Stanley 1

Shea Stanley
Ms. Douglas
U-Write 1101
15 November 2014
Preparing For the Attack
For hundreds of years, citizens of America have thought that our country was
the safest and most secure of them all, but on September 11, 2001, they were proven
wrong. Our country was shown that we are vulnerable to the outside world, that we
could be taken down, but we fought back to secure our nation and its citizens. We as
citizens chose to give up our rights in order to protect our freedom of a nation as a
hole. As Americans though, even with all this security we remain terrified and on
edge in wonder about whether or not we did enough to protect ourselves.

The tragic event of 9/11 left our country in terror with the attack on the
World Trade Center in New York City. The attack on the buildings left the world in
awe as the most powerful nation in the world was on fire and its citizens were
either being crushed, burning to death, or even jumping to spare themselves from
more pain. America lost over 3,000 people that day ranging between people
working at their desk job to the firemen and policemen that were trying to save
these very people. If these terrorists could get on a plane so easily, then what else
are they planning to do to destroy our country?

Stanley 2
After the attack, President Bush put the country on red alert, announcing
there were to be many changes in order to keep the country and its citizens safe.
What he did first was initiate Operation Enduring Freedom, a triumph that led to
bloodshed in the country of Afghanistan. The war lasted for a little over a decade
and led to the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, the assassination of Osama Bin
Laden, and the countless deaths of both Americans and Muslims. This war was the
beginning of the changes our country made in order to keep us safe.

The attacks of 9/11 led to the realization of how little security we have for
getting into airports and even getting onto a plane. This led to the changes and the
rights our citizens chose to give up in order to remain safe. In this day and age, in
order to successfully gain access into an airport, a person must go through many
steps to get in. Those steps includes showing your boarding pass along with a valid
ID, going through an X-Ray and body scanner, pushing your bags through an X-Ray
to be examined, and your hands to be wiped down to test for any chemical residue.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has also included other security
measures to go along inside the airport and aboard the plane. These include, Fast
and effective explosive detection technology for baggage screening, screener
training, arming pilots, and even federal air marshals, (Ott 1). According to the
TSAs records, they have spent over fifty-six point eight billion dollars on aviation
security since the attack on 9/11.
The TSA is an official government agency that is apart of the Department of
Homeland Security. The agency lives by this mission, Protect the Nation's

Stanley 3
transportation systems to ensure freedom of movement for people and commerce.
When walking around through an airport, even after successfully getting through
security, every security guard walking around and workers controlling the gates
remain to be on edge. These workers are meant to be there for our safety and sense
of security but even they seem to doubt that the system will work. Any mention of a
bombing or even currently saying the word Ebola could easily get any person
detained and questioned immediately. As a citizen, the airports see it as our duty to
look out for purposely-unattended bags or suspicious behavior to be immediately
reported. Passing gate-by-gate, one can definitely feel the tension and stress of not
just trying to make a flight but trying to identify what is and isnt safe around them.
Yes, the TSA has a profiling system to try to identify who is and isnt a safe traveler,
but that doesnt stop the men and women who work security to stop being
observant and careful with what they handle and who they are allowing through the
security machines.
This discourse community, the security of the airport, expresses a constant
behavior that is believed to contribute to one question. What if it happens again?
The airports can make as many procedures as they want but how much are they
really preparing for. Although the TSA (2006a) has published guidelines for
integrating security elements in the design of airport terminals and facilities, no
formal standards exist and solutions are tailored to the needs of specific airports,
(Elias 15).
Just a couple of small knives led to the attack on the World Trade Center and
the Pentagon that day. Those nineteen men of Al-Qaeda created that much fear in a

Stanley 4
country of thousands that a change had to be made. To that end all cockpit doors on
passenger aircraft were fortified to prevent intrusion. Airport baggage screeners
were replaced with specially trained federal employees. Passengers became
subjected to more thorough random searches. Air marshalsarmed, specially
trained agents of the Transportation Security Administrationwere dispatched to
ride aboard more flights, (Torr 1). Even Dale Oderman, an aviation expert at
Purdue University quoted, I don't know if you're ever going to get a 100 percent
secure system. The security guards will always have to remain on high alert
because of these reasons, that nothing is secure. Something could happen at any
time in any place, but thanks to their alertness, they will be able to get to it quickly
and have some general idea of what to do.