The Biggest Threat

“Students, faculty, and staff…. It is a very sad day for America.”

The world stopped. We were at nuclear war. I knew it, but didn’t want to show it. The faces of my classmates showed the same mix of concern and strength. Would we make it home to our parents that day? We didn’t know. Was this to be the end for us? We were all promising students in an advanced placement classes at our high school. How long would it take for the missiles to get here? Could we run home in that amount of time? Would the school even let us leave? We’d have to break out if they didn’t. We were all going to at least try to get home; I could see it in everyone’s face.

“The president…” our English teacher muttered, and sank to her desk.

The president? I wondered. Why would she be worried about the president when her own family was in such immediate danger?

“The Space Shuttle Challenger was lost today on takeoff,” the loud speaker in the front of the class boomed. “Everyone aboard has perished….”

The rest of the words were drowned out of my mind. I remembered watching the first Space Shuttle take off when I was in elementary school. We’d all assembled in the hallways so that the few TVs we had might be enough for all of us to see the lift off. It was an amazing moment.

There was a sigh of relief, followed by the setting in of the reality that we had just lost seven astronauts. I instantly felt terrible that I was relieved. But I, and the rest of the class, thought nuclear war had started. Our teacher? She was sure the President had been assassinated. While we knew about Kennedy, none of us were alive at that time. While she knew, full well, about nuclear war, her worst day for America, obviously, was much different than ours.

We were thinking the end of the world. She was thinking the end of a leader. Both were a definite threat to our security, the world being what it was at the time – even at what it is now – but the perspectives were so much different. There was never a moment in a high school anywhere, up to that point, that was more silent.

It was one moment, and one moment only, but one that has served the test of time for me. It will always remind me that my worst possible moment will always be much different from the worst possible moment of any other person. For the children and the families of the Challenger crew, this was probably the worst possible moment of their life. For our teacher, a president’s assassination was the worst possible moment. For us, the students? We felt our worst possible moment was veiled in the cover of day soon to come.

Word Count: 483