Most of us remember where we were on Sept. 11, 2001. I do. It was a day that changed our country and the world.
For me, it started like any other work day. I was listening to the radio that morning when the first tower was hit. When the second tower was hit, I couldn't believe what I was hearing. America was under attack. I just began to pray.
I got to work at the newspaper around noon. Normally, the newsroom was deserted at that time of day. But that day people were standing around a TV set, and work had already started on special coverage in our paper. There would have been even more people in the newsroom but, oddly enough, the paper had laid off several staffers just the day before Sept 11. One of the affected workers said he kept expecting a call that day to come back to help with the special coverage. But no call came.
That day seemed to last forever. It was like everyone was in shock, but we still had to get the paper out. I remember looking at the vivid images as they came across the wires. The newspaper was expanded that day and for several days afterward to cover all aspects of the terrorist attacks.
It was hard to read and edit those stories. As a journalist, I knew it was our duty to report on the largest terrorist attacks in our nation's history and give our readers as much information as possible. But as an American, I kept wondering how something like that could happen in the U.S. and why.
Now, nine years later, I still wonder why. It still seems so senseless, and we are still feeling the effects of Sept. 11 through the war on terrorism. I think about all the troops who have fought in the war and the ones who lost their lives. I think about the families who lost loved ones. We need to remember them today and honor them always. We must never forget.
I love this country, and I'm proud to be an American. This is still the greatest country on earth. And the best thing we can do for our country is to pray for it. Pray and seek God. Then God will hear our prayers and heal our land. God bless America.
"But in my mind it was a tall proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace, a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity, and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still.
ReplyDelete.......But more than that; after two hundred years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she's still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home." Ronald Reagan's Farewell Address to the Nation
Oval Office January 11, 1989
We truely are "A Shining City Upon the Hill"....our greatest days are in front of us.
Sena