WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED?
Memory of horrific attack is still with many, but ancient history for a whole generation
Today is the 18th anniversary of 9/11, the most important and impactful American event of my lifetime. I was lucky - I didn’t know anyone who was killed that day - but my goodness, does the memory of that day pack a wallop. I remember so many details. My intellectual reactions of that day will never leave me, and my visceral reactions are now practically imprinted in my DNA.
The events of that day simply changed me and the way I look at the world. It made things a hell of a lot scarier, that’s for sure. Really: For people of my generation - think those born between 1965 and 1985 - we grew up in easy times. Oh sure, there was the *threat* of the USSR when we were kids, but we weren’t hiding under desks.
We grew up in a peaceful time without worry, and 9/11 punctured that, and in a big way.
And I know I’m not alone with these thoughts. I know almost all of you have the same feelings I do. It’s nearly impossible to think about 9/11 without it still being and there’s no other word that fits here - alive. It’s alive. It happened, and it still exists, and it’s somehow still happening.
But not for everyone. For people who were little kids, maybe they don’t remember. And, officially starting today, there are adults in this world, people who are eligible to vote and join the Army, people who can get a tattoo and get married, who were not yet born when the first plane hit the North Tower.
Emily Black, a recent graduate of Edison High School, is one of them. She was born in the afternoon of 9/11, after the towers fell, after the Pentagon was hit, after Todd Beamer said “let’s roll.”
And to her - and really, to about 20% of the American population at this point - 9/11 is nothing more than a piece of history.
“I 100 percent believe and understand why people are so upset and heartbroken about that day, but I didn’t emotionally experience it,” Black said. “Please understand I’m not saying that offensively. It’s there, it’s happened, but it’s hard for me to feel anything.”
Now before you go and condemn Black and her generational cohorts, let me ask you this: Does Vietnam carry any emotional baggage for you if you’re younger than 55 or so? How about the Kennedy assassination if you’re younger than 65? Let’s go back even further: If you’re younger than, say, 85 years old, can you really get the emotional juices going for Pearl Harbor?
Go test yourself, if you’re over 25 or whatever. Watch YouTube footage of Pearl Harbor and tell me what happens to your blood pressure, what your insides feel like. Now watch 9/11 footage. Seriously. Go do it. I’ll wait. Different, right?
Well, to Black and most everyone else around her age and younger, it’s simply not different. It’s something they didn’t live through. It’s a Wikipedia entry.
“It’s more history to me,” she said. “I was born on that day, it just kind of … I can’t explain it. Obviously it was a traumatic day, a lot of families were very hurt by it, and support to all of those families, but … yes. It’s history to me.”
Of course Black - just like all of us feels the feels when, say, seeing a widow discuss her deceased firefighter husband heroics on that day. But overall, the big picture, this giant tentpole event in many of our lives? To Black - and really, to most everyone under the age of 25 or so - 9/11 is part of the encyclopedia, pure and simple.
Black was gallant in her attempts to explain how she “feels” about 9/11. It comes easy to use old folks; all we have is “feelings” about 9/11. But we (pick your age) don’t have “feelings” about the Kennedy assissation, or Pearl Harbor. I/we didn’t live through those events. There is nothing visceral about them. No emotion.
“I’m just not entirely affected by it, and it’s because i didn’t experience the emotional feelings everyone else felt who was alive on that day,” Black said.
It feels so shocking to read those words, doesn’t it? It seems impossible there’s a whole generation on people - some of them turning into adults today, happy birthday, Emily - who don’t have the same worldview we have solely because they didn’t experience the most harrowing day imaganible.
Weird, but certainly true. Go ask your great-grandpa about Pearl Harbor to get a taste of what it must be like to be Emily and those of her generation.