It was September 11th a few weeks ago so I felt compelled to read something related in honor of all the heroes and victims of the terror attack. I came across this book in my shared library of audiobooks titled, “500 Days.”
“500 Days” was a page turner (in my case ear puller…it was an audio book), a mix of a few different stories of individual experiences from the political, legal, civilian, and military perspectives. In any case, a good “never forget” book to reflect on the September 11th attack and how we, as American’s, can continue to the fight in preserving our freedom and civil liberties.
I remember when the attacks took place, I was living in California, going to my AP English class. That morning we turned the tv on and did nothing. The usual writing tasks, revisions, and discussions were all halted to watch and listen to the news. In the following days I remember feeling a sense of fear, discomfort, sadness, confusion, patriotism, and other feelings and emotions as stories unfolded about the twin towers, the pentagon, terrorists, Afghanistan, and more. As a senior in high school it wasn’t easy to comprehend. There were so many different things being talked about all at once.
“500 Days,” which recounts events and decisions made in the 500 days following September 11th had the same confusing and chaotic feel. The book reinforced the confusion of the time while clarifying things for me to better understand the consequences of the attack.
Some topics of discussion that came up:
- Defining and classifying terrorism
- Defining the rights of a terrorist
- Laws of interrogation
- Due process
- Action vs reaction
- Human rights
- Civil vs international vs military law
- Physical evidence vs rhetorical evidence