Senior remembers Tuesday morning six years ago that changed the world

Danny Langhorne
Editor-in-Chief
Six years ago on September 11, 2001 I was in sixth grade and I woke up about 6 a.m. just the same as any other school day. I had to be at school by 7:30 for early morning chorus practice.
But as I walked into the kitchen to get breakfast I saw my Mom turn on the news and it was the apocalypse on “Good Morning America”. She said, “Oh my god” as I read the headline on the screen, “Hijacked plane flown into World Trade Center.”
I had no idea what the Trade Center was, that it was actually two buildings, or even that it was in New York. I had no real sense of the gravity of what just happened. No idea that when the plane hit the building hundreds of people died or how it would come to affect the lives of every American.
And then it happened again! Another plane hit the other building of the World Trade Center. Despite the morning’s carnage I was driven to school were everyone in the music room was talking about the attack. Just fifth and sixth graders; none of us had a clue what was really going on but almost everyone had seen something about it on the news or heard something on the radio on the way to school.
Some kids even said that a plane had hit the Pentagon. For those who somehow hadn’t heard anything about what had just happened in New York, only surprise and confusion came to their minds.
As soon as regular classes started at 8:30 the same chattering that had occurred in the music room was also going on in the homerooms. Not long into the day every class was instructed to gather into the auditorium where usually school plays, music recitals, and talent shows took place. This was so that the principal could address all the students of Montecito Union. The principal confirmed the attacks as “plane crashes” into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and in a field in Pennsylvania. Words like “You are all safe here in Santa Barbara. You’re safe here at school” were used in order to console the student body. I knew people were dying but it all just seemed like something out of a movie.
One thought that kept going through my head was that if there was an attack in LA that Santa Barbara would still be safe. But as a sixth grader I didn’t know how the systems that keep our country running smoothly would collapse if the attacks had expanded beyond the eastern seaboard.
All of us were then told to go back to class and try to concentrate on our work. But in my class our teacher asked us if we wanted to watch the news and with a resounding yes we all huddled around the TV. For over an hour we watched repeat after repeat of the towers falling, people running through the streets from clouds of smoke and dust, and the plane crashing into the different buildings. “America Under Attack?” dominated the headlines of the news for the rest of the day.
It only took a matter of hours for the blame of the attacks to be cast on Muslim fanatics led by some guy with a beard called Osama Bin Laden.
Having no idea about Islam or what “terrorists,” as they began to call them on the news, were about I started to hate them for attacking America.
For weeks it was if the whole of America was bleeding red, white, and blue. Here in Santa Barbara people gathered in droves to make a human US flag at City College in salute to brave men and women of the New York police and fire departments. People wore “God Bless America” T-shirts and hung flags on the side windows of their cars. With a little over 3,000 left dead and missing as the smoke cleared, America demanded response from the United Nations. The response came in October of 2001 as Bush proclaimed the War on Terror with support of most of the world’s countries behind him. That was the height of this administration’s support from the American people and that little sixth grader.
A moment of silence is a nice sign of respect towards those who lost their lives on 9/11. But I think never forgetting about the events of that day and where you were is also important.