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I woke up early this morning to revisit 9/11. Mark made red, white & blue pancakes (aka blueberry & strawberry). It’s so much harder to watch this all unfold 10 years later. I wonder, why is that? 10 years ago, I was in high school, dressed up for homecoming week in silly clothes. We all looked very similar to clowns, actually. Mismatched socks and silly outfits. I have a picture somewhere of me and my friends that morning and I’m sure it paints a picture of how young and innocent we were. Young without a care in the world.
Typical teenagers, we thought we knew a lot more than we did. Looking back, I’m reminded that I didn’t know much at all then. I’ll admit that I didn’t know much about the World Trade Center (I had never been to New York at that time) or Al Qaeda or Iraq/Iran or Afghanistan or Sunni & Shiite. Boy, did we have a lot to learn.
Some people still don’t know much about these things, but for me and my family it was a steep learning curve. Soon after graduating high school I found myself watching the news more. I used to think that the International section of the newspaper was extremely boring and only pretentious scholars or people who took life way to seriously would read this section, yet I found myself scanning it everyday for news bites.
My brother entered the Army, then boot camp, then talks of going to war, then he was overseas and I would go months without hearing his voice and it all happened pretty quickly. I finally knew what people meant when they say that you can’t understand unless you’ve been there. I had a friend in my sorority that had brothers who served as well and one of the most pivotal moments in my college experience was the memorial we held at my sorority for both of her brothers, who passed within a very short time of one another. It was heartbreaking…and terrifying. Once the reality sets in of the risks of the war and the cost realized in the eyes of your friend, I found myself walking around in fear of every breaking news story and every late night phone call. A naive teenager grows up really fast.
When I stop and reflect on 9/11, it then becomes more clear to my how the last 10 years of my life was drastically impacted because of the what happened on 9/11. Finally, my brother is home safely from the war and I can celebrate holidays and birthdays, I can call him whenever I want and I sleep a whole lot better knowing that he is home. I consider myself lucky. Many military families saw their worst nightmares come true as they got word that their family member wasn’t coming home ever.
2,996 died in 9/11 and 11,973 died to date in the War on Terror, the War in Afghanistan, and the Iraq War. I think we should remember them all on this day, including the soldiers, because this day changed their lives and the lives of their families forever.
God bless America.