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Collecting 21st Century History - Remembering September 11th
A
small group of Ballston Spa
High School seniors met with Brookside’s educator, Linda Gorham, and high
school teacher, Linda Lake, to give their reactions to events of the past year
that have in fact helped to shape their future.
Below are excerpts from the responses.
We would like to thank Mrs. Lake and the students: Mike, Chris, Tom,
Shawn, Nick, and Robin. What
did you learn about the world from 9/11? Mike:
America is not as immune from attack as everyone thought… it was a wake
up call for everyone. Nick:
…learned that in a time of need, government can use the
patriotism/unity of its own people to inspire courage, a strong work ethic, and
produce the motivation needed in a time of tragedy. Tom (a volunteer fireman): …face to face confrontation with
someone who wanted to know why I wasn’t in NYC helping with the relief…I got
upset because he was in my face---he wasn’t thinking about what was happening
in his own community Shawn:
Above all, a sad time… Chris:
. . . sad to know that something big like this has to come about for
everyone to be so patriotic and everything come together What
lessons have you learned? Chris:
…learned that definitely can’t stereotype a certain religion because
one person does something Shawn:
…whole thing boils down to people passing judgment on religion, color,
customs…it’s like a poison…people do crazy things Nick: …sad that in our society where violence is becoming more and
more public …. takes big events to get countries to take action Mike: …people are fickle…everyone in country started pouring
money and resources into cleaning up the mess, which is a good thing, but they
did it so much that a lot of the local community charities were being deprived
because so much is being sent to NYC that people were beginning to suffer worse
in local communities and no one was paying attention to it Tom: …overload down there … sent two tractor trailer loads back
to Milton What
has this particular moment in history caused you to think about yourself and
your place in the world? Chris:
… come to the conclusion that my place in the world is not politics …
definitely doing my own thing…make sure I watch, help raise money, and maybe
do like Tom does (volunteer) … hasn’t it changed some people … people
maybe were planning to be a teacher … enrollment in military went up after
9/11 … people’s views changed … want to jump in and help … so [there has
been an] impact on the way people look at life … Shawn:
… [other countries are] jealous … everybody wants to say they are
better than America … when something is not right in a country, we become a
symbol of everything that is wrong with the world Mike: We might not be as great as everyone says we are though … a
lot of people are hypocrites, like when we decided to attack Afghanistan …
Taliban, a lot of people were all gung-ho , waving flags on the highways … but
I’m betting if you asked almost everyone of these people if thy were willing
to go over and do the fighting, they’d say no … they have high ideals but
they don’t want to fight for it … I don’t think I’d volunteer to go …
I’ve watched people die … I’ve heard stories from my grandparents that
have been in wars and stuff … I would volunteer to go only if they asked me
… draft … wouldn’t dodge it … I would go, but a lot of people have a lot
of mouth and are constantly put people down because they aren’t fighting for
the ideals … they shouldn’t be because they themselves wouldn’t fight for
them What
are your hopes and fears for the future? Nick: I hope for the future that American society, instead of
stereotyping as we have before,
instead of just making quick judgments, we can try to understand reasons and the
psyche of people we are being attacked by or trying to help … I fear for the
future that especially with violence in society that we’ll come to period
where everyone thinks we’re all right again then there will be another
incident far worse than before … jump us all … up in arms again Shawn:
I
hope that more people start coming up that would rather not fight than fight …
we’re all one world and one people … in the end no cause will really matter
if there is nothing left Chris:
… new technology these days and the Taliban terrorist didn’t use the
new technology … they used our stuff … something so simple as a plane and
flew it into something … shows that you don’t need an atom bomb to stir
things up … Hope in the future when wars start that people will use their
heads and don’t set off all these big bombs and kill world off … that’s
what it will all come down to in the future with all the technology so … Mike: My hope for the future is people begin to get morals back …
for a while especially after the wars and stuff, America not a good society and
right now we see crime rates increasing and more violence on TV … so much
evidence that we are losing sight of basic morals and ethics that its an all
consuming nature … fear for the future that it will continue … to go down
hill … another thing … people don’t think about what they want … be
careful what you wish for … people who say they want a big war and wipe out
the Taliban … but they should consider what it is they are asking people to do
before they start making demands. Shawn:
Think
about and look at what has happened in the past and prevent some things that
could happen in the future.
©2002
Saratoga County Historical Society
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