We Remember…

Wow…has it really been ten years since I was sitting in my 7th grade English class and watched the greatest act of evil I ever hope to see?  It is hard to believe it really been that long.  Like everyone else who was older than 10, I remember vividly where I was the first time I heard about it.  I remember some kids joking about how the school put us on lock down for the day.  I remember being scared when my p.e. teacher told us that a plane had crashed in a field in Pennsylvania…that meant they were getting closer to me.

Like everyone else, I tried to grip what was happening to my country.  For my generation, it was an evil we had only read about in the history books.  In my young and innocent mind, I assumed nothing bad would happen to America again.  After all, my country had been in good shape from the time I was born.  Now, I was scared.  I witnessed pure evil and extreme hatred.  What was I to do with all this confusion?

What eased my young mind was the unity and love that was displayed in the weeks after attacks.  `I watched TV and saw countless men and women work in the aftermath of the attacks work tirelessly to save, comfort, clean, and slowly start to rebuild what was destroyed. I watched heroes.  I watched love and comfort.  I felt it too. I will never forget my congressmen standing in unity singing God Bless America.  I didn’t like many of those men, and still don’t but I was encouraged by the unity they showed us.

What I will remember most is when I was at my Granny’s house in the weeks after.  America had credited the taliban with the attacks and declared war on them.  My father and I were watching tv as this started to unfold and he said that me and my brother could very well be fighting this war when we would be old enough.  I thought he was being crazy.  I was in the 7th grade, my brother in the 5th grade.  America would have fixed it by the time we graduate high school.  Fast forward 10 years later, my little brother, Corporal James N. Morley of the U.S. Marines has fought in Afghanistan once already and is scheduled to go back around next April.