It never gets any easier! Seven years later and it still doesn’t get any easier. Everyone has there 9/11 story, where they were, what they doing. Without doubt, and for obvious reasons, that day will be etched into the minds of those old enough to comprehend the significance of the event.
As I’ve watched the news coverage, they all insist on re-playing, complete with play-by-play, all of the footage from 9/11/01. At first I had mixed feeling about this but then I realized that, though we as firemen will NEVER EVER FORGET, society at large may not always remember. For everyone else, it reminds them that life will not ever be the same no matter how hard we try to regain our pre-9/11 innocence and freedom.
In the news footage from that day, President Bush informs the nation about these catastrophic events while at a school and with children standing behind him. It occurred to me that some of those children may be fighting the war caused by events that they may have been too young to comprehend. And then I realized that as my daughter gets older, the anniversary of 9/11 will come when she asks me, “Daddy, what’s 9/11?”
On that day I’ll have to explain to my daughter that 9/11/01 was the day that my generation was called to arms and answered the call with dedication, honor and sacrifice. It was the day 343 firemen, just like her daddy, didn’t get to go home but that, because of them, thousands of other people did. It was the day that the world, as she knows it, was born. 9/11 and the war on terrorism will be a chapter in her American History books. My only hope is that her generation will not still be fighting the war on terrorism and that her generation, through history books and word of mouth, will learn about and never forget 9/11.
My thoughts and prayers will always be with the families of the fallen and with all of my Brothers (and Sisters) who protect our homes and families 24/7.
FTM-PTB-RFB
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