Remembering September 11th

Seven years ago today, the world changed. No one that is old enough to remember will ever forget that day, or where they were or what they were doing.

Being three hours behind the East Coast, it was 6:30 a.m. when our alarm went off and we heard something about a "plane hitting the World Trade Centre". I thought it was a "puddle jumper" that had gone astray and immediately rolled over and went back to sleep for another hour. The alarm went off again, and this time we sat up and took notice: there had been a second plane and one had also hit the Pentagon. We flipped on the tv to see the second Tower Fall. I remember Peter Mansbridge saying, "That was 15 minutes ago." You could hear the shock and disbelief in his voice.

All of a sudden the world was a less safe place. As DH said, "Car bombs are passe." Like most Westerners, I had never heard of Al Queda or Osama Bin Laden before that day. It didn't matter that it wasn't my country that was attacked, or that I didn't know anyone that was personally affected. Somehow, you felt that it was personal and that you were violated.

I can't imagine the hate that would cause someone to do such an act; it's unfathomable. I had heard that terorists were actually "sensitive" people, but didn't understand how that could be. It wasn't until I saw the movie "Munich" that I understood a little bit about it. If you haven't seen it, it's excellent. The clincher is the final scene were Eric Bana's character, who had been doling out retribution on behalf of the Israeli athletes that were slaughtered at the 1972 Olympics, is fed up of the violence, and says to Geoffrey Rush's characher, "When does it end? When does it end?" Bana's character had been involved in bombings and killings, all in the name of vengeance. Yet, he was a good husband and adored his baby daughter. The scene is set in 1970's New York; the camera pulls back to show the World Trade Centre. The obvious answer is: it doesn't end.