L CHAPTER 13 Violence In Our Own Backyard: September 1 I th Revisited Barbara Melamed ... [remember the morning of September II, 2001 as if it were yesterday. After I prayed however, I did feel peace inside me .... Watching people jump out of windows and fall to their death was more horrifying than anything Hollywood could create. I know like many others, I will never be the same again. I have always valued and appreciated my family and close friends. Now I have an even greater appreciation for them. We don't let a day go by without saying "I love you." Words of a graduate student at Mercy College on September 11 ,2003 The disaster of Sept ember 11, 200 I chang ed the way we deal with our lives on an everyday basis. The wars in Vietnam and the Gulf existed and were painful for those who lost family or returnees from these wars. We have become desensitized to the horrors of the killings in Iraq. Unfortunately, news recedes quickly when occurrences take place outside of our borders. As school children, we learned of the history of Nazi genocide. Today we see newspaper pictures of children dying in Rwanda. But it wasn't supposed to happen right here in the United States of America on a sunny, cloudless day as we went to work or began the school year. We do not tend to relive the 1993 World Trade Center bombing on a daily basis. Was it that not enough people died? It was just a television show, except for those involved in the dangerous situation. This time the event and the subsequent threats of acts of biological, chemical, and nuclear warfare created a looming specter of another sudden terrorist assault. The resultant effects have changed our beliefs about our level of safety and security. In contrast to a natural disaster, such as the tsunami in the Indian Ocean that killed many more people, terrorist attacks are deliberate, and the suddenness and loss of life was traumatic in a differe nt way. 203