We will never forget!
There are many memorials to those we’ve lost in war or tragedy. From the ruins of Pompei to Pearl Harbor to the Oklahoma City Memorial. Each and every one as well as the Vietnam Wall and all the others move me. But the one that strikes me with the most horror and vivid memories is Nine Eleven.
It’s the one event that I had a front row seat for. It is burned into my memory and my emotions as if it had just happened.
I remember getting up that morning and turning on the television for the news. There was video of smoke pouring from the Twin Towers. As I watched fascinated the first tower crumpled. I thought it was a trailer for a movie, it couldn’t be real. Things like that don’t happen here. But then the horror hit me. It was real and it was happening right before my eyes.
I was stunned…numb. I stood in my robe with my eyes glued to the TV screen. I couldn’t think. I could barely breathe.
Most of the rest of the day was a blur of emotions. But the image of those planes and the blue sky and the smoke will be with me forever. It’s the day America lost its innocence and I don’t think life has ever been the same again. It was the day civilians became the victims of a terrorist war. It was the day my generation learned the hard lesson that other generations had learned before.
The Older generation knew from Pearl Harbor that evil and danger can invade but that was wartime and it was before “my” time. This was real, this was close, and this was a different kind of atrocity.
September 11th marks the death of innocence, New York, Pennsylvania, the Pentagon.
September 11th immortalized acts of heroism in the face of terror.
I will always remember September 11th.
WE will always remember!