9/11

9/11, a date forever associated with horror.

For more than 3000 people, that day meant the end, and for thousands more that day changed their lives forever.

Life has slowly returned to a state of normal for most Americans, and just on anniversaries like today are the horror memories brought back to life. But for a lot of military families, more than families directly affected by the planes crashing in to the twin towers, life keeps being a horror story, a disaster waiting to happen, a constant worry of a phone call saying that their loved one have paid the ultimate price in a remote location across the world.

Let’s all remember our men and women in uniform today, let’s all give a thought to to thousands and thousands of military family members waiting anxiously for their loved one to come home, and for the enormously large number of people that lost a loved one in the war or the people caring for a loved one forever traumatized by the horrors of war.

But I want to take this one step further today, and encourage us all to include other victims in our day of memorial.

Due to what happened on 9/11 millions of people, innocent people, people that had never heard of the twin towers, Pentagon or a field in Pennsylvania have lost their lives, or been forever wounded. Mothers have lost their babies, husbands their wives, children have lost their parents. People have had to pay the ultimate price for something they had nothing to do with more than that the people accused of the 9/11 attacks looked like them, came from the same country or shared the same faith.

I read an article in Time magazine about a family in Afghanistan losing their little daughter in a mortar attack from the American forces. The shock of the troops realizing that they accidently killed a girl, the absolute horror the little girl’s parents felt. The father’s response to the Americans telling they were sorry was : “Now what am I going to do with ‘sorry’?”

Let’s think of what feelings we had on the days and months following 9/11 and imagine what feelings all the millions of people of Iraq and Afghanistan have and realize that we are all the same.

Let’s rise from the introvert thinking of where a community center can be built, who’s religions promote more violence and realize that war and violence never ever solves anything, and let’s be the first ones reaching out a hand to bridge our differences.

God bless, not only America, but EVERYONE!