10th Anniversary of 9/11

Cutter's Log - Stardate 1102.11.90

Why do we seem to place a connection between us and national tragedy?

When hearing the question of “Where were you when Jack Kennedy was shot?” asked to those older than me, I wondered why their location had anything to do with what went on in Dallas.

However, over time those that learned about it knew why it was worth asking – it was one of the first tragic national events to unfold over national television. President Kennedy had not yet died when the news broke, and people had one ear on the news and the other elsewhere.

My grandparents, fresh out of high school together, were transitioning into the next phase in their lives in November 1963. I was just getting used to high school life as a freshman in September 2001, and considered it a key transition in my life at that time.

You had to have understood what had just happened in order to realize how much these tragic events change what you see around you.

Where were you when Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot? Where were you when the Challenger exploded? Where were you when the Oklahoma City Bombing took place?

The earliest one I can truthfully answer is the question of where I was on September 11, 2001. Challenger took place two months before I was born, and I never really understood what had happened when the Murrah Building was blown up.

Like most Americans, I remember where I was when I heard the news of the attacks on 9/11/01.

Technically, Flight 11 hit the North Tower while I was getting books out of my locker on the first floor of Sterling High School. The time was 7:46, and I was never in a great hurry to get to my first-hour class. This class was considered a divided Humanities block, where first hour was the english and literature part of it, and the second hour was the world history part of it. I was never into literature, and dreaded going to the class.

The school day started at 8:00 with the morning announcements. No mention of the attacks were said. (At that time, CNN had broken in but the events that unfolded were considered nothing more than a plane hitting the World Trade Center. We didn't know that it was a planned attack until an hour later.) Throughout this literature class, no mention was made on a plane hitting the tower. This was an age before text messaging became popular on cell phones, and before Blackberrys. We were immensed in analysis on Homer's Odyssey the entire time.

So when 8:03 came and Flight 175 hit the South Tower, we were handing in Monday's homework or something like that. Furthermore, when Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon, there was still more Odyssey talk.

First hour ended at 8:50, and there was an unusually loud pre-passing period hallway in the minutes before class. Our teacher at the time didn't like the fact that we would prepare to leave the classroom at 8:48 and hear zippers zip up and down and books being put away.

We were just leaving the classroom when the group of students coming in talked about how a plane had hit the World Trade Center. How they knew about it, I didn't know at the time.

The way this Humanities block works out is that one group starts with the world history class (at the other end of the school) and another starts with the literature part (my part). We switch rooms and teachers with the passing period, so almost everyone that was in the World History part of class was at the doorway when I left the literature class.

When we moved to our World History part of the block, Mr. Walton already had the radio on ABC News. This class wasn't all that time-consuming, meaning there was some free time during pockets of class. When that happened, Mr. Walton was on his computer or calling other teachers. That's how he knew of all of this before my literature teacher did.

During the first part of the history class, we were informed as to just how serious this really was. That it just isn't coinsidence that two planes hit both WTC buildings, and another hits the Pentagon.

There I was, three seats from the first row in Room 225. Appx. 8:55 a.m. Because of my mental condition (Asperger's Syndrome), I could not feel the impact of 9/11 that everyone else around me feels. I still cannot feel that impact of 9/11. Apparently it's an impact. People ask me why I can't feel it and simply come to the immediate conclusion that I don't have a soul; the “I felt it, therefore” theory.

ABC News was the first to report that the South Tower had collapsed (at 8:59) and we were listening ot it, and that was just before I had clawed back into reality after trying to figure out what had just happened.

The only phrase I can truly recall from Peter Jennings was the following, “The Southern Tower, 10:00 Eastern Time this morning, just collapsing on itself.”

Mr. Walton had the radio play all class, and thus the normal curriculum was put on hold. The same thing for Mr. Brown's health class the next period. During that class, an announcement was made that our Auditorium would be open for showing of news coverage until a certain time.

I didn't have any stunned looks on my face. My first reaction to hearing that the attacks were of a terrorist nature was a simple "whoa." I didn't cry, wave a flag, or anything like that. My thought process was: now the US is going to find the guys responsible, and have something similar to the Nuremberg Trials. A war may happen, too.

When I made my way to the auditorium, I noticed others were also going down. I wasn't doing well in health class, or next period's Spanish class also. The news reports kind of made it sound like the prelude to the Spanish-American War. Okay, we're going to have another Spanish-American War, but with the country that did this.

To those who have read all of this so far, it may seem as if I have no soul. I'm simply recalling my thoughts of the day. The reason I didn't get sad or anything was because it didn't effect Cody Cutter personally. So after sitting through all of the reactions, I began to wonder for a minute why my reactions were not the same as those persons on television. Why is everyone else reacting like this, and I'm not?

I think my reactions were missing because I didn't want to feel weak at the moment. I wanted to keep my head up and move on to justice. Sure, I acknowledged the horrors and the losses, but I didn't want that to change my life. I didn't want any outside force to change my life.

When we saw the video glimpse of a man with a turban and long beard (at the news reports in the Auditorium), "Is that the guy that did it?" was heard. No, I'm not going to let that guy throw me off-balance.

While everyone else was thrown off-balance with the news, I clung on to my axis and didn't move. You can pain me, but I'm not going to sit there and cry about it. I prefer fighting back. The Asperger's in me calls it a simple process of “do” and “do this” and life continues on. Business as usual. At times I even had this “why is everyone trying to cram this thing down by throat” feeling.

I wanted to remain strong, and still be able to think "oh my goodness" a little bit. With the news of Osama Bin Laden's death, and seeing the throngs of crowds everywhere, I began to think back at my inital reaction to 9/11. I didn't feel a thing then, and I didn't feel a thing that Sunday night.

But as the recent news events went on, it made me wonder about who I was and why I am who I am. Even as this 10th Anniversary goes on, I get that feeling still.

Since I didn't have an inital reaction to 9/11, my mindset since that Tuesday morning remains a pre-9/11 mindset. My current mindset is still pre-9/11. I was wondering why all these people were acting the way they were. I began to become more curious about why people think and act the way they do. At first I thought this was a growing-up process, but the more I think about it perhaps 9/11 made me think more psychologically about people. Are they trying to push me around?

Because I had no initial reaction to 9/11, people looked at me real differently (moreso than usual). Here I am, looking from the outside into the post-9/11 mindset that is around all of you. People are valuing things more than they did before. I just haven't found a way to do that yet.

A crime? With this mental condition of mine, am I guilty?