enough to have lived back then.
Of course, what does this sound like to a first grader? I mean, the teacher’s solemnly telling you that planes crashed into some sort of twin towers. Well, you know, I’m pretty sure that I didn’t know of great evil. I didn’t know that people would ever think it necessary to hurt so many people. What more violence did I know than what was on cartoons? Some people think first graders can’t even lie (but they can, I swear)–they’re not going to know anything about malice! So of course I just thought that whole thing was an accident. I remember how I was walking around while thinking. I don’t know why I have such good memory of thinking that it was in accident.
So then at some point, they’re playing “God Bless the USA” over the intercom, and for some reason, a friend just thinks it’s funny and is laughing, so he gets scolded for that. Or maybe that was the next year…I forget. It was definitely 9/11, though. But back to 2001, I also remember some assembly where they had a giant check. Probably only had a hundred dollars on it. But that was what was being donated, I guess. I remember that I wanted to donate money too. But I had none. And again, I don’t know exactly when that was, but at some point I was selling lemonade and promising to donate it. Not much of a success.
Anyway, any memory of 9/11 stuff just won’t leave my head. And I didn’t even know what it looked like until about 5 years later. The images of smoke fascinated me. What was most horrifying was the people on the streets who were running away.
Now we’re talking about an event that raised our security levels bigtime and sent the troops off to Afghanistan and countries of that sort to go fight terrorism. Some of you may not know what impact this terrible event had. And some of you may not even know how it happened. Most of you do, luckily, but I find it disturbing how my younger siblings know almost nothing of this attack. The terrorists did it by hijacking planes and then crashing them into their targets. The people in the plane were killed. And many of the people in the buildings were killed. Just to be clear, thousands died. And it wasn’t just the twin towers in NYC that got hit. The pentagon was attacked, too. But those on the 4th hijacked plane took heroic actions, and the plane crashed into a field somewhere.
Decreasing Importance?
So why the heck did I almost forget about this day? Usually, I know when the eleventh is coming. But I didn’t remember what day it was until the day came. The victims got their moment of silence, but nothing more.
But I honestly think it’s because there’s been much more on my mind ever since High School started. Madness.
9/11 was yesterday. Yes. I know.
But a Patriot Day post is a tradition here. Those people who lost their lives all deserve certain respect.
So, bye.
-Tomtwelve
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