On a workday morning in America, reports came in of smoke coming from the World Trade Center tower in New York City. I remember exactly where I was, I remember those morning moments, and the people that I stood there with on that day.
I sat in the control room of the Titan/Centaur rocket. We had monitors throughout the control room and one was on CNN Headline News, when it was 24 hour news. Robin Meade came on and said they were following up on reports a plane, they didn’t know how big at the time, had hit the tower. They seemed to believe it was a small plane and an accident.
I felt that this was extremely unusual, as something like this had never happened before. I watched for a while as they continued to provide live coverage of the event, and I called in the manager of the facility to see what was happening in the news. Soon all the engineers came into the control room to see what was happening. Right before our eyes, we all watched the second plane hit the second tower. At that point we knew this was no accident.
There was a lot of questions and confusion. We soon heard that America was under attack and that the Pentagon was hit by a plane and a plane crashed in Pennsylvania. They sent us home by noon that day. The base was on high alert.
For me, that was the day, but it was a defining moment in my life, as I was a Navy Reservist, and was wondering what the future was. What would be our response? Who did this? It wasn’t long before we knew it was Al Qaida.
We watched the news 24/7 for weeks, months, as the site was cleaned up, and we heard stories about survivors and heroes. We watched as our friends and families were called up to serve in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Kuwait. We felt that America would and could respond with an unwavering force. And we did! But the mastermind of this was not so easily found, Osama Bin Laden.
Today September 11, 2021, twenty years later, we are looking back, remembering, memorializing, and reflecting about all the people lost, lives changed and what it all means. NYC, Shanksville, PA, and Washington DC; These are the places, the epicenter of mourning, and yet our nation mourns together.
If there is something to take away from all of this, it is that we some how we forget that we are ALL Americans. We were ALL attacked, Democrats and Republicans; Christians, Muslims and Jews; Black, White, Asian, and Hispanic. Terrorism did not discriminate on which American would lose their lives on that fateful day.
We are better as a nation when we love our neighbor as ourselves. This is the moral, the memory of that moment. We did come together, and we were a kinder nation. For a moment, we were color blind, united as one people, selfless in our devotion to each other. We should never need another 9.11 to return to a time where we see our neighbors as our friends and fellow patriots all striving to do our best for each other. That time is now and every day forward.