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I Remember

September 11

By Maria AyalaPublished 5 years ago 3 min read
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I will never forget where I was when 911 happened. I was just waking up.

I was in my room. I turned on the TV. I was watching NBC News. Katie Couric was reporting on what was happening in New York. I saw the first tower burning. I was confused. I thought it must be some scene of the latest action flick. Then, I saw the second plane hit the second tower. That was when I knew it was real. It felt like we were being attacked. It felt like war.

It felt deliberate. I knew it wasn't an accident. I knew that two planes had just crashed into two different towers.

It was so shocking. I remembered that Sunday evening, when an eerie feeling came over me. That year, 9/11 fell on a Tuesday. But days before, I was getting an eerie feeling that something was going to happen on the east coast. I just had a vague knowing. Then, I had a knowing that it would scare a lot of us on the west coast, but that nothing would happen here. I just had a vague knowing, and an eerie feeling that there was something evil in the air. Something evil in the air was all I could feel. I had no way of knowing how evil it would be. I could have never imagined that we would be attacked on the east coast in such a way, that all airlines would ground all of their flights. I had no way of knowing this. I had broken up with my first girlfriend a few months prior, and I had no stable job.

If you wanted to fly domestic, you had to take off your shoes at the airport.

I flew from San Diego to San Francisco days before Halloween, and I had to take off my shoes like everyone else. Times were changing fast, and we all had to get used to the notion that people all over the world hated us just for being Americans. Suddenly, we all became targets to the rest of the world. We all had to get used to the fact that people just didn't want us to live happy lives. They didn't want to leave us alone. They wanted to destroy us.

And now, under this current presidency, the new targets are immigrants. The new targets have become children. What will happen to our great country? What will happen with the perception that the rest of the world once had of us? What will happen to future generations that will have to read in their school books that children were kept in cages? It’s a shame that the current political administration wants to use our military to stand guard at the border. That is what border patrol officers are for. They are federal agents. The military must not act in such fashion. It was not designed to defend our country against poor people and children, fleeing drug-infested countries.

How can we be proud of our country or our military when the current political administration keeps stomping on all of us, including the most destitute of people, who run away from imminent danger in their own countries? None of that makes any sense.

What will happen to our country by the end of the year? Do we have any reason to hope for a better future? Being critical of our government is the best thing we can do as citizens, besides voting. We must put pressure on our public servants to listen to the people, and not to the whims of a temper tantrum of an individual who only thinks about himself, his money, and his greed.

corruption
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About the Creator

Maria Ayala

I started writing poetry at age 12. I am from San Diego, California. My birthday is on May 30th. Please contribute to my blog. I also create videos for the Tom Ellis Fan Page on facebook. Looking forward to watching Lucifer on Netflix!!

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