Below Average Reflexes: 9/11 We Shall Never Forget

The time is 8:45 AM EST and all is right with the world, mothers and fathers are at work as their children are sitting in school on the east coast. The time is 7:45 AM CST and all is right with the world, parents are leaving for work as the children begin arriving at school for just another boring day of classes. The time is 5:45 AM PST and all is right with the world, families are just beginning to rise to a new day, they are having breakfast and planning their days.

The time is now 8:46 AM EST… The time is now 7:46 AM CST… The time is now 5:46 AM PST…. Things in our world will never be the same regardless of where in the United States of America we live. The change of one minute would begin a tragic series of events that would see both of the World Trade Center towers hit by hijacked planes, another hijacked plane dives into the Pentagon, and one last plane is being aimed at the capitol building in Washington D.C. by another team of terrorists, but this plan ends up crashing into a field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania after the brave men on flight 93 realized what was happening not just on their flight but all around the country. The brave men and women on flight 93 chose to make the ultimate sacrifice by attacking the cabin of their hijacked plane and the result of that being the hijackers chose to down the plane and kill everyone on board rather than lose control of the plane.

I don't know of anyone who wasn't touched in some way, shape, or form ten years ago when our country was attacked on 9/11. This tragic event brought our country together in a way that I can't remember it being in my life before. For a short time there were no more arguments about what party "Republican or Democrat" was better. During the days after we came together to show that we as a people would not sit back and let an act of terror push our country into turmoil, but instead we would band together in support of our country. We would see the will of the American people as we mourned we also moved forward to both hunt down those responsible for the actions that killed innocent civilians, and those men and women of the various rescue factions such as the police, fire department, paramedic, and also those soldiers who also lost their lives that day at the pentagon.

We would watch minute after minute, hour after hour, and day after day of television coverage where they were replaying the planes hammering into the north tower of the World Trade Center, a plane hitting the Pentagon, and the scenes being shown of the wreckage of United Airlines flight 93 in a crater that looked more like a bomb impact than a plane.

The outpouring of compassion and support for the people who lost their lives was incredible to see, but for me personally I could only think about how helpless I felt living in Minneapolis, Mn. Where I’m hundreds of miles away from any place that I could offer my arms to dig through rubble, my shoulders to carry supplies in to those men and women who continued digging, cutting, and searching for survivors at first, but then just to find the bodies of the fallen people in the mountains of twisted metal and cement that once were the Twin Towers. I found the only way I could help was to give money and assistance to the local Red Cross, and so that is what I did. I like so many others in our country being wealthy or not chose to help in the only way we could from our area of the country. We gave, we volunteered our time, and overall we poured as much of ourselves out to assist those who were at ground zero 24 hours a day relentless in their search for those who become victims of this horrible attack.

The date is now 09/11/2011 and we are ten years removed from the events that changed so very many of us forever. Yes the country went back to normal eventually, and over the years following the attacks on our country many things returned to how they were back before the attacks. However I know that I can still see the impact that those events had on many of the people In our proud country when I see a men and women that have joined one branch or another of our armed forces because they feel it’s their duty to continue helping fight for our country or protect what they love. There are men and women that I know personally that had no direction in life prior to 9/11/01 but since then they have become police officers, firefighters, and paramedics. The events of that day changed how they viewed their lives, and those of every man, woman, and child in this country even if we don’t see it now it’s all around us. When I drive around my small town in northern Minnesota I see more flags that aren’t just flown high on the Fourth of July, but they are a part of the household for the entire year.

You can go on any social network at any given time during the year and see individuals who you know or are “friends” with on the internet and see at least one person you know that has a profile picture that pertains to our armed forces, civil servants, or just a flag, eagle, and any number of other images that refer to our country and supporting the fact that we are Americans.

So regardless if you don’t agree with why our soldiers are over in the middle east remember that they are doing their jobs, and that given the order they would happily return to their family and loved ones back here in the united States. When you see a police officer in your local town in a little gas station grabbing a cup of coffee take a minute to shake their hand and thank them for everything they do to protect us every day, but don’t just do this today. Because it’s not just today that they are working to “Protect and Serve” our communities it is a daily job that they love to do, and from talking to the friends I have in the H.P.D. here in town they can’t see themselves doing anything else. If you get a chance to attend one of the open houses that your local fire department has I recommend that you stop in, and again say thank you and shake the hand of even a couple of these brave men and women. These individuals take hours or even days away from their lives to perform their jobs, and it is often very thankless. We need to always remind ourselves of what would happen to us if these heroes were not there to help when we needed it.

This day is a day that we will all remember and hopefully never forget. Our children and grandchildren are safer now than they have been in the past in my opinion, and the tragedy of 9/11 is where it may have started, but it was the heart, determination, and will to move on, push forward, and become a stronger nation as a people that has brought us to this point. It has nothing to do with politics or who the president has been. It has been and should always be that the strength of our country lies in all of the people.