With Sept 11 already come and gone, the most popular question recently has been whether or not we have changed since the attacks. So have we changed, and if so, how? The answer, to me, is clear and simple. Of course we have changed! This is just a ridiculous question. I do not care who you are or what you believe, when anybody goes through what every person in America went through last year, it changes you.One of my first memories since last year was reading the first Guilfordian after the attacks and reading the front-page article. I do not remember exactly what was said, but it was something along the lines of how U.S. foreign policy might have caused the attack to happen.

On the complete opposite end of the spectrum you have people who reacted differently. I remember a NYC police officer getting up on stage at the Concert for America and telling Osama Bin Laden that “he could kiss his Irish ass.”

In the hearts and minds of these people, the sadness, the crying, and all the pain they have felt has been replaced by anger, rage, and revenge.

They are open with their feelings about what happened. “How could you even try to rationalize what happened? You go to Ground Zero and see what used to be the towers; you have men and women without spouses, and you have children with no mothers and no fathers.”

Then there is the rest of America, feeling a little bit of everything.

I would say that most people in this country were all feeling a combination of all the aforementioned emotions. Anger mixed with sadness, confusion mixed with shock, and an overriding feeling of “Why? Why did this happen?”

On Sept 10, 2001 we all felt these emotions. The feeling of frustration at our government, the emotions of anger, sadness, and confusion all were felt before and will continue to be felt for as long as there are people. Tears have always run down the cheeks of a child that has just lost a parent.

The way Sept 11th has changed us is that now while we all feel the same emotions we felt before, we feel them now for a different reason.

This column is not meant to justify and throw away the way people feel about what happened last September. I am also not saying that we also need to put American flags on our cars and unite behind our president. But to ask the question whether Americans were changed by the attacks is just ludicrous.

Today, a year later the world is different, our government is different, and so are the priorities of a nation that still has these horrible attacks in its preverbal rear-view mirror. But we as Americans, we as Guilford students, and more importantly, we as human beings, are changed. We still criticize our government, we still get angry, we still get sad, and we all get confused. But now, we feel these things because we have changed. To argue otherwise is illogical, unfathomable, and for lack of one last good adjective, just plain dumb.