9/11 and Vietnam Memorials

The trip to the 9/11 Memorial was absolutely phenomenal. I, in my 12 years since the events had never been to that memorial and it is truly breathtaking, for lack of a better word, it catches you off guard and floods you with emotion when you see it. The memorial is comprised of 2 gigantic square fountains that pour water into a seemingly endless abyss whose bottom is impossible to see, unless you could fly or hover. The memorials are massive because they sit where the twin towers stood, which add a lot to the effect of the memorial.

When I realized that the fountains were in place of the actual twin towers, I began feel fear. I felt what I assume to be the fear that people may have felt on that day because I was standing inches away from where these massive buildings collapsed. To think of how people must’ve run and and panicked when the towers fell, I can’t fully comprehend what they must’ve been feeling in those moments. Each of the fountains at the memorial have names inscribed on the metal plate around the fountain, one has the names of the citizens who passed away in the attacks and that was very saddening to see, but also hopeful, knowing that they wouldn’t be forgotten. The other has the names of the firefighters, policemen, and all others who helped during the attacks but eventually perished. After seeing this I felt happy to know that these people did their best to help anyone they could in any way they could, those people were heroes. Another big aspect of the memorial was the combination of the sight of the water rushing down, and the sound of it. As you stood in front of either of the fountains, the sound of the water was dominating and soon I found that I could barely hear anything besides the sound of the falling water. Seeing this enhanced the effect because you could see and feel the gravity of what happened here, it was serious and you feel that completely and totally. It was an outstanding experience to see the memorial, truly amazing.

The Vietnam Memorial on the other hand, had a very small effect on me. Though this memorial had personal letters from soldiers and was overall more personal, it wasn’t well kept, it was run down and seemingly abandoned. This was disheartening but it was the truth. I didn’t have a big reaction to it because I had just seen the 9/11 memorial which I think was better. Another reason it didn’t have much of an effect on me was because I wasn’t alive for the war so even though I know it was serious and very controversial, I can’t connect to it in the same way I could to the 9/1 memorial. It didn’t move me in a big way, though it it sad that it’s been abandoned