Eight years later...

And I still cry.

I remember driving into work at 6 am, still rubbing the sleep out of my eyes because at that point I had only been "fully" awake for fifteen minutes. It was my last day of work before I started my birthday vacation. I tuned my radio over to Dave, Shelly, and Chainsaw, and was immediately informed of a plane hitting on of the towers at the World Trade Center. Now my first thought was that a small Cessna had accidentally hit it, since Dave wasn't too clear on the scope of the plane. Fifteen minutes later the second plane hit and this time Dave was pretty clear on the kind of plane it was, and I knew our world would never be the same.

As the years move us further and further away from the events of 9/11, it becomes easy for us to forget how fast everything was happening in those early morning hours. I remember hearing unconfirmed reports about an explosion at the Pentagon, about the Capitol building and White House being evacuated. I even remember rumors of helicopters opening fire at the Pentagon and that there were four planes still unaccounted for. No one knew what the hell was going on. All we knew was we were under attack and no one seemed to know what to do, except for the firefighters, police officers, and paramedics who sacrificed to help others.

When I heard that the towers had collapsed and were gone, I was so numb to the events that my mind hadn't quite grasped the full impact. A coworker pulled up pictures of the towers falling and still my mind seemed to be in denial. By the end of the day, everyone at work was just going through the motions, eager to get home, to be with loved ones, and finally see the events of the day on their TVs.
The very first thing I saw on television was the collapse of the towers. I watched on in horror and fear as the images were replayed again and again, forever burning themselves into my brain. Finally, my brain had accepted the truth of the situation and I fell into my couch and cried.

Here we are eight years later and life continues as normal. 9/11 gets pushed further and further to the backs of our minds as more immediate concerns grab our daily attention. I fear that we may be losing our sense of what is truly at stake when we look at 9/11 and the war on terror that followed. For many 9/11 was a freak occurrence, one of those tragedies that happen every few years, like Waco or the Oklahoma City bombing. I fear that our successes in averting more 9/11's has made us complacent in regards to our nation's security. You can see it everyday in the coverage of the war. Currently there is an increasing call for withdrawal from Afghanistan, and that is supposed to be the "just" war. We seem to be more concerned about the rights of evil, bloodthirsty murderers then we do about our own right to exist in peace as a nation. Every year, the events of 9/11 gets looked at more and more through the prism of moral relativism. We constantly ask ourselves, "Why do they hate us?", " What can we do to make them love us?" like some battered wife.

I don't care why the terrorists do what they do. All I care about is that we stop them, permanently. Because I recognize that our country has been a force for good through our 200 plus years of existence and will continue to spread good through out this world in the centuries to come. We are Americans and its just what we do.

Its 9/11, eight years later, and I still cry.