1) What are your memories of 9/11?  Do you have any?  Are there images in your mind of the tragedy?  Where do these images come from?

In 2001, I was in pre-kindergarten at Turner Second Generation (TSG) with my two best friends, Jane and Tav.  Everything was going typically -- I'd shared a long, comprehensive story for show and tell (mostly tell) about the delicious corn I ate the last night, and we counted to 50 and sang the alphabet.  That morning, my mom had dropped me off at TSG before going to the airport to catch a flight scheduled to go to New York for business.  She was sitting in the terminal watching one of the TVs there when the first plane hit the World Trade Center.

She immediately left the airport, returning to TSG to pick up me, Jane, Tav, and their little sisters, Ellie and Neri (who were at the time were barley walking).  Both of Jane's parents and Tav's mom worked at CNN, so they were totally overwhelmed with the breaking news.  We wanted to get away from the skyscrapers and population of the city, so we went to my house outside of the city.

We didn't know what had happened, but we knew something was wrong.  We knew people had been hurt, and most of all, we knew it was a big deal.  A huge deal.  I got out our first aid basket, and we began putting unrestrained amounts of Neosporin and large Scooby-Doo Band-Aids.  We wanted to help, to do something, but all we could do was help each other while my parents were glued to the TV.  From there, I don't really remember much.

2) What do you know about the causes and consequences of 9/11?

I know the facts about the incident, more or less.  There were four planes hijacked, two going from Boston to LA and two others from different originations and destinations.  Two were crashed into the World Trade Center, one into the pentagon, and one into the some fields in Pennsylvania by passengers who re-hijacked the the cockpit.  Thousands were killed in the World Trade Center crash, and many people jumped from the burning buildings, preferring to die like that rather than in the flames.  I know more about the actual event, but not exactly the politics, etc.

Al-Quaeda, particularly Osama Bin Laden (Saddaam Hussein?), was behind the attack.  The suicide hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, I think.  The reason was that Americans are not Muslim/are non-believers, so they wanted to kill us?  And, supposedly, they attacked us because of a calling from their god, Allah.

Bush declared war on Iraq which was totally unrelated and unlinked to 9/11.  Some say that it was to avenge his father's war or something like that...