Off The Cuff

Remembering September 11, 2001

Posted by: From Arkansas in Commentary on Sep 11 2008

Welcome back!

It is obvious that if you bring up the date, people can remember where they were and what they were doing when literally all hell broke loose in New York City. I am no exception. My sister called me that morning. She told me to hurry and put on the news. Something was really wrong. And then she said that some plane had hit the World Trade Center. Normally, things no longer shock me but this did. When we turned on the television, ABC news was reporting on the situation. They mentioned something about the President being advised about it. At that time, he was in an elementary school listening to the kids.

We watched in horror as the second plane crashed into the other tower. I was in tears because I knew then that this was no accident. There was someone who was starting a war with us. It had not happened on American soil since the Revolutionary War. This was sadistic to the extreme, I thought. All those people.

But the worst was yet to come. We watched again in horror as the first tower collapsed. And I knew then that the second one would not be far behind. Those pictures of people jumping from near the top of the tower will not go away. Even now, I have tears coming because of what happened to those precious people.

There were two other planes though we did not know it at the time. All eyes were on the World Trade Center and the collapsing of the twin towers. But there was also a plane that went into the Pentagon and one that crashed in Pennsylvania due to some very heroic people aboard who already knew about the WTC and were not going to allow the madmen that took over the plane to fly it to Washington, DC.

We must never forget this time. For years, our arrogance consumed us. We were the United States of America. No one in their right minds would ever do something to us on our soil. EVER. But we were wrong. Evil came to visit on September 11, 2001. But that was not all. A unity that we had not had in many years happened too. On the steps of the Capitol Building, senators and congresspersons gathered together in unity to go up against a common foe. People all over the country acted in unity because our country had been hurt, not just hurt but devastated by an evil act of aggression. Worse, those people were dead or most of them were.

There is still a common foe. Why we have not found this person is a mystery. However, we still can have that one common thing. Unity. We seem to have lost some of that but it is still within us. We need to unite against that common foe again. We can do this. We are the United States of America.

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