9/11 is the new day to live in infamy

Sept. 11, 2001, is a day that we, as a nation, will never forget, but that day, especially for people who lost loved ones, is a day that will never disappear from their memories.

The high school class of 2015 is the last generation that will remember 9/11 with their own memories. I am part of that class and many of my old classmates remember what happened and what they were doing on that day.

When I asked the class below me if they remember 9/11, many of them said no and that their parents told them what happened that day.

Sept. 11, 2001, was my first day of preschool; I remember the planes and the towers being on the TV all day long and watching so many people crying.

Since I lived in California at the time, my parents were scared that L.A. would be the next target.

Before 9/11, I had never seen people talking to strangers. People didn’t care about the person next to them. In the days to come, I remember seeing many people on the side of the streets holding hands with strangers, lighting candles and the American flag hanging from every house, and there were even flags hanging over the highway overpasses.

America stood strong and we became one nation again.

Today we do not see people having patriotism the way they did immediately following 9/11.

We need to try and keep that patriotism going so the younger generation knows what it means to be an American. We need to make sure that the lives taken from us on 9/11 will never be forgotten. 

I think that we should be teaching 9/11 in schools, not just on that one day, but earlier so that the younger generation knows understands this day means so much.

We need to teach about 9/11 because it is important just like the Civil War, WWI and WWII. Especially because 9/11 was an attack on the United States, it is an important time in our history.

The younger generation needs to know about all the people who gave their lives to save others and the ones that died in the planes as they ran into the towers. They need to know about the fireman and the police officers that still have nightmares about that day. They need to know that our president was reading to a bunch of kids in a school when he got the news about the towers.

Sept. 11, 2001, was a day that America was attacked on home soil. We cannot lose that fighting spirit. We cannot wait until the next time it happens to have that power. We need to become one nation and stand united. 

In the words of Cheryl Sawyer, in her poem, “The Power of One,” “We are The Power of One. We are united. We are America.”