September 11th, 2001 will live in infamy. Sound familiar? Franklin D. Roosevelt said something very similar on December 7, 1941 regarding Pearl Harbor1. “In the Japanese air raid, 2,403 Americans were killed; 1,178 were injured; and 18 U.S. warships and 188 planes were destroyed. The attack propelled the United States into World War II”2.
On September 11th, 2001, America lost approximately 3,000 people (at the World Trade Center, firefighters, police, paramedics, airline passengers, Pentagon workers, bystanders).
At the time I was unemployed, a casualty of the “dot com collapse.” I was home with my toddler son and infant daughter when the horrific events of September 11th took place.
You know, that doesn’t sound right, those events didn’t just “take place,” they were an attack launched upon us. Saying that they simply “took place” is an insult to the memory of those who died representing our freedoms, and those that are still in harms way fighting to protect those freedoms.
On this day, I solemnly remember and observe what’s been known as “Patriot Day” and hope that this “day of infamy” doesn’t take us into the next World War, although something deep inside of me fears that the “small” flames of WWIII may have already been lit.
