Never forget
Writing an editorial about the Sept. 11 anniversary is really hard — not because the words aren't there, but because those words have been used so many times.
Everybody's talked about that horrible day. Everybody has recalled what they were doing when they saw the second plane careen into the second tower. Everyone's shared their fear and shock.
It seems like everyone has waxed poetic about that day. And yesterday, they got the chance to wax poetic one more time, with the wall-to-wall TV coverage of the anniversary.
Fortunately, I saw none of it. Right now I'm smack-dab in the middle of nowhere, watching the sun rise over the arches and canyons of southern Utah, rather than gluing my eyes to the tube.
(Translation: I'm on vacation!)
But even though the high-minded have told us for weeks that the Sept. 11, 2002, media coverage was bound to be overdone, it still served a purpose: to remind us.
What would have been worse than spending all day listening to Dan Rather's monotone? Ignoring the day completely.
We must never forget what happened.
We Americans see so much violence. We tolerate it in our TV shows, movies, and video games. And to a degree, we get used to it.
But we should never, ever get used to the fact that a year and a day ago, more than 3,000 people were hideously killed by terrorists. People that were mothers, fathers, daughters, and friends.
And all of them died in truly horrific ways. In a speeding plane diving into a building. Being crushed beneath floors and floors of a building, so that no trace of a human body was found.
This Sept. 11, even though I wasn't watching the TV coverage or may not have even picked up a newspaper, I remembered. I stopped and remembered that day.
— JENNIFER WILSON
