On a day where we celebrate the independence of this great country of ours, I came across these heart wrenching stories about a day where the security of our country had been compromised. It's a day that none of us will ever forget, and these essays, themselves, bring back vivid memories that my four year old self can accurately recall. I can still remember my mom picking me up from my babysitters, crying. At the time, I could not understand the severity of what happened that day. This is one of my first, clearest memories of my early childhood, and I have know no life in which our country hasn't still been fighting the fight for what happened early that Tuesday morning.
John Updike's article spoke to me. We remember our freedom today and all of those who fought to protect it. There is nothing more valuable to our nation than our freedom. Updike says, "Risk is a price of freedom." We must continue to move forward from these attacks. There is never going to be a day that we forget these attacks, but honoring all the soldiers, firefighters, and first responders by maintaining our freedom is the most distinguished way to honor them. The way America bounced back from that dreadful day was enviable. We are strong enough, and we have been able to as we saw in the Boston Bombings. The vast illustrations of that day and the day after showed the shambles this event could have left our country in, but it didn't.
Susan Sontag had a very different attitude than Updike. She talks about how afraid the US was and still may be. There is no hiding from the fact that terrorists may be fearless. Those that are willing to die just to kill others are the meaning of the word coward and there isn't anything scarier than an attack by a kamikaze, because they have nothing to lose. Our leaders were giving us false hope and false security. They told us everything would be OK, when nothing would be OK.
These two articles brought two different views. America bounced back from this incident, but it may have just been lying to itself that it wasn't afraid, when in retrospect, we all were scared out of our minds.
Similarly to you Jordan, I can also remember the occurrences of that Tuesday morning quite well. Although we were very young, the atmosphere in the air was so different that even we could sense that something was very wrong. I strongly agree when you say that America is enviable because we "bounced back" from the attacks so quickly. It goes to show how strong our country truly is. Also, your reflection of Sontag's article is spot on; I couldn't agree more.
ReplyDeleteHow ironic that you would read Updike's and Sontag's articles and post this blog about 9/11 on the Fourth of July! On a day where everyone in the United States is celebrating our independence and success it must have been odd to read such a negative article about our country. Of course we remember and appreciate how hard our armed forces fought before and after 9/11, especially on such a patriotic day. I wonder if all of the festivities shaped your opinion on Updike's and Sontag's articles. What do you think?
ReplyDeleteHey Jordan! Hope you're having a nice summer. You make some good observations about the different tones of the two pieces, and I like your statement that Updike's piece "spoke to you." That's high praise for an author. Good start here; now let's get caught up!
ReplyDeleteConnecting your own life to 9/11 allowed me to wonder what happened that day in my life as well. Even though you were too young to understand, it was apparent that you knew something was wrong. Being a mindless child, I don't remember anything different from that day. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention to what was going on, but it is interesting that you do recall when 9/11 occurred. America did in fact move on from this situation, but we all were terrified no matter how old we were.
ReplyDeleteI love how you shared your experience dealing with 9/11 and how it affected you. Unfortunately, I never knew what happened that day because no one had told me until a 6th grade history class. Finding out that way about an event as important as this was a very odd experience.
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