You will get a chance to tell the story of someone who was directly impacted by 9/11. Your job will be to research Claude Elliot, their lives, and especially the part he played on 9/11. I want you to tell his story, but not just in a biography, I want you to ask a moral or philosophical question in your essay.
Let me give you two examples: In his infamous take-down of President Bush, filmmaker Michael Moore criticizes Bush’s immediate reaction to the news of 9/11. On that day, Bush was at a school in Florida to meet with students and teachers. He heard about the first plane hitting the World Trade Center, but still went on with his day, thinking it might be an accident. He went to a classroom and started reading a book to kids, during the reading, the secret service told him about the second plane – what did he do? He sat there and finished reading the book for around ten minutes. In that moment, was it right to maintain a sense of calm for the kids, not create a panic, or was sitting and reading a book to second graders the wrong thing for the president to be doing as the country was under attack? Here is a second question – many of the hijackers on 9/11, ones who were about to give their life for their religion (more correctly a twisted-perversion of their religion) – spent the time leading up to 9/11 getting drunk in strip-clubs, making several trips to party in Vegas. How was can we explain a terrorist’s psychology to want to die for a religion, while ignoring its key rules? These are the kind of questions I want you to answer in this assignment.
