Zac Byer: Are we the 9/11 Generation?

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?

Our grandfathers did not grow up in the “Pearl Harbor Generation.” Instead, History ran its course and our grandfathers determined their own label. Within two decades, our grandfathers defeated Hitler, raised the flag on Iwo Jima, and built the foundations of a national infrastructure. It was not until more than fifty years after Pearl Harbor that Tom Brokaw wrote – in ink – the label our grandfathers’ generation will always wear: The Greatest Generation.

And so, maybe we can define a generation. But, just as we wait to see how History will judge men like George W. Bush and Barack Obama, we owe it to ourselves to wait to write our label through our actions. By no means should we forget about 9/11, or feel any less pain for the heartache and longing and sorrow it engenders. Yet, instead of defining ourselves by tragedy, let’s look to the next few decades as our proving ground. Maybe we will reform Social Security and Medicare, and we can become “The Responsible Generation.” Or maybe we will overhaul the way our state and local governments approach schooling, and we can become “The Education Generation.” We can do this without forgetting 9/11. We can do this while coming out from its shadow. Like our grandfathers, we can earn our label.

I realize I write this at the serious risk of appearing wide-eyed and overly optimistic. I do not mean to be trite, nor do I intend to take away from the memories we carry with us from that horrific September day ten years ago. I simply want us to be careful about any label we accept, because we are capable of earning one on our own. We have decades ahead of us to change the way this nation approaches complex issues. Let’s take our time . . . History will, too.