9/11 and Vietnam Memorials

9/11 is one of the most vivid memories of my childhood. It was my sixth birthday, and not only that, but I also lived and went to school within walking distance from the towers. Every day I woke up to the majestic sight of the twin towers outside of my window and often would go to the stores in the towers. (I especially remember the Discovery store and the Krispy Kreme that I loved.) I remember the moment the first plane hit–I was in school, and we were doing “silent reading.” We heard a tremendous crash and everyone ran to the window to see what happened. We couldn’t see anything because our room faced in the opposite direction. We all assumed it was something related to construction, until we heard over the loud speaker that there had been “an accident at the World Trade Center” and that we must all move to the south west area of the building. Soon enough, parents started picking up their children. I remember my parents picking me up and the three of us ran to Chelsea to pick up my brother from his school. I remember having to wear face masks and practically being chased down the street by enormous clouds of dust and smoke. I didn’t see the second plane hit, but I just remember turning the corner as we got to Chelsea Piers and watching the second tower as it fell.

We were all in complete shock. I remember sitting in a cafe with my parents right after, eating a bagel and watching the news silently. “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” by Elton John was playing on the radio. We all knew that things would never be the same after that. Even at my young age, seeing the towers fall and knowing I couldn’t go home and seeing people falling from windows, I knew that this was a big deal. I remember feeling so angry and confused as to why someone would do this to my home, my neighborhood. I was so shocked that someone would kill all these people and cause such massive destruction.

I had never been to the 9/11 memorial before we went on Thursday. Although I had lived in that neighborhood from my childhood up until the end of this summer, and walked past it every single day, for some reason I never had any interest in visiting it. I think I avoided it for so long because I knew it would bring back really painful memories. I was kind of afraid of visiting it, because I knew it would be extremely emotional. However once I actually went inside and looked closely at the waterfalls and all the names, I found the memorial to be a beautiful way of remembering those lost on that day. Although I have my suspicions and mixed feelings about the truth behind the 9/11 attacks (but that’s a whole other story…), I thought the 9/11 memorial was amazing. The white noise of the water, the way that it seemed like the pits went on forever, the white roses placed on the names of those whose birthday it was…it was all quite overwhelming. The fact that this was the exact spot where all of these people died made it feel very haunting and real. I found that I could connect with it on a very personal level because I used to walk on that same earth as a child, and I could remember so vividly all of the images of the burning towers on those exact spots.

The Vietnam Memorial was a somewhat different experience. This memorial is much more subtle, much more subdued. Not only that, but there are many Vietnam memorials and this one is clearly not one of the most famous or beautiful of them. Despite everything though, this memorial was still very emotional. Even though it wasn’t as flashy or spectacular as the 9/11 memorial, it felt very personal. Reading the stories of the soldiers and reading their letters gave it a shock of reality that wouldn’t have existed had there only been the names of those lost in the war. Although the memorial was sad, I must admit that I didn’t feel the same kind of relatable, personal sadness that I felt with the 9/11 memorial, which is probably because I actually experienced 9/11 on a firsthand level. I remember it vividly and I know people who were really affected by 9/11 even more than my family was. Also, 9/11 is still very prevalent in our society. People still talk about it a lot and relate it to what’s going on in the world today. Vietnam, although a tragic, pointlessly bloody war, was a much longer time ago and hasn’t affected people of our age as much as 9/11 did.