“Get up! Get up! They hit the Twin Towers!” “I don’t know what that is, Mom, I don’t have to be to school for another two hours.”

I grew up in a small ranch town, out in the middle of nowhere, Nevada. Our house, along with two others, was the only one on the street. It took an hour to get to “town.” We grew up in a time where the worst thing was getting cow manure on your shoes before heading down the two-mile track to the nearest bus stop. I didn’t have to worry about people trying to kidnap me, attack me, let alone kill me. So why would someone crash two planes into these “Twin Towers” my mother cried about?

When I arrived at school that day thirteen years ago, the halls no longer seemed noisy and good-natured. They had an eerie sense throughout them. Some of my teachers and friends were crying. Some even had to leave to see if the families they had in New York were okay. Confusion crossed my brow and I still was wondering what was going on.

“The United States of America has been attacked,” my homeroom teacher announced. “Those coward scum are going to get what’s coming to them, you wait and see!”