Where were you?

10 years ago, I was a senior at Asheboro High School, just into the first couple of weeks of my Senior year. I was looking forward to all that year would bring - college applications, turning 18 and the independence that would bring, all the Senior events that would take place during that year and most of all, spending time with all of my friends before we went on to college and the rest of our lives the following year. The morning of September 11th, 2001, I was in Coach Luck's class. Shortly after 8:45am, a teacher from across the hall came into our classroom to tell Coach Luck that he needed to turn on the tv. At first, Coach Luck seemed confused, but the look on the other teacher's face seemed to convince him that this was no joke and so he did. We were stunned at the images on the screen. The room was silent and none of us seemed to really understand what we were seeing. Slowly, it sank in that something had crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers and that something appeared to be a plane, which really was even more confusing. Had the pilot lost control? Did something happen to take him terribly off course? And then, as we were watching, the second plane crashed into the South Tower. To be honest, I thought that perhaps they were replaying footage someone had caught of the first plane crash, but that thought was gone as soon as the announcer stated a second plane had hit. Gone also at that point was the thought that this was a horrible accident. 

We continued to watch the footage throughout the rest of the day and watched the response of the FDNY and NYPD as they did all the could to propel this rescue operation forward as much as possible. During my second period class came the most awful part yet - the collapse of each tower, with all of those people, firefighters and police officers still inside. Later that morning, we began to see footage of the attack on the Pentagon and the associated crash of flight 93. As horrible as those images alone were, it was the footage of the collapse of the Twin Towers that would stay with me forever after.

Today, I came across this quote by Elmer Davis, "This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave". And is it ever the home of the brave. Not only those incredibly brave men and women in New York who lost their lives trying to rescue anyone still trapped in those towers, but those who have fought every day before and since for our country. 

My brother-in-law is a perfect example. He enlisted in the Navy as an adult and soon to be father, because I believe he believes in this country and what we stand for. He has sacrificed time with his family, his children, his wife and his friends to serve this country. He has lost friends and teammates in the line of duty. He has been deployed more than 4 times and will be deploying again in January to continue his fight for freedom and our country. There is no way to repay the debt that we owe to him and all our service men and women, but I sincerely hope they know how eternally grateful we are and will always be to them.We will never forget.