Eight years ago, on September 11, 2001, I woke up in my grandparent’s fifth-wheeler, and listened to the campground around me stirring to life. My grandparents and I were on our last day at the Estes Park, CO campground, where we had attended the Long’s Peak Scottish-Irish Highland Festival. Shortly after our early breakfast and clean up, we were heading out for the family cabin near Gunnison, CO to meet up with my parents and other family who were vacationing there, when the man next door said that something was going on in New York. As we drove that morning, we listened to the radio, and my grandparents said it was just like hearing about Pearl Harbor, but worse, because it was something happening as we listened (whereas Pearl Harbor, for them, had been something they heard after it had happened). My stomach sank when the second plane hit the second tower, we knew then it was deliberate. My grandma and I both cried when we heard the towers had fallen, and one of my grandma’s foremost thoughts was for her sister’s grandson who worked at the Pentagon (he was fine).
When we got to the cabin, which had no radio, tv or phone, we found the family over at the neighboring cabin, which had satellite. Seeing the towers fall after having heard it was awful, it definitely felt like a horrible dream that you couldn’t accept and wanted to just wake up from.
Thank you to the many, many people who risked their lives to save others on 9/11. Thank you to former President George W. Bush, who fulfilled his promise that during his term, there would be no other attacks on our soil. I may not have fully agreed with him on all policies, but I do think that his success at that one point earns my gratitude.
Thank you to the men and women who serve in the United States Armed Forces, I’m proud to have a brother serving in the Army.
May today serve as a reminder that freedom isn’t something we can keep without inaction. The men who fought the Revolutionary War knew that freedom had to be won, and may we remember that freedom must be kept, it doesn’t just continue unchallenged by tyrants and terrorists.
May we ever be NE OBLIVISCARIS; never forgetful.