I do not remember anything about 9/11, honestly, because I was just entering kindergarten. I don’t remember knowing anything had happened until second or third grade. Maybe my memory is failing me, maybe I was just too young to understand, and maybe it didn’t affect me since I did not have family in New York, or maybe I was never told in case it would frighten me. 9/11 did not affect my life at all when I was five it wasn’t until I was fourteen till it did.
I did not know much about Osama Bin Laden, except he was a bad mad with a funny beard, until after his death.
Now I do understand though. I am old enough to understand what it is like to lose a parent, what is like to have your community hurting, what it is like to be scared and hiding under a desk. 9/11 changed my life because it proves how cruel humans can be. I still don’t understand why the towers were hit, I don’t understand what they gained from it, and I don’t understand why we are still at war. What I do understand is that the murders happen every day within our own country.
America truly hated Bin Laden till he died, yet we live amongst our own murders. I would think that after a while people would realize that hurting gets us nowhere. What did Cho gain from the massacre at Virginia tech?
I am not asking for everyone to love each other, because we have a long way to go before that request can be made but would it be too much to ask for everyone to not kill someone today? That would be too much to ask wouldn’t it? Oh, but of course the response would be only if so and so stopped first. What about this instead? What if we all stepped up and took responsibility for our actions? Oh, no, I couldn’t ask that because bad actions lead to consequences.
What about this then on 9/11, only one day a year, we do one good thing for one person? What if we could make something good come from this tragedy? We can bring the world together on one day every year. If everyone did one act of kindness billions of people would look at the world a little differently even if only for just a second. Maybe someday, every day, every second, can be filled with acts of kindness and love. But for now we can start small, and in that way the 9/11 victims have not died in vain, instead they help start a revolution. Bin Laden expected us to be angry and by staying hateful we allow him to win, but by the simplest, sweet acts the 9/11 children will not be forgotten. The time is now, the person is you, the day is 9/11, the act is small, and the impact is great.
What's the sense of sending $2 million missiles to hit a $10 tent that's empty?
--George W. Bush