September 11: Never Forget.

Everyone has their "where were you when the planes hit the towers?" moment. 

Mine?  I was asleep. 

I worked swing shifts at Vital Processing down in Phoenix, and usually didn't get to bed until 2-3 a.m.  I turned off the ringer on my apartment phone so I could sleep until 10-11 a.m. 

When I woke up around 11:30 I was shocked and surprised to see 24 missed calls, with nearly 20 being from my mother. 

Instead of listening to the voice mails I called Mom and turned on my television.  As the phone rang, I thought that the images on the television were a new movie trailer.  It was almost surreal.  When Mom finally answered her phone she informed me of the attacks, and the Pentagon attack.

"Your brother, he's okay," she informed me.  My brother had just barely moved to D.C. to go to law school at George Washington. 

"Well, of course Brett's fine," I said. "He doesn't go to school at the Pentagon." 

The whole day was remarkable.  I called my work to see if they knew (they did) and mostly just sat there, like the rest of America, stunned and glued to their chairs in horrified shock and anger.   But I wasn't awake for the initial live shots of the towers' rapid descent. 

There is something unique about the emotional response to 9/11.  Part of me wants to desperately forget the atrocities that took place that day almost ten years ago. Forgetting can help heal, but this is something that we cannot forget.  It truly changed the nation.  For a short period, we were united as one nation.  Political affiliations didn't matter.  We were Americans.  Patriotism became a societal norm for the first time since World War II. 

And though we will become united again tomorrow as we remember and tell children about the importance of the day, we will soon forget, and the nation will again risk drowning in the mire of "your side vs my side." 

I hope we remember.  I hope we never forget what it was like to have this country unified.  It took a terrible tragedy, but for a short time we loved our country again, and would do anything to protect its values.  We rallied behind a polarizing president.  We would do anything for our neighbors because it was American to do so. 

Though I may never forget what happened that day, I will also never forget how proud I was to be an American afterwards. 

Let us never forget that. 

"The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission." -- John F. Kennedy