Students reflect on 18th anniversary of 9/11 attacks

The 18th anniversary of terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon occurred last month. Principal Damm made a brief announcement commemorating the event, but otherwise it was business as usual at Airport High School.

However, two Airport High School students, Joey Stubuas and Timothy Cotton, answered questions about 9/11 and the anniversary. 9/11 was an important day for U.S. because it was a turning point in the way we look at terrorist and the way we do airport security.

On September 11, 2001, it was a beautiful day in New York City. Then while the morning news was going on, a plane, American Airlines flight 11 crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center. At first people were trying to figure out why a plane just crashed into the World Trade Center. Then while people trying to still find out why, a second plane, American Airlines flight 175, crashed into the south tower of the World Trade Center. When that happened, people were starting to figure out what was happening, we are in the middle of the terrorist attack. While people were panicking about the first two planes, a third plane, Airlines flight 77, crashes into the west wall of the pentagon .

By this point, everybody is on alert about the plane attacks on the World Trade centers and the pentagon. There was a fourth plane, United Airlines flight 93, that was most likely going to crash into the White House. But, if it wasn't for the passengers on that flight that flight back to stop the terrorist, it would've most likely crashed into the White House. Because of this heroic effort, they made this into a movie, United 93. After these attacks the U.S. started to up their security and the way we look at terrorist is so much different before the attack.

We ask questions to the two students, Joey S. and Timothy C. When asked about the outcome of 9/11, Timothy C. said, “The president asked Congress to go to war against terroism and any nation that hides terrorists." Joey’s response was a little different. He said, “The attack brought us closer by making us have one goal which was to punish the people responsible.'' Another question we asked was “What caused 9/11?” Joey S. said, “The U.S not taking Al Qaeda seriously,” and Timothy said, “ A group of Arab extremists believed that America was too involved in Middle Eastern affairs.

Almost 3000 people died in the 9/11 attacks, if you want to make a donation to the memorial for the people that died and risked their lives during the attack go to www.911memorial.org/make-monetary-donation-now.