I Remember

Today is 10 years since the tragic events of September 11, 2001. I was 15 and a junior in high school. We found out in Seminary that something had happened in New York but we weren't quite sure what. By the time I got the first period at the high school the towers had collapsed and hundreds of people had already died. We watched TV all day and saw the timelines, the replays, photos, interviews, speculations.

I remembered we weren't even horrified yet... we were in such shock. It's hard for teenagers to understand something so tragic happening on the other side of the country. I think it finally sunk in when the body counts went into the thousands. We had been attacked in our own land, our free nation. I remember thinking, "War doesn't happen HERE, it happens everywhere else." News anchors kept calling it the "Pearl Harbor of our day."

I remember calling my mom at home from the payphone by the gym. I was terrified that Dad was going to be whisked off to war right away. I was scared that something was going to happen in Yuma. I'd been hearing rumors that Yuma was on the terrorist hit list because it's the location of Yuma Proving Ground and the Marine Corps Air Station. Yuma is also home to a very long runway that is an alternate site for the space shuttle landings. I was worried something was going to happen and I wouldn't have been able to be with my family again.

The news images are seared into my brain. The plane coming around the second tower and the collision. People throwing themselves out of windows. The towers collapsing while thousands were still trapped inside. The firemen and police officers rushing into the debris. People staggering out of the rubble coated in dust, soot, and blood. The flag.

Fred Child hosts Performance Today on NPR and I only ever listen if it happens to be on while I'm in the car. I was driving on Friday and he was doing a reminiscing piece about what went on at his radio station on 9/11. They were requested to play Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings to help America to mourn. It is a sad, melancholy piece. I cried in the car as they were playing it and remembering everything that happened a decade ago.

May God bless everyone who lost their lives and those who were left picking up the pieces.

May God bless the firemen, policemen, and all our servicemen.

May God bless America. This is His land.