Too young to understand... Except I still don't!

I was 11 years old and in the 6th grade when the events of 9/11/2001 happened. From what I remember, the second plane hit the towers either a little before or after I had left for school that day. There was some talk about it, but most of my friends either didn't know what all happened or just didn't want to talk about it. We just went to class and the world turned. Some teachers would have the radio on before that one point where all the TV's and radios were turned off and lessons were started again and from then it was mostly a normal day.

I remember hearing about how this was an act of terror against us, and how this was possibly a start of a war. I didn't have much knowledge of that besides what I learned about WW2 from Indiana Jones as well as the Korean War from M*A*S*H. I think I also had some grasp of it from the whole Kosovo conflict a few years before, but only what I saw on the news.

Part of me obviously felt sad for the dead, and those who may be affected. I was lucky as no one I had known had died that day, but I still felt bad for the dead. That went away shortly after though. I had remembered what I had learned about war from before, and that war is violent, and people die from it. Even to this day I feel bad when I think about what happened that day and the months and even years following. I think it was a few weeks after those events though that everyone was trying to move on and raise the American spirit higher than I remember it was. I was able to move on, sure, but I wasn't able to get in the patriotic mood I asked someone, probably a parent or a teacher, "Why can't I seem to feel what everyone else is with the American thing?". The only answer I remember is being told that "You're too young to understand."

To this day, I still can't feel overly patriotic. Am I proud of the USA for some things? Sure, of course I am. We have awesome science and technology coming out to help people every day. We're more free than several countries. This does not mean we're the best though, as that would mean we have the fewest flaws or no flaws at all. I would be lying to myself if I said that our country was perfect. I just can't seem to find the reason to chant "USA! USA!" when it's not a global sporting tournament or a national holiday. To do it just to prove my patriotism though just feels silly to me, like it's trying to prove I'm not a communist in days of McCarthyism.

Maybe I'm still too young to understand fully the implications of 9/11. To me though, when I think of 9/11, all I can think of is how religious extremism or extremism of any kind leads to bad things, how Saddam didn't have the WMD's, and that while the terrorists may not have completely won, maybe they haven't completely lost as we lose more of our privacy every week it seems. At least I know that when I'm seeking good thoughts, I can take solace in the fact that I'm not likely to be eaten by a shark. It's not much, and it's kind of random, but I take what I can get these days.