[civilitty]

I was in elementary school on the West Coast at the time so by the time I was getting ready for school, one of the towers had already collapsed and I woke up to apocalyptic scenes on television that I first thought was a massive earthquake. In class, no one said a single thing about what had just happened which made me feel like I was going crazy.

It still makes me feel sick to this day what happened afterwards. I was too young to really understand the implications but even as a child, the march to war felt so very wrong.

[sanderjd]

I wouldn't say "even as a child", I would say "especially as a child". In my experience, this was a far more common experience among those of us who were not yet adults at the time, than among the adults. I have long felt that it is the greatest generational dividing line in the US. I was about half way through high school at the time, and the prevailing perspective of the march to war seems to be very different among even those just a few years older and in college at the time, than among myself and people near my same age and younger.

I do think I understand it better now that I have my own children. I can imagine my fear for them driving me to supporting things that struck me as mindless vengeful insanity at the time.

I hope I'll never have to find out how I would react now to a tragedy like this.

[marssaxman]

I was 25 then, but it seemed like mindless vengeful insanity all the same. The entire national character seemed to change, almost overnight, in a bleak and awful way; I felt like I was standing in the surf while a powerful wave receded, water and sand and gravel all rushing away around me, while I remained in place. I have felt like a foreigner here ever since, still a citizen but no longer an American.

[sanderjd]

Yeah. But would you say that your view was the prevailing one among people your age? Or, as I think you're implying, that you were more the odd one out, including amongst your peers?

Because unless I'm assuming wrong, I think your experience is in line with what I said.

My experience was different than yours though. It wasn't until I started mixing with more "grown ups" during college that I realized that actually the prevailing view among people even just a little older than me seemed to be in favor of the war, whereas the view I was familiar with from my own crowd of people my age was the opposite. And as I have talked to more and more people over time, I have continued to feel that this is basically correct about the prevailing view by age at that time.

[marssaxman]

Sure, I'm not trying to disagree, but to share the sympathetic experience I had on the other side of that generational divide.

My view certainly was not the prevailing one, as polls showed and Bush's re-election proved; but my peers at the time were a bunch of musicians, artists, activists, nerds, and weirdos, living in a big coastal city, so I was not alone in opposing the wars. Part of the horror of that experience was the dawning realization that we lived in a tiny, fragile bubble, and nothing we could do had any influence whatever on the mess being made outside it.

[sanderjd]

Yep! I did think this is what you meant, but wasn't entirely sure, and was interested in your perspective.