My thoughts on the 9/11 attacks.

[aethwolf]

I'm tired of hearing about them. I was tired of hearing about them before the end of the day they ocurred.

I was rather unaffected by hearing the news that the World Trade Center was hit. I was shocked at hearing the Pentagon had been hit. I guess that's because I was thinking in terms of military targets. A direct hit on the headquarters for national defense worries me more than a direct hit on an office building. I know there were some government offices in the WTC, but the Pentagon is only used by our armed forces. The loss of the WTC had minimal impact on our ability to defend ourselves. A loss of top military officials would have.

This isn't to say that I wasn't affected by those events. My aunt's sister works for the Secret Service and was in the towers when they were hit. She got out uninjured or only minorly injured. My mom was working for Cendant, the company that owns many hotel chains, when that happened. She lost her job maybe 2 weeks after those events because they had to start letting anyone that didn't meet their quotas go. This was quite a blow. She'd been working there for 4 or 5 years at that point. One day, she didn't meet her quota, so they fired her. I thought that unfair. She was a very good employee. I think a little over a year later, the Cendant location here in Elizabethton closed down. She wouldn't have had her job much longer, but she should've been allowed to stay on 'till the end.

Hours before those attacks, I knew it was going to be a bad day. My mom's car was repossessed, even though she had made the payment and was reassured by the company that it was okay. When they came for the car, at 5am, she went outside after them. She slipped on the rain-slicked steps and cut her hand badly.

I was already pretty stressed from that when the attacks ocurred. I put my personal bad day aside when I heard about the attacks. It put my troubles in perspective, but I couldn't, and still can't, care about those people like so many others seem to do. I can't get emotional about the death of people that are over 600 miles away. Maybe I just care about my "territory" more than some place that I've never been to and will likely never visit. I have been to Washington, D.C. For the first 6 years of my life, I lived in Herndon, VA, which is right next door to D.C. It's also the center for our government. Maybe that's why I was more worried about the Pentagon.