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“Move On?” Explain This Logic!

Aaron M. Wilson
UML Student

As we are all aware, this past Friday marked the fourteenth year anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks that took place on the World Trade Center in Manhattan, NY, The Pentagon, and in Shanksville, PA. Many of those within my generation were only children when it happened, myself included. I remember clear as day where I was and what I was doing; I had just came home from Kindergarten class, as I was picked up early because of the attacks. I came home and the television was on, replaying the two plane crashes in the World Trade Center. I did not know what to think at the time because I was so young.

Now that I am an able-minded young adult, I am now able to say with absolute sincerity that 9/11 was and still is a national tragedy that took the lives of so many innocent people on that fateful day. I say this because on that day, which was only a few days ago, I was browsing through Yik Yak on my mobile and I came across a Yak suggesting that we just move on from 9/11 like we did with Pearl Harbor. To be honest, I was quite horrified when I came across that Yak! For someone to dare suggest that we just “move on” from something that was a national tragedy is an insult not only to all other Americans, but to those Americans in particular who lost loved ones or even friends on that day in 2001. Even with Pearl Harbor, we do not just move on and forget, we remember, and we continue to remember, because those people did not just die for nothing. We remember the characters they were; how they impacted our lives; and more importantly how their presence is missed because they were taken from us in such a horrific manner.

I do not understand what would give someone within my generation the compulsion to put something out there like that. No, we do not just move on! And I say that with every national tragedy. Even with Pearl Harbor, we do not just move on. Here’s some food for thought: Those who lost loved ones and friends on that day cannot just “move on” as the Yak suggested. They can merely accept that that particular person is gone from their lives completely and perhaps that is as much as they can do, aside from reminisce about the memories they shared with that individual.

In conclusion, I say that with every national tragedy that has taken place over the course of American history we should never, ever forget…or in terms of the how the Yak suggested “move on.”

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