Preface: I do not mean to make this post as a joke about one of America's worst tragedies, simply as an experience that me and my roommate had while on acid.

Me (M20) and my roommate (M21) dropped some acid a couple weeks ago and watched almost three hours of the televised events of September 11th, 2001. It was truly an eye opening experience. Neither of us were alive when it happened and while my parents know people who were impacted, it is not something that has every truly impacted my life.

For those three hours we watched news reporters go from shock to fear and panic as the situation developed. I never realized how much of an "accident" the first plane looked like. For three hours, we watched TV as if it were actually 9/11/2001 in horror. It was incredibly emotional and jarring. My roommate said that we needed to go enlist. When I was a kid I was very interested in 9/11, I watched all the footage and read the stories. None of that ever made me feel what I did that day. It was like I was there. I was watching New York City fill with smoke, I watched George Bush in that elementary school declare that he was needed back in Washington. I watched fire fighters and office workers cough and retch while covered in ash. My nation was under attack.

Of course, this year will be the 24th year anniversary. The War on Terror is over. America is not quite the nation it was then. And I knew that while watching people jump out of the towers. But sitting there with my roommate, watching one of--if not THE-- most important event in recent history, I couldn't help but want to do something for my country.

After watching, we went on a walk and were in a very intense emotional state. It was hard to realize that tomorrow wouldn't be September 12th, and that everything that came from 9/11 has came and went (for the most part). This experience has fully reshaped me as a person, made me more respectful, more dutiful in my own life. Everyone knows that 9/11 was a big deal but now I have a glimpse into the horror of watching it unfold in real time.