In May 2001, at a naval hospital in Virginia, a little girl was born — the girl being me, of course. For four very short months, I existed in a world before the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and the war in Afghanistan (and more broadly the Global War on Terror [GWOT]). I can’t really say that I miss it, considering I never really knew it. The only world I have ever known is the one that has existed since the attack on September 11, 2001.

September 11 isn’t an event for me the way it is for people who experienced it live, and I think that most people in my generation would agree with that assessment. It was history that we learned about in our classrooms, or maybe from our parents or grandparents. However, it was ever-present in our lives, both in overt and covert ways, and it has become so ingrained in our minds that there is no way we could ever #Neverforget.

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I don’t remember the first time I actually learned what 9/11 was. But what I can remember is that once I did, I never stopped. Every year on that date, when I was in school, the teachers would roll their TVs out and turn them on, and we would watch the news footage. I couldn’t tell you how old I was when I watched as the plane hit the towers, watched them burn, watched them collapse, saw the wreckage. People scream and jump out of buildings. The thick black smoke. The devastation. I couldn’t have been more than six or seven.

Powerful Images from 9/11 You Have Not Seen Before

Year after year, we viewed this footage. I would go to school and the morning announcements would play. We would have a moment of silence for the victims and their families. Then, we would turn on the TV and watch. It didn’t end when we got home, either.

My siblings and I would get off the school bus, open the front door and find that the news was on, showing us the same footage we had seen all day. Then came the documentaries. These were followed by the dramatic reenactments, such as movies like English director Paul Greengrass’s United 93 (2006). There was a rhythm, almost — a monotony. September 11 was a day that felt frozen in time. The country seemed to stop; everything revolved around this one event.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand the severe tragedy of 9/11. In fact, as a child, it was, in its own odd way, a special interest of mine. I mean this in the way that anyone has a historical event that they really fixate on. I’m not entirely sure what drew me to 9/11 specifically. Maybe it was how the adults around me memorialized it. Perhaps it was because it was the first tragedy I had ever learned about.

Regardless of the why, when I got out of school every 9/11, I watched the documentaries, the replays of the news, the movies and the interviews. Like everyone else in the country, I had become stuck in time.

As I got older, the fixation left — both me and the country. I remember being confused the first year we didn’t watch the news footage in school; I was in the eighth grade. When I got to high school, all we gave it was a moment of silence. There was no interruption to our regularly scheduled program, no TVs playing the news and no personal stories from teachers recounting their experiences — just school.

I didn’t realize how much of a relief it had been to no longer have to spend an entire day recounting the tragedy. I mean, seriously, think about that for a moment. Imagine you’re me: You go to school one day in the first grade, you are six years old, and you watch a terrorist attack that killed over 3,000 people. Then one year later, it’s the same thing. Then the next and the next, until suddenly you’re 14 years old, and it just stops.

I can’t say that I’m not a little resentful that, from such a young age, I was being forced to experience this tragedy over and over. Or how the adults around me thought that this was an acceptable or normal thing to do.

I should not have been in the fifth grade listening to my teacher tell us about how his best friend was a firefighter who died during 9/11 because someone who had jumped out of one of the towers fell on him. I might not have been old enough to experience 9/11 the first time around, but I was young enough to experience it every year after that.

My generation wasn’t just experiencing 9/11 through news replays and all-day history lessons, either. It wasn’t until I became an adult that I really understood what effect September 11 had on everyday American life. And I don’t just mean TSA; it affected everything from politics to geopolitics, and even pop culture.

A multitude of movies that came out during my childhood featured the great American Military and the Middle East in some way — whether that be by directly involving them, or indirectly invoking their imagery. Movies I loved as a child (and still do), like Jon Favreau’s Iron Man (2008), Michael Bay’sTransformers (2007) and George Lucas’s Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002) are just a few examples. We were mini patriots in training, watching as the US military showed its might and helped superheroes save the world.

We could become those brave patriots ourselves as soon as we picked up a controller and started playing Call of Duty (2003) or any other war game that came out around that time. Terrorism was an ever-present threat in video games, movies and television. We were being spoonfed a narrative about the Middle East — it was a place full of brutality and violence, and we, the great American heroes, were the only ones who could stop them.

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Collective patriotism was at an all-time high. You couldn’t turn your head without seeing an American flag. They were everywhere: on flag poles, t-shirts, dresses, swimsuits, flipflops, ribbons, plates, napkins, stuffed animals and above every door. As a child, all of this seemed normal; this was just the way the world was. Now, at 24 years old, I realize that all of this was a reaction. This was not the world that I had initially been born into, but one that was made shortly after my birth. 

As I continue to get older, I learn more and more about 9/11: What caused it, how it changed the world, how the US responded and, subsequently, the consequences of that US response. I must admit that it is a topic I am still fairly new to exploring, which feels contrarian as I’ve been learning about it my entire life, but it’s the truth. I have never truly explored it in this way, understanding the politics and geopolitics behind it all.

Luckily for me, I now have a great teacher: Fair Observer. Looking up “9/11” is enough to provide me with pages of content to explore. Honestly, the most challenging part of it all is deciding where to begin. The Dialectic with Editor-in-Chief Atul Singh and retired CIA Officer Glenn Carle seemed like the best place to start. It offers the context for what drew the United States into the GWOT as well as the mistakes made by the US and their consequences. It’s a crash course in history and politics.

	The War on Terror: 22 Years On By Glenn Carle & Atul Singh | July 08, 2023
	Consequences of the War on Terror and the Iraq War By Glenn Carle & Atul Singh | August 07, 2023

Along with his work in The Dialectic, Atul has written pieces on the effect that 9/11 has had in both the Middle East and the US. He coauthored a piece in 2021 with former cofounder and Deputy Managing Editor of Fair Observer Anna Pivovarchuk, focusing on how the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent GWOT have shaped the world over the past two decades. It details the origins, key events and far-reaching impacts of the conflict, including the human and financial costs, erosion of civil liberties and shifts in global power dynamics.

The Ripple Effect: 9/11’s Profound Impact on the Middle East By Kristian Alexander, Gina Bou Serhal | September 11, 2023

Last year, he wrote a piece that explored how al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden “won the war on terror.” He explains how the US response to 9/11, including the invasion of Iraq and its focus on the War on Terror, led to a US that “stands weakened, politically divided and morally coarsened by its ill-thought response.” This was bin Laden’s goal: to weaken the American empire.

Now It’s Clear, Osama bin Laden Won the War on Terror By Atul Singh | September 11, 2024

It’s safe to say that he has left me with quite a lot of content to explore. This year, on 9/11, I will do what I have always done: learn. But this time, I get to do it on my own terms. Let’s bring back the tradition of rehashing 9/11 on its anniversary, but let’s do it differently: open our minds, explore new perspectives and learn the history.