Keke Rockette experienced 9/11 as so many others in her generation did: She knew her country had been attacked in a way that made the adults angry and afraid. But she was still too young to grasp the random horror of terrorism.
And yet that threat has shadowed Rockette and millions of other young Americans as they came of age and embarked on their adult lives.
“We’ve grown up from that age knowing about terrorism,” said Rockette, 25, a recent Atlanta transplant from Mississippi. She was enjoying Sunday afternoon outside the Midtown Art Cinema near Piedmont Park. “It’s just not as foreign to us as it is to older people.”
At an age when going to prom or getting into college usually is the big preoccupation, Rockette’s generation has also had to confront much harsher realities, such as war in Iraq and Afghanistan, terrorist strikes in Europe and fear of the next big attack here at home. Now in their 20s and early 30s, they tend to get lumped in by sociologists with all the other millennials; really, though, they’re in their own special category:
The Terrorism Generation.
“There’s just this sense that something can happen anywhere, no matter where you go,” explained Heatherlea Repp, 27. “Every time something happens, I’m more aware of the people around me.”
Something had, indeed, happened just two days earlier. Islamic State terrorists struck Paris in a sudden and coordinated attack that left at least 129 people dead and another 352 wounded. As horrible as that was, the terrorists appeared to have upped the psychological ante by deliberately targeting the young and lively heart of the eternally romantic city. Diners were mowed down in a neighborhood of hipster restaurants, concertgoers were killed at a show featuring an ironically named American band, and suicide bombers tried, but failed, to blow up a stadium packed with fans attending a soccer “friendly” match between France and Germany.
Still, there was Repp eating lunch Sunday on the patio of F.R.O.G.S. cantina with her husband, Thomas, also 27, and their dog, Duke. Meanwhile, sports bars around Atlanta were packed with beer-drinking twentysomethings despite — or maybe because of — the fact that the Falcons weren’t playing this particular Sunday afternoon. Elsewhere, young parents with kids in tow waited to ride the SkyView Atlanta ferris wheel (now sporting a prominent “Je Suis Paris” sign in the center of the giant circle) or to have photos taken with the Lenox Square Mall Santa.
“We’re just doing what we’re doing, not living our lives in fear,” said Thomas Repp, who remembers being in French class in Buffalo, N.Y., the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. This was before you could watch events unfold live on your cellphone; Repp and his middle-school classmates were glued to a school TV as the second plane hit the doomed towers.
“Things are going to happen, whether you go out or stay inside with your doors locked,” Repp concluded.
Indeed, it’s that somewhat calm, rarely cavalier attitude of “Things are going to happen” that seems to be the hallmark of this generation. Ask them whether they feel cheated out of a more innocent childhood and adolescence than previous generations, and they mostly shrug it off as if they’ve never known life any other way. Probably because they haven’t.
“I think it kind of helped us learn to put things in perspective,” said David Mosley, 27, an Atlantan who was about to take the CNN tour for the first time with three friends, all also in their 20s. They hadn’t considered not being out and about in downtown Atlanta or at the CNN Center, where gigantic TV screens hung over the food court, broadcasting the latest grim news from Paris. “We know it happens. But we know it doesn’t happen every day.”
Ask members of this so-called Terrorism Generation whether feel safe going anywhere, though, and their responses are more varied.
"No," said Alicia Pate bluntly. The 35-year-old and her husband had taken their two daughters from Newnan to have a picture made with Santa at Lenox Square. She seemed happy with that decision as the whole family waited on line clad in colorful pajamas and plotted out next year's photo session wearing tacky Christmas outfits. "But we have a Disney trip (planned) in January and I'm concerned about that."
To Keke Rockette, feeling safe is more “a mental thing” than a physical location. If nothing else, her generation has had plenty of practice making those mental adjustments.
“After one of these latest things, I was like, ‘OK, everyone, we have to all say we have to get stronger about this,’” Rockette said. “Because life goes on …”
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