Project Summary
The 9/11 Rolls - is a visual essay about my experience and recollection of events surrounding the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. These photographs are shot on rolls of Fuji Provia 100F Professional RDP-III film that expired in late 2001.
Completed: Summer 2019
Why?
I recently found 5 rolls of Fuji transparency film in storage that I noticed had expired just a few months before the terrorist attacks in September of 2001. These events happened at a critical time in my life, and I thought I’d share my experience with this film from the prospective of a college freshman in East Tennessee. The thought was that I could include my experience in the collection of the experiences of others about that day. I wasn’t directly impacted by these attacks, no more than any other American. However, these events changed so much in all of our daily lives.
Pre-9/11
In May of 2001 I graduated high school. I promptly moved to Johnson City, Tennessee to prepare for the coming school year. I don’t remember much about the summer of 2001, but it’s safe to assume I spent that time adjusting to life living away from home for the first time. The apartment complex I moved to was called Seminole Ridge located a few streets behind campus. Our building was brand new, so new that I remember having to remove the instruction manuals from the appliances. (There was a newer building that was partially finished, but it burned down a month or so before we moved in.) Just before school started a small group of friends from high school moved into the apartment directly below us. In total, there were 6 of us from Dobyns-Bennett and we became rather close, and for the most part remain so today.
In August, school began. I was a good student then, and I remember feeling like college was easier and more laid back than I expected. In those first few months of college, I walked to school. It was a bit of a hike from our apartment on Seminole Drive, but I guess I felt more engaged in it all by being on foot. I never walked to school again after September 11, 2001. For no particular reason, it’s just something else that changed after that day.
9/11
The morning of September 11, 2001 was like any other. I remember leaving school after class and walking through campus on the way back to our apartment. As I turned left near the mini-dome heading uphill toward Seminole Drive, I experienced something that I’ll never forget. There was a girl sitting in front of a door at Ross Hall, head bent between her knees, crying in the most profound way that I have ever seen anyone cry. I didn’t understand it, but it gave me the feeling that something was wrong. I continued to walk past her, and remember feeling shaken. I also remember how calm things felt. There were no cars, or people for that matter. I didn’t notice any of this until I saw that girl.
When I got back to our apartment complex, I went to the lower apartment where we normally hung out. When I walked in, everyone was there and gathered around the TV. School had been cancelled, but our class hadn’t got the message. I had arrived home just before the towers fell. It seems naive now, but the consensus in the room was that this was all a big accident. I was also thinking that the girl that I had just passed was probably reacting to what I was now watching live on TV.
As we watched the towers fall, reality hit hard. Everyone collectively came to the realization that this was no accident. Once it was announced that Al Queda was responsible for the events that we had just witnessed, we did what most Americans did and asked rhetorically what the hell Al Queda was. The Arab world was an obscure place before 9/11, at least for a college student in East Tennessee. The news did a pretty good job of explaining Al Queda and specifically Osama Bin Laden which set off a collective shit storm in our apartment. That anger had major side effects. For us and so many others, our initial reaction was to retaliate, hard. Three of us made a knee-jerk move and piled into a truck and went down to the local recruiting office. I don’t think any of us had seriously considered a military career before 9/11, but the type of anger we felt that afternoon is difficult to deal with. None of us were rational, we just wanted to get at the bad guys.
The soldiers that were in the recruiting office that day were not at all like what we expected. I think the three of us expected them to be uber-pissed and gearing up for war. That was not the case. Their demeanor was entirely solemn and reserved, in retrospect because I think they knew exactly what this would mean for the American military and had absolutely no idea what this would mean for them personally. I don’t remember what all was said, but we essentially asked to sign up, but were told to come back another day. TJ Burdine was the only one of us who did, and he made multiple subsequent attempts to join the marines despite a peanut allergy that disqualified him from service. He trained with a group of Marines for a short time while he appealed for a waiver, but ultimately gave up when his appeal was rejected.
Back at home, we sat around the TV watching the news the rest of the night. Sometime that night, someone played Lynard Skynard’s Tuesday’s Gone and ever since I’ve associated that song with that day. Reflecting back, early on the morning of September 11, 2001 all I was concerned with was figuring out college. By the morning of September 12, 2001, the world had been turned upside down.
Post-9/11
If you are an American in your late 30's or older, you probably can relate when people talk about the way things were before 9/11. A lot of the problems we had then remain, but overall life was more Andy Griffith like than not. 9/11 was the clear divide of our generation. There will always be a before and after for us.
Before 9/11, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life which is probably normal for a teenager. After 9/11, that changed. I chose to pursue a career in federal law enforcement with the encouragement of my academic advisor. It felt like a natural choice due to the state of the world in those days. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not exist before 9/11. With the creation of these new government agencies, the thought was that there would be a high demand for jobs for them. I graduated and found out rather quickly that these types of jobs require real world experience. I doubled-down and went on to attend graduate school, and on to a third degree some 16 years after the events of 9/11. My story is not unique. 9/11 had a massive effect on all of us.
It’s important to talk about the collective spirit that came about from 9/11. It’s not like 9/11 caused an immediate wide-spread feeling of patriotism in America. I think most of us were concerned about New York and DC, then it became a bigger issue once we learned the scope of the terrorist plot targeting plural America. We spontaneously rallied together once we understood we were someone’s enemy. Particularly when congress declared the war on terror. (The vote was 98-0 in the Senate and 420-1 in the House). The only other time I’ve seen this kind of spontaneous widespread patriotism in my life is the night Osama Bin Laden was killed. From my point of view, the USA chants at soccer matches and political rallies is not the same kind of patriotic spirit we felt in those days. I think those who lived through 9/11 and events like it fundamentally understand that it needs no words or chants to express itself. It happens when everyone decides for themselves that they love their country and line up behind one another to support and defend it.
