As we approach 9/11 the ten year anniversary of a terrorist event that shook the hearts and minds of every normal peace loving and law abiding citizen. I wanted to reflect on that day just for a minute or two!
Why, because it was such a catastrophic event in our life’s that pretty much everyone I know remembers where they were and what they were doing.
In our time none of us have experienced such an attack in peacetime not on such an unprecedented scale.
Having studied the world wars at School and University as a historian I am well aware of the scale of conflicts and the human suffering that have been inflicted but I am remote from it, I haven’t lived or experienced a war first hand, I hope I’ll never have too!
Both my parents were evacuees, Dad ran away on evacuation day and chose to remain with his parents in Kent, Mum, being italian was sent to a convent in Pula (now Croatia) in the mountains so they have many interesting stories of their wartime experiences.
The only experience I have had of wars are what we have broadcasted into our rooms pretty much on a daily basis.
After all which continent doesn’t have some kind of conflict! We have become anaesthetised to some degree to the level of depravity human nature stoops.
So when 9/11 happened it was a wake up call to the world.
I recall the day well as I was oblivious to the morning events unfolding because I was working from home with my then 2 year old and getting ready for our trip to Italy the next morning. My husband having started early that day walked through the door somewhat bewildered that the TV wasn’t switched on!
He turned on the TV at the same time telling me what had happened this was a little after 2:30PM our time and what I saw unfolding before my eyes was representative of a Spielberg movie because my first thoughts initially were wow until the horror dawned on me that this was really happening and it was live!
The following days were a dissection of the events; the USA and the rest of the world began to take in the enormity of what had happened.
Many people in the road we lived in at the time wanted to talk about it and in the aftermath people were touched by that day; people knew someone who had been lost; a person you spoke to who re-countered how they knew someone who knew someone who worked in the Twin Towers and so the stories continued.
So what has changed in ten years? Have we learned from it?
If there is one thing we can all do on the tenth anniversary of this most grave event is to reflect on the number of human lives lost and that we should never forget what happened on this day, September 11th 2001.
