I visited the World Trade Center this year for the first time; it's not the utter mess that it once was (new construction), but it still felt like "Ground Zero."
I was the only American in our group (Renee, Anita, and Rommel), but we all felt a little emotional there. I was happy I had my sunglasses on throughout most of it, well, for the obvious reasons.
It's so empty, you look at pictures of that area before and you realize there is this gaping hole in the sky and when I think of those buildings falling, I don't think of metal and glass and inevitable rubble, I think of hearts, eyes, hands ... lives. No matter what, those people died and thousands of families are still trying to "move on" from their losses. Regardless of any conspiracy, of any supposed justification because the States is a bitch to the rest of the world, those people DIED in a horrible and tragic way.
I will never forget what I felt when I saw the second plane hit the second tower, never. Just like I will never forget how I felt when I stepped inside the now gated area that used to be below the buildings, but is now below nothing.
As tainted as my patriotism may be, those people, like all other innocents lost, were my brothers and sisters. The people in NYC, the ones at the Pentagon, the poor souls on the doomed flight in Pennsylvania, all of them, are mine to mourn, despite what anyone on this planet thinks or says.
