Journal Jar #27

Journal Jar #27

What do you feel has been the most significant world event that has taken place during your lifetime and why?

So what's the most significant world event in the past fifteen years? Ummm..... 9/11, the war, the OK city bombing, Columbine, all the school shootings since, Tsunami, earthquake in Indonesia, need I go on? (I hope not b/c I'm running out of ideas!) I can't pick one.

So the Oklahoma city bombing happened at 9:02am on April 19, 1995, the bomb Timothy McVeigh set went off taking thousands of innocent lives with it. By 9:03, the explosion was over but the effects would last a lifetime for the families impacted. Children, innocent children, were in daycare on the first floor. There is a famous photo of a fireman carrying the bloody, naked body of a child out of the wreckage with tears in his eyes. Oh, I found a copy of it (taken from this website).

 That little girl is one year old, exactly. It was her first birthday. That is the first traumatic event I can remember. Most of my peers do not remember it. But I do. I remember watching it with Mom in her bedroom on the one year anniversary and I remember pausing in the car for a moment of silence a few years after. I remember the song Garth Brooks wrote in the aftermath. I also realize that this is the ten year anniversary of that bombing.

Columbine occured on 4/20/99. I was nine years old. I remember hearing that a school had gotten shot up but didn't realize what it meant in the big scheme of things. But now I do. And the school shootings since then have been just as atrocious including this past one in Red Lake. The following is a collage of what I can only presume are the victims of Columbine (taken from this website).

9/11/01. Obviously henious. I was in NYC less than one month before theattack. I was eleven years old. The effects this has had on the world are known to all (or at least most). I did not cry on the day but, I did cry a year later. According to Mom, I had far too much going on in my own life at the time to be that concerned with what was happening in the world. My mom had left just over a month before and my life was falling apart around me. When I did realize how many people had passed and how rediculous this was, I cried. Alan Jackson's song "Where were you when the world stopped turning?" is what did it. We all know the effects this attack had on both America and the world. (this website)

The war in Iraq was one cause of 9/11. Thousands of our men and women have died fighting a war over "WMD" that were never found. Saddam did need to be stopped but Bush should not have lied about why we were going there in the first place. He should have been honest about it and not claimed weapons of mass destruction. Nor should it have been fought over 9/11 because, last time I checked, Sadam & Al-Queda had no direct correlation and Iraq is not where Al-Queda was headquartered. That was Afghanistan. Bush needs a geography lesson.

The Tsunami took over 200,000 lives. It was arguably the most significant NATURAL disaster in my lifetime. The recent earthquake in Indonesia destroyed relief efforts. Both are atrocious events.

So I can't pick one. There are many. Unfortunately. What is this world coming to?

Vickey