As far as the event itself, I was 13 at the time. I was living about 20 minutes from DC at the time. I was in Math class and none of our teachers were telling us anything. They kept it basically everyone in the dark. I actually didn't find out about most of it until I got home. Kinda fucked up now that I think about it. Kids were leaving school left and right, by the time I was going home, nearly half the school (of nearly 3000, since it was a secondary school 7-12th) had already been picked up by their parents. I remember turning on the TV to watch the Simpsons when I first saw anything about it. So it wasn't like an OMG moment when it first happened. Then it hit me at first, since my dad was always working in DC at the time.

I will be honest about this, but it really stuck me as shocking at the time. Although, no disrespect to those directly effected by it, I was tired of the 24/7 coverage after about a week. I mean, nothing else mattered for nearly 5 weeks, and that bothered me quite a bit. It was a horrible thing, but since then its been a completely different way of looking at society now. People are overly protective and security is too strict. I know its for "safety", but there's a limit to taking certain rights and privileges from citizens. I don't pay taxes and follow laws to have you dictate how I should do things and let you facilitate my life. I saw an interview Obama was doing a week ago. I don't remember the show, who was doing the interview, or much else. I do however remember him saying that they don't use the privacy invasion to spy on American, but to help with Homeland Security. Then he was asked if he knew for sure if Homeland was only using it for "locations or information on terrorist" and he said it only works if the US can trust its government...now thats funny. If we trusted you to catch terrorist using your methods, the following events wouldn't have happened...

-Beltway Sniper Attacks in DC metro area (dealt with that)
-Fort Hood shooting
-Virginia Tech shooting
- Sandy Hook Elementry shooting
-Boston Marathon bombing

I'm sure if the government's efforts were good enough, they could have avoided these and countless others. Keeping in mind, besides the first one, these events all had a major effect on my view on "Homeland Security"

When there is a storm...Lightning strikes!