Nine years since the twin towers came down. It's so strange, I remember it was my first week of secondary school. I'm not sure many would forget where they were when it happened. Back then, it hadn't really hit me what had happened but since it happened, I have been reading about it, and have seen a couple of the films about it; one was a bit bad, but ok (mainly bad because it had Nicolas Cage in it, someone who I passionately and actively hate) and another with a lot of unknown actors, which hit hearts even harder. It depicted the plane that many people, also I, had no prior knowledge about. The only flight that, to our knowledge, had people who fought against the aggressors. It was only unfortunate that they hit back so late into the trip, otherwise all its victims might not have perished. It showed so much courage and when I saw the film, when I was seventeen or eighteen, it reduced me to tears to watch.
It's quite remarkable how it has affected people on the wide scale. Worldwide, whether we knew victims or not, were reeling in shock over this, as we watched the planes, from all over the world, as one – I don't know if it's just because I was so young when it happened (I was 11) but it made me more aware of terrorism, and opened airports eyes, far too much in a way, to the precautions that they felt needed to be taken on even domestic flights. You couldn't even take vaseline on a flight without taking it in a sealed plastic bag and showing it before the people who x-ray your hand luggage (I don't know the technical term). Yes, it's really irritating, but I'd rather know the precaution was there – if I've got no liquids or whatever on me, then why would it be hectic for me? Yes, something could still happen, but seeing people get checked, yeah I'm fine with that...I don't mind being checked. The woman in front of me, in Gatwick, made an awful fuss about it, and it's like – well if you had not put so much jewellery on, to go through the x-ray thing (just, so unnecessary), then what do you expect? It's not like it's sprung on you when you get in there. I want to feel safe to be honest, not a repeat of nine years ago; I'm sure she would too.
Anyway, getting back to my point – it opened everyone's eyes to that which we didn't know prior to the fatal flights. It, for me, is the ultimate attack of simple civilians taking multiple lives into their own hands – if ever the 'falling man' is mentioned, you know instantly who is being talked about. It will remain as an icon of changing a nation, the world. Even now in Russia, people remember the day and where they were on that day. It marked active attacks, people not being able to feel safe on public transport – on any transport – and that wrong time and wrong place, and you could be the fatality being pulled out of rubble.
Another of the worst things that I'd have to go through – and I hate to illustrate this with reference to a film that does not involve terrorism – is making the call to loved ones. During United-93, in scenes on the flight, you see many people get out their mobiles and ringing people to tell them that they may be ok, but if not, they love them, and also that the people on the flight are planning a coup against the hijackers – some hope is restored, but what's to say that other people had not tried the same, before they perished in a flight, taken over by terrorists? In Love Actually, during the opening lines, Hugh Grant (another loathed yet popular figure) narrates that the calls made on the fatal flights were all messages of love. Watching this in the film United 93 hit me with emotion – imagine being on the other end of the line. Knowing that this might be the last time you talk to your sister, mother, father, brother, best friend etc. I can't even imagine what I'd do without many people who surround me, I'd freak out moreso knowing that their death is imminent, not leaving me time to accept it – that must be the worst for the relatives of those killed on those fatal flights.
They are remembered each year on September 11th, at Ground Zero, where people congregate to mourn the dead – it's an amazing gesture, and brings people together but by no means is any compensation for the victims. I have to know that friends got back alright after a night out, which is much more comforting because if they're in trouble on the way back, you may have the chance of helping them – you can't even imagine how helpless someone travelling on a flight must feel, in that situation, and particularly the receivers of the victims' phone calls. That the people on that one flight, United 93, knew that they could fight back (whether they ended up dead or not) is one of the bravest things to do. That they got into the cockpit, having agreed amongst themselves that they would collectively attack the hijackers, is just remarkable and courageous. At that point, I would probably have accepted death and found myself helpless to doing anything. Therefore their relatives, although irreversibly hurt beyond my imagination, can at least be proud that those that they knew went down bravely fighting.
