September 11th

What is it about this day that makes it unique from all the other days of the year? Why would this one day change our lives so much? Americans had been attacked before. Americans continue to die today. There is always a war somewhere, always someone with something to prove by killing someone else. So why was this person, on this day, so much different? And why does this day still bring tears to our eyes?

I don’t know if I have the answers to those questions. But that day did change our lives, some good changes and some bad. Never before had destruction come so close to America and American soil. Pearl Harbor in 1941, was an attack on a military base. And Pancho Villa’s raid on Columbus, New Mexico in 1916, is barely a blip on the time line of the United States. There have been other terrorist attacks against the US, both abroad by foreigners and at home by radicals. But there was something about this one that made it different.

I was in a small town in Mexico. My brother was in Houston. My sister was in Waco. My parents were in Pikeville, Kentucky (population just over 6,000). Pikeville thought their coal might be in danger and had guards outside their post office. We think they were a bit disappointed they weren’t attacked. I had travel plans for the next month. I still went. I have not stopped traveling.

I faced a similar choice to one that President Bush has been criticized for. He was in a room of second graders, seven year-olds, when he found out. People have criticized him for not leaving the room, for staying where he was at. That day was already going to be hard enough for those children, if he had left, he would’ve panicked them more. I was in a class of fourth graders. I remember struggling with how much to tell them, and what to tell them, so that they would know something was going on, most of them had family in the States, but not so much that they would panic, and not so much that I would panic before I knew more.

Whatever the reason, this day has changed. We have changed. I have changed.