This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at IU chapter.
At 8:46 a.m. the first World Trade Center tower was hit. News channels quickly began to report on the explosion thinking that the event had been an accident. Footage was captured on every news network covering the event of the second tower exploding. This was the scene that most of Americans spent watching on their TVs for most of the day and week.
A decade has passed but the wound from that day hasn’t healed in the hearts of many Americans. But for the rising generation, those 20 and younger today, 9/11 is slowly becoming just another date in the history books.
“At 9, I understood that what was going on was bad but I don’t think that the other kids around me really got it.” Said Jessica, a 19yr old sophomore at Indiana University. “I remember my parents waiting until noon to take me to school and I was on the west coast.”
It’s true. The phrase ‘I remember’ seems to be a staple in almost every young adult’s vocabulary when exchanging stories about 9/11. To them, the attacks are like the hazy memory of President Kennedy’s assassination to their parents or Pearl Harbor to their grandparents. “It’s weird to say now but I know that I’ll be telling my children one day about the September 11th attacks and it’ll be so disconnected to them.” Said Kyle, a 19yr old at Indiana University. “It will only be a tragic story or something they learn about in history class.”