Honoring by Living

September 11, 2001 was my freshman year of college. Walking out my 8 am class (I was a freshman, I didn’t know….), there was a crowd gathered in front of the tvs in the lounge. I sat there for the next two or three hours. Periodically talking to my mom on the phone as she tried to get in touch with relatives and family friends. Just after the towers collapsed, I received a phone call from my brother who had been trying to reach my mom. He was in the Air Force at the time on a C-17 crew and had been called in and told to bring his bag because he wouldn’t be going home for a while.

For the rest of that day, we slowly reached out to people. Also touching bases with the members of the family that were serving in the military, the family used phones and email and IM to reassure each other that some things were okay.

Last night, I asked my soldier what he remembered about September 11, 2001. He was a cadet at the United States Military Academy (West Point).

I was in PL300 (a military class) at West Point when an Officer ran down the hall yelling “turn on the news.” We sat in stunned silence. We knew two things: 1) Many of my fellow New Yorkers were dead. 2) We were headed to war. I’d gladly go back to Afghanistan today. We will never forget.

For him, 9/11 is an intensely personal thing. He is a New Yorker, his family from Long Island “since the Mayflower” as he puts it. He was part of the USMA Glee Club that performed at the reopening of the Stock Exchange and visited Ground Zero just days after the attack. Nine years later, he still watches the video footage in a sort of stunned silence. He had already committed to the Army before that day, but it gave his commitment new meaning, intensity and focus.

As I sit at my desk on this beautiful, crisp fall morning, I wonder how do you appropriately recognize this day?

I will enjoy the fact that this year, my Soldier is here. My son is healthy and happy. And we have the opportunity to spend every day walking among heroes, to thank them for what they do. And I’m reminding myself to hold on to the feeling that this day evokes- pride in what we as a country can do, sorrow for those we lost, awe for those willing to face the danger to save others- and feel it every day.