11 De septiembre del 2001

“The Price We Pay” by Adam Mayblum

On September 11, 2001 the United States suffered one of the most serious events since the World War II. That day two airplanes hijacked by Al-Qaeda terroristscrashed the towers in the World Trade Center which was a business complex located in lower Manhattan in the heart of New York City. It had seven buildings but the main ones were the Twin Towers.
Iremember that day perfectly. At that time I used to live in Colombia. I was at school when everything happened. I remember being in Math class when suddenly the principal of the school began talkingto us. She told us about the events and then she said that we had to pray for those who were there. Finally she offered a minute of silence in honor to the victims of the attack. It was one of thelongest minutes of my life. All I wanted was to turn on the TV and see what was happening. I guess my math teacher was curious too, because she turned on the TV. As soon as the TV went on images andnews about the attack were everywhere. Even the Colombian channels where transmitting information of the incident. I remember that I saw smoke coming from a Tower, the other one had alreadycollapsed. I could not believe what I was seeing it seemed as a Hollywood movie, but unfortunately it was real.
Before the attack I was sure that this types of things only happened in a third world countrylike mine. Considering that Colombia is one of the countries with more terrorist attacks in the world. However this was happening in one of the most advanced and powerful countries in the world. Aterrorist attack in the most powerful country in the world made me think that there was nowhere to be safe. The news went on for days, and every source of information was filled with comments,theories and images of the incident. The hole world was shocked by the incident, and almost every country in the world offered their hand in support to the United States against the world of terrorism.