This article was first published in August 2002 by AAASC.com correspondence, Tamara Odisho. Tamara is currently a Legislative Aide to California State Assemblymember Fran Pavely in Sacramento.
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The anniversary of September 11, 2001, is here. There are new tapes surfacing. The coverage of upcoming memorial services travel from news station to news station. The images of that morning still haunting: People crying, running, confused. Tons of debris layered like icing on a cake all over the most powerful streets in Manhattan, New York. The pictures of those who lost their lives flash on TV screens. The images of shoes laid out on the damaged and dirty Manhattan streets. Those same streets that were once filled with noisy cabs, and thousands of people going and coming, living their own lives, doing their own thing.

But on that day it all changed. It changed for all those people. It changed for the entire world. The constant replay of the images of those planes filled with innocent passengers crashing into tower 1 and then into tower 2. And when everyone thought the worst was over, and when it couldn’t possibly get any worse, yet the inevitable happened: Tower 2 collapsed and sent rolling hills of white smoke filled with debris and personal belongings of all those who were in that building to the skies of Manhattan. The white smoke overcame the streets, hushed the screams, and noise of those in the streets. There was silence; it almost seemed divine. As if we were all dying, walking together down that long white tunnel leading us to God. But then the smoke cleared. And there was no heaven, but hell.

It is a hard day to swallow, both then and now. It is an unimaginable disaster that stole the lives of so many, and still sends shivers through those who survived it.

9-11 was a wake up call to all Americans and America. As a Country that prides itself as being the land of the free and the home of the brave, we now know that although such an idea is one of power, it also makes us vulnerable to terrorism.

And although the debris is gone and the streets once again filled with people, the presence of those two buildings that have now vanished from the New York skyline is a constant reminder of how fragile we are.

September 11, 2001, is the day that puts the idea of freedom and liberty to the test. Those who lost their lives will forever be memorialized as heroes. And that day is a day that will never be forgotten.