I've had a lot of thoughts lately too big for Facebook, so I figured it was time to renew my blog from a few years ago. And today seems like the right day for my first post as I have a lot going through my mind.
12 years ago I remember sitting at my desk hearing about the attacks and then following the news on CNN.com until the website went dow… I remember driving home in the afternoon, listening to the news, people wondering whether or not there were more planes out there and what would happen next. I remember that concern Kristy and I felt when we rushed out to the street after we heard a large boom overhead that rattled our windows and shook the house, and seeing what looked like white smoke in the sky thinking that something had been shot down. It turned out to be a fighter jet from Wright-Patt AFB that broke the sound barrier causing a sonic boom - but the terror and confusion of the day is something I will never forget. However, as real as it seemed then, it seems even more real now, as in the last couple years, the reality of that event has been etched into my mind even more.
Last year, on our way to NJ for a wedding, we stopped by the Flight 93 Memorial in PA. Seeing the field near Shanksville where Flight 93 crashed knowing that courageous Americans sacrificed their lives for countless others was special and somber in the same moment. And then trying to explain what happened to a 4 yr old who was asking unbelievably good questions, and why we were there was especially challenging. He's to the point, even then, that he knows there are bad people in this world, and to this day he still asks about going back to the place where the plane crashed. As a member of the generation who was not even born that day and did not witness the events unfolding real-time in person or on TV, to him, it will be an event that occurred in the history books, much like Pearl Harbor. However he'll likely see the war continue on for many years to come.
And then frequently in the last couple years, I spent a lot of time traveling to D.C., flying right over the Pentagon on our approach in and out of Reagan National. Looking down on the Pentagon where the airplane crashed, and the adjacent memorial with its 184 benches, and thinking about the people who died and the terror they must have felt when they were simply traveling for business just like I was doing, was very surreal. You think about how people can do that to other people, and what you would do in that situation. But then, all I had to do was look the other way and you see the US Capitol Building, the National Mall and all the monuments and memorials and the greatness of our democracy. And in that likeness, you realize that in one instant, you can see death and destruction and in the next instant, you turn your head and see the greatest this country and the American people have to offer, and that freedom and the goodness of people will ultimately prevail. We saw that in NY, DC, Shanksville, and most recently Boston, and it's that hope that needs to get us through this pivotal time in history.
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