The Dive

The Dive

Twin Towers, burning, planes, crash, terrorist attack

The horrific terrorist attack of September 11, 2001.

Martin Luther King said, "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Evil cannot drive out evil; only love can do that."

Heather Wallace , Canada

Date Posted: 11/06/06

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On September 11, 2001, the world changed forever when America suffered the most catastrophic terrorist attack in its history. Two commercial airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center that morning, not only killing thousands, but also leaving a deep scar on the world psyche. Over the past six years, international tensions have continued to rise, and we feel no closer to a peaceful resolution of our global differences. Rather, it seems we may be on the brink of another disaster, and the peace movement remains practically underground and off the radar. It was a day, a week and a year we can't forget. In remembering what we lost, can we salvage a sense of humanity in time to prevent another grand tragedy? Moments of silence are not only to remember the fallen, but also give us a chance to change our direction.

My alarm went off at 7 a.m. The first words I heard over the radio were, "Two planes have crashed into the World Trade Center." By the time I was waking, people's hearts were already spilled and broken on the streets of New York and around the world.

I jumped to my feet and turned on the TV in an feeble attempt to understand the indecipherable. I was not prepared for what I saw. It took me a moment to realize it was not a movie on the screen. "Oh my god. Oh my god." It was all I could say. I did not understand. I sat down on my bed, my knees bouncing up and down uncontrollably, tears spilling out and streaming down my face.

I rushed downstairs and found my roommates having breakfast, seemingly unaware of the goings on in our continent. I asked them if they had heard. Neither of them had seen the pictures, and one of them made some jokes. "But the pictures," I said. "The pictures - They're awful."

It was a torturously long week, and with the rest of the world, I saw the images over and over again, playing out like a recurring nightmare. We glued our eyes to the television, trying to wrap our hearts and our minds around the reality. I had just started a new job the day before the attack, and on September 12, my boss brought in a newspaper. The still pictures were even more horrible than the television images. I remember snapshots of a man in a suit diving from one of the windows, headfirst to his death. His journey out of this world was frozen in my eyes.