During the months after the events of September 11, 2001, I remember staying out to sea as a sailor for extended periods of time. I also remember talking to other sailors stationed at other bases about how their working hours were extended. What this meant was spending a lot more man-hours for the sake of security. At the time, I was thinking that all of these extended working hours made sense. If there is an imminent threat in the surrounding area, it would only make sense having people in the military devote more hours to the immediate security of our country. In the days after these events, the media repeatedly showed videos of the events that took place that caused a group of building to collapse in lower Manhattan. Therefore, I have seen the footage of the buildings collapsing many times. As I was watching this footage, I was thinking to myself, “what kind of awful group of people would do such a thing?” What I thought was whoever was responsible for this awful tragedy must be brought to justice. Whoever was responsible must have been a whole group of people. Looking the tapes, I’ve concluded that there is no way a single man is responsible for these events. Simply because of the fact that there were multiple planes that crashed would make the events a coordinated effort of a group of people. To this day, I’m not really certain about who this group of people actually are. In the days following the tragedy in New York and Washington, the FBI pointed fingers to a group called “al Qaeda” led by a man named Osama bin Laden. According to the FBI and the 9/11 Commission, it was this “al Qaeda” group of terrorists that was responsible for hijacking the planes and causing them to crash in various landmarks including the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, DC. At first, I thought this al Qaeda group must be avenged. At this point in time, there were many Americans that felt very patriotic and felt the same way I did toward this awful group of people. It wasn’t until several years later in 2005 when I came across a video called “Loose Change,” when I started having an open mind as to who was actually responsible for these horrific events. This video was made by a group that call themselves the “truth movement” People in the mainstream media call them government conspiracy theorists. The part that I do believe from the truth movement is the section where they talk about the demolition of the Twin Towers. The video included a lot of footage in which you hear eye witnesses talk about hear loud explosions prior the Towers collapsing. According to the truth movement, it is members of the federal government who hold the highest positions that are responsible for the events of September 11, 2001. At that point, I asked myself, “Was it a government conspiracy or an act of terror by a group from the Middle East called al Qaeda?” Then I thought, “who would benefit from such a tragedy?” As I’ve said before, I’m not really sure. It could be a terrorist group or members of our own government. My dilemma is similar to being agnostic. Does God exist or not? I grew up as a Roman Catholic believing that Jesus is our savior because that was what was taught to me. It’s just like believing that al Qaeda is responsible because that’s what the mainstream media and the 9/11 Commission has told me.

The events of September 11, 2001 have had a dramatic effect on the United States. It was one of the major culprits of the country waging war in Iraq and Afghanistan in the following years. As a result, it affected the lives of U.S. military members involved in these wars, as well as their families. The U.S. economy had worsened in the both the long and short term after the events. The Dow Jones Industrial Average had dropped several