J.J. Jenkins is a journalism freshman and Mustang Daily freshman columnist.
How were we supposed to feel last Sunday night?
It is a question I honestly do not know the answer to, I just know it felt good. The freshman class at Cal Poly was in fourth grade last time the national spotlight had been so focused on one issue.
The death of Osama bin Laden is not a canned topic for a freshman column, though it deserves a discussion in this forum. When we look back at college in 30 years, maybe as we send our own kids to Cal Poly, I guarantee the memory of hearing the news will stand out vividly in the haze of freshman year.
On Sept. 11, 2001, I awoke in my home in Denver in preparation for another day at school. I remember being called downstairs by my mother to watch the news, not in a way that inspired fear, but because she recognized the seriousness of the moment.
Nevertheless, fear gripped me as I saw the images on the small television in our kitchen. Gaping holes were left in the sides of two massive skyscrapers, a rogue plane crashed into the Pentagon and another into a field. As a timid 8-year-old I did not recognize the monuments that had been attacked, but I was unabashedly scared that terrorists would somehow find my school in suburban Colorado.
Thankfully my mother was wise enough to send me to class anyway. Going about our normal business was as much of a counterattack we would muster.
The terrorists stole what humans hold dear: Peace of mind. And my friends and I held Osama bin Laden personally responsible.
In our fictional battles, the bad guy became bin Laden. He was the epitome of evil. We acted out scenarios during Airsoft fights where we stormed caves and brought home the terrorist leader, correcting all that was wrong with the world.
I do not think my experience with 9/11 was unique. I had no relatives or close friends that were killed in the attack. To this day, I do not know someone who knows someone who was killed. But nearly 10 years later, as the world experienced the same cathartic moment simultaneously, our generation had the same jubilant reaction.
Maybe it was because our latent childhood dreams came true in a singular moment. Our dormant memories, so long pushed to the back of our minds, rushed forward rapidly and tripped a mental wire that triggered our reaction.
Or maybe it was just because we caught the uncatchable boogie man.
But it was more than just a moment for the kids who slept in fear in the weeks following the attack, it was a sea change for the digital generation.
I heard about the impending speech by President Obama via Facebook status update from the Week of Welcome kick-starter Paul Wesselmann. Turning on the TV, I saw broadcasters scramble live on-air, trying to determine if they could say the words that appeared on the sheets before them.
Yet, they were upstaged by social media. Frustrated with television anchors tiptoeing around the facts, I fired up my computer and, because I’m a nerd, logged into Twitter. Unedited by major news outlets, Osama bin Laden was already trending and the news spreading without, well, the news.
Crowd-sourcing is hardly a fool-proof method of information gathering, but just like Wikipedia, it is a great first draft of history, a way to gauge the pulse of the world in a second’s notice.
The emotions flowing through the Internet conveyed a sense that a weight had been lifted off the back of the world. In the run up to Obama’s address, I laughed harder than I had in recent memory.
“Osama bin Laden: World Hide and Seek Champ 2001-2011,” read one update.
“The only person who is unhappy about the news….? Number 11 on the FBI’s most wanted list,” said another talk show host.
Images began to flood in, this time on television and Twitter. College campuses found an excuse to party with the whole student body. I hung my “Don’t Tread on Me” banner in our common room window.
Some were quick to condemn this “celebration of death.” But that could not be further from the truth. Our generation was celebrating a victory of good over evil. A victory for peace over violence. A victory for the United States military over terror.
But most of all a victory for our generation over a perversive fear that bin Laden planted in our hearts nearly 10 years ago.