9/11 is my Pearl Harbor

I can't watch any 9/11 movies.

This morning, I watched Pearl Harbor on WGN-TV.  I watched the whole thing, admiring the courage America faced and at the same time despising the cruelty brought on to us.  My heart raced as bombs struck ships and bullets ripped through buildings, killing hundreds upon hundreds of people.  I know much of the minor details are fictionalized, but the main plot--that the Japanese bombed Pearl Habor--remained the same.  It happened.  We lived.

I don't know this for fact, but I imagine when Pearl Harbor came to the screen, a number of people who lived in that age probably couldn't watch it.  Not that they thought it was an awful movie--it wasn't, by the way--but since they lived through those tragic events, it was like revisiting them all over again.

Hence the reason I can't watch any movies regarding 9/11.  I lived through that event--okay, I was way over in Minnesota at the time--but my blood still boils whenever I see video footage from that tragic day.

Every generation has an event that defines it, something that says, "Oh, I was here when that happened." I remember right where I was when I first heard reports about the 9/11 bombers.

I don't usually tell you this, but I'm currently reading 11/22/63 by Stephen King, and although I'm not even 100-pages into it, I can already tell it's a great read.  The gist is about a guy who finds a portal to the year 1958 and discovers that he could alter history by stopping the JFK assassination.  My grandparents lived through Pearl Harbor, and my parents lived through the JFK assassination.  That defined their generation.