always remember.

 Twelve years ago...
i pulled into the lot at work, listening to talk radio. They mentioned that a plane had flown into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. It HAD to have been an accident, right?

Right???

No accident. Just a nightmare. Terrorism, it seemed, was now part of OUR lexicon.

Like the rest of the world, i watched the news that night, feeling like i was watching the latest Hollywood blockbuster...except that although i desperately wanted it, i knew that Bruce Willis or Chuck Norris or even Matt Damon wasn't going to show up and give those bad guys their comeuppance.

This was real. And truly terrifying. And while the sting of the horror would pass, there would be no ending to this movie. It was the beginning of the New Normal.

Twelve years later...
we take our shoes off going through airport security. Three ounces of fluid can't be on your carry-on. No lighters, no penknives, no anything that could be used as a weapon. And thousands of our men and women have given their life here and overseas in the constant fight against terror.

A fight that will never, EVER end.

So what's the outcome? There's one effect we had from those days right after 9/11/01 i wish we still had.

The feeling that we truly were one nation. United. The lyric from that 60's song 'come on people now/smile on your brother' was really happening. I remember seeing little kids standing on street corners, waving American flags twice their size, and people honking  as they passed them.

We really were united then. And while i don't wish another horrific nightmare like the one we lived back then, i wish for us to be a united front again. Democrat, Republican  Left, Right. No matter your religion. No matter your color, or lack of color. No matter. If you call yourself an American, then BE one. United.

Maybe then Freedom will really Ring.