five years ago...

...I was beginning my senior year in high school in Cambridge, Massachusetts, sitting in Ms. Hamilton's Shakespeare class, when I found out that a plane had flown into the World Trade Center. Shortly after the second plane hit, we were ushered into the auditorium for an all-school assembly. When I learned that the planes had taken off from Logan airport, I immediately thought of my dad, who had flown into the airport that morning. His flight had arrived just moments before the airport was shut down. My classmates and I tried repeatedly to use our cell phones to contact relatives who were in New York, or on planes that day, or just to contact our parents at home. TVs were set up around the school so we could watch the news between classes, or during them. My calculus teacher taught class that afternoon as if nothing had happened, with air force jets occassionally rumbling over our campus and our city as we struggled to concentrate on derivatives.

Only five years ago, and yet I can only vaguely remember how I felt in the weeks following 9/11, wasting away in front of the evening news after school every day. Learning, for the first time, really, about terrorism and national tragedies. Supporting my president. Learning about what starts wars, but not yet about what prolongs them.

Four years ago, on September 11th, we were at war, and President Bush stood on Ellis Island and said: "There is a line in our time, and in every time, between those who believe all men are created equal, and those who believe that some men and women and children are expendable in the pursuit of power."

Three years ago, on September 11th, we had overthrown a dictator in Iraq and, four months prior to the memorial, Bush had proclaimed an end to major combat operations in the country.

Two years ago, on September 11th, the 9/11 Commission report had been released, new waves of explosive terror attacks had shaken trains in Madrid and an embassy in Indonesia, pictures from Abu Ghraib had shocked our sensibilities, two years ago, on September 11th, 2004, we were about to re-elect our president. I saw magazine headlines on newsstands in Morocco that year - where I was living at the time of the election - asking with disbelief: "Encore 4 ans?"

And one year ago, on September 11th, 2005, I guess nothing in particular happened except that the President and the American people observed yet another moment of silence.

Now I have graduated college, and the war drones on. I guess all that I have gathered from this is that, while so much can change in five years, it seems that most things stay the same.