Five Years…

Five years ago on this day, I was taking an Honors Artificial Intelligence midterm exam. I was still puzzling over the last question regarding some variation on a backpropagation algorithm that I wasn’t sure that we covered in class when I stepped off the elevator in Stipes Hall.

There was thirty people or so just stopped dead in their tracks watching the TV that was mounted above the elevators. CNN was on, and they were covering some sort of plane accident that happened at the World Trade Center. My first thought was “wow, that was one hell of a flight miscalculation.” Then the second plane hit, right there live on TV.

It was clear that this wasn’t going to be business as usual. I had to work, so I headed on my normal path through the student union where I found a few hundred people watching the big screen, and several others saying that they just heard that the President of the University had canceled classes for today because of the attack.

Attack? Who could possibly be attacking us with airplanes?

I headed to Sherman Hall to my office and I finally got to see some news coverage that had some details… this was no accident. They had a radio on in the offices around the corner from me, someone stuck their head to say that the integrity of the first tower was failing rapidly and that they heard that people were jumping from the towers. It wasn’t much longer before the World Trade Center fell.

I don’t remember if I finished my shift that day or not, but I went right back to the dorm to watch the news coverage with my friends. It was a terrible, terrible day for this country. It is still so vivid that I don’t really want to watch the rehash of those events that has been going on everywhere. I didn’t see the movie. I don’t really plan to.

Are we safer as a country now? Yes, I think we are. Did we lose some of our freedoms along the way? Yes, probably a few. Did we need to go to Iraq? Who knows anymore, I know I don’t. I do know that five years ago today those 2,973 people that died shouldn’t have. In time, we will bring Osama Bin Laden to justice, but today that shouldn’t be the top billing.

Instead, we should take today to remember and honor those people that died in the process of living their lives and support the people that are out there right now trying to prevent this from happening again. That, and as my good buddy has said to me recently: “get busy living.”