Can we define a generation? If so, how should we? Personally, I tend to be skeptical of labels. We see it all the time in politics, when a candidate campaigns under one banner, but goes to sleep under the cover of another. We place so much trust in the label that it colors our perception of the fuller picture and prevents us from accepting future developments in character or content.

Remembering 9/11

While we still need to answer those first two questions, the related question on my mind is this: Are we the 9/11 Generation?

To help me reach an answer, I asked my grandfathers to help me consider the question from a different historical perspective. On December 7, 1941, my father’s father was eight years old. He remembers hearing about the attacks on Pearl Harbor. He remembers seeing the headlines in the extra edition newspaper. In the weeks and months that followed, he saw Atlantic City hotels turn into barracks, and watched his father return home from his dentist’s office to help as an Air Raid Warden in Trenton, New Jersey. But he does not carry with him lasting images of the USS Arizona in flames.

70 years ago...

On December 7, 1941, my mother’s father was ten years old. He remembers when news from Hawaii first came over the radio. He also remembers the newspaper articles. He recalls having no idea where Hawaii was, let alone Pearl Harbor. So, he went next door where one of the local teachers outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania pulled out a map and pointed out the islands 2,500 miles off the coast of California. But images of the actual attack escape him, too.

In some ways, my experience on September 11, 2001 parallels my grandfathers’ experiences nearly sixty years prior. I lived outside Los Angeles, nearly 3,000 miles away from the four hijackings. I was only thirteen years old, had never heard of Al Qaeda, and could not find Afghanistan on any map. Yet, the images of the falling Towers, burning Pentagon, and smoldering Shanksville field remain seared in my memory. And they will remain with me forever.

I think it is that difference – that real-time connection to the day’s tragic events – that moistened the adhesive on the “9/11 Generation” label. We take for granted the technological advances in information communication, but our grandfathers did not have those luxuries seventy years ago. And because we have been so diligent in our remembrance, so reflective in our recollection, today’s twenty-somethings have accepted that label and stuck it right on our chests.

But, why define ourselves by tragedy? Why let nineteen terrorists dictate the label of our generation?

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Zac Byer: Are we the 9/11 Generation?