 |
| In February 1993, a bomb exploded in the parking garage of the World Trade Center. (ATF) |
It was February 26, 1993. I was a happy second-grader in Ms. Price’s class at Frost Elementary, busy observing mealworm metamorphosis and memorizing state capitals. After school, I’d carpool to soccer practice and hone my skills for the upcoming travel-team tryouts. My greatest fear: that my younger brother would beat me to the TV, I had an exciting rerun of Eureka’s Castle to watch.
The bell finally rang, and the F-8 school bus took me to the street corner where my babysitter waited. As we entered the house, however, I know that TV wasn’t tuned to Nick Jr. or PBS Kids. In my foggy memory, I vaguely recall images of a scorched building, surrounded by chaotic swarms of people.
“A suspected car bomb has exploded underneath the World Trade Center in New York killing at least five people and injuring scores more,” the BBC wrote two days ago in their commemoration of the 14th anniversary of the attack, part of their On This Day series. “The immense blast happened at 12:18 local time in the Secret Service’s section of the car park underneath and between what are New York’s tallest buildings.”
The BBC then quoted a World Trade Center stockbroker, who said that “It felt like an airplane hit the building,” Little did he know that eight years later, those words would become a horrific reality in our nation. While the catastrophic events of Sept. 11, 2001 stick out most distinctly in our minds, those of Feb. 26, 1993 paved the way for an inflammation of terrorist threats in the United States. As former New York Governor Mario Cuomo stated, “Until now, we were invulnerable”–we were Americans and we were untouchable.
While we’re stressing over the difficulties and boredom of midterms, we should step back for a second and consider just how lucky we are to be safe and to be here at Penn today. We’re working hard to become the future leaders of this nation, and the drudgery of papers and exams will lead to much more than the drunken beach revelry of next week’s vacation.
Let’s remember that we too are not “invulnerable” as we leave for Spring Break. No matter how old we are, our moms will always have reason to worry about us. Be careful, be safe–I’ll see you all on March 12.
An RSS feed of The Spin is available
February 28th, 2007 at 11:38 am
huh?
February 28th, 2007 at 11:59 am
Maybe just that the anniversary just passed!
February 28th, 2007 at 1:21 pm
This post really made me stop and think.
February 28th, 2007 at 10:13 pm
What a ridiculous post. It’s completely irrelevant and been written about in the national press so much, reading this blog made my eyes bleed! Find something interesting to write about….
March 1st, 2007 at 12:16 pm
i think relavancy is clearly with the passing memorial so mr. bleeding eyes can go shove it. It’s something definitely worth thinking about. Penn kids live in their own little bubbles and never thing anything bad can happen to “good” people.
March 1st, 2007 at 4:25 pm
This post is completely irrelevant to what? It is a blog and the bloggers post as they please. I don’t really understand how it can possibly be irrelevant when when there’s no specific topic that the post is supposed to be about. Anyway, I was a much better hockey player than that crybaby who shared my last name and played in Pittsburgh. That can be proven by my winning of 4 cups, while he only won two, and the fact that I am second alltime to Gretzky in postseason gamewinning goals.