20 years ago yesterday, I was 11 years old, playing with my legos and due to an incident I wish not to say out loud, destroyed a toy tower I spent hours building. 20 years ago today, I was at home, watching live news of the World Trade Center buildings. Two Towers that have been around since 1973. 28 fucking years. A building that was meant to be America's beacon of world economy, comes crashing down thanks to crazy hijackers with well aimed planes full of innocent people. Then not too long after, the Pentagon, a government building so iconic that many movies consider it the the military stronghold for extreme situations. A building that's been around since WWII, gets it's side blown out by a third plane. Then later on another plane has been found crashed in a field called Stony Creek township. This one went down because the passengers started fighting back. Canada goes on the warpath landing as much planes as we could get whether there were hijackers or not. Panic happens around the world, Howard Stern goes on the most iconic rage fuelled rant that shocked Radio at the time. Demanding all the middle east being nuked. Holy fuck, it was insane. Most people lost their loved ones. Victor Wong, who is famously known as Egg Shen in Big Trouble in Little China, died of worry because his kids were at the area near the path of destruction in New York. He died moments before a phone call came from them letting him know they were OK. Many authors, screenwriters and other artists lives and styles changed from witnessing it. Conspiracy Theorizes were out the wazoo about Jet Fuel, Steel beams and inside jobs.

The latter one I do believe. If these people are crazy enough to kill themselves by crashing planes into buildings, then they are crazy enough to have some of them as low level employees, scoping the place out and informing them of the weaknesses. This was Ocean's 11 level of planning. But depending on how radical the hijackers were, either they got out while they can or stayed to die as Martyrs and make sure no one else can leave. But that's neither a conspiracy or theory. Terrorists have always posed as people with legit jobs or god forbid some of them use their jobs as fronts. It's why paranoia's often been on an all time high during each and every terrorist attack no matter which nation does it. Then there was the anthrax scares, then the classic war fuelled prejudice. This as sad as it may say, will never stop, because even the most non-Racist people, would have that odd thought every now and then. In WWII, we went after the Germans, Japanese and Italians. Put them to work or put them in prison camps. During this, even the most pacifistic of muslims, or middle eastern kids that get mistaken for muslim, like India or Shri Lanka, were not safe from war rage kids at school. Which Ironically breeds more terrorism than it stops because, while some grow up to be upstanding members of society: Doctors, Lawyers, Actors and the like. Others would still carry the scars of their past, maybe binge a whole bunch of drugs and booze and join a cause he probably doesn't even believe in and adds onto the list of radicals. Most of these people have been trained to kill since they were kids and even as adults they are lost, confused and most of all afraid, because that was all they knew. Some grew in power and got over it making them a bigger threat. Others simply just wanted to die. So much hate going at each other in the world.

However despite all that, something good came from it. It was something that made us stop and think if maybe there was something in the world that needed to change. A lot of authors and artists had their own depictions of the events in books and comics and some shows. Others bring themselves to erase the buildings from movies that take place at the time they were still there. People started working together more, New York has pretty much become one city one mind to the point where in movies they go out of their way to rescue Spider-man. Parodies took the piss out the event making us fear Bin Laden less. The only thing left on their mind was when SARs would end. And while it took a while Bin Laden got killed and his house got burned down.

This event has caused a lot of bad in the world, but out of the ashes rose a lot of good things outweighing it. To me at this point it's just another event in human history that shocked the world. Next to the Hiroshima Bombings.

Best I can say is, keep your loved one's memories alive, enjoy the entertainment that comes with it along with every other disaster in this world including this fucking pandemic. However, never ever forget what happened. It helps us learn better. Take care, be safe and take the damn shot already.