Lest We Forget

It was 7:50 AM. I remember stepping out of my Health and Wellness distance ed class like it was going to be any other day. I didn't make it a step before my friend Kendall came rushing up to me. "Somebody flew a plane into the Twin Towers!" He screamed at me, face flush with panic. I really had no idea what he had just said. I heard the words, but the meaning just didn't register.

"The World Trade Center, New York! Did you hear me?!" he shouted. It finally clicked. "What kind of plane?" I asked. He ignored my question and just shouted, "Come on!"

We went to our first period classroom where there was a TV and simply stared. We got there just in time to watch the first tower fall. I remember a distinct sinking feeling in my gut. I realized what this meant for me. My friend Jarom and I had enlisted in the Army just 34 days earlier. I remember thinking to myself, "Here we go." I was young, but not stupid. I knew that this day marked the beginning of something big for our nation. For the remainder of the day I just moved from classroom to classroom and watched replay after replay of the terrible events of that morning.

I remember listening to news broadcasts about the heroism of the passengers on Flight 93. I would like to think that I would have been one of those brave souls who rushed the cockpit if I had been on board. What an act of heroism. An entire group of passengers that gave their lives willingly to prevent the intended attack. I have no doubt that once they had spoken on their cell phones with their families that they knew they were going to die that day. But that didn't take away their ability to do something.

I remember the images of firefighters rushing into the towers that day while thousands of people were running away. These men took no thought for their safety that day. They did what they knew they had to do. The men and women that these heroes pulled out of the buildings will forever hold their memory close to their hearts. I'm sure that these men, if they knew what was about to happen, would only rush into those buildings even faster in an attempt to get out more survivors.

Heroism under fire is how I choose to describe the events of that day. It was the day we all reached deep within ourselves and realized that we had a higher purpose than to simply live within our shells. It was the day that we were forced to acknowledge the genuine reality of the threat that extremism presented us. It was the day that we all decided to do something about it.

After 9/11, military recruiting soared. Thousands of young men and women decided to act. They knew they would be putting their lives in real danger, but they knew they had to do something. Men and women all over our country grew closer together. For a while, we felt more like a unified nation than we ever had or likely ever will.

Unfortunately, those feelings fade. And, worse yet, I hear people say they wish they could just forget. I too occasionally wish I could just will the memory of that day from my memory, but we can't, and must not. The day we forget is the day we dishonor all the heroes who gave their lives to save so many on that fateful day. The moment we forget is the moment we dishonor all the men and women who have forsaken loved ones to toil in sweat and blood in a land they don't know to defend our liberties from a terrible foe. When we forget, we forget who we are. And we forget what monsters man can become.

In the summer of 2008 I was privileged enough to spend a few hours in the Asymmetric Warfare Group's office in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. You will never meet a group of more focused, more patriotic men than these. On the front wall of their office, just above the monitors and message boards is written in enormous lettering:

Today is September 12, 2001.

I hope we can live every day like it is September 12, 2001.