A Letter to Us—How Have We Forgotten?
Be thankful for daily freedoms, talk to your neighbor, smile at each other in the grocery store, use the name on the nametag at checkout.
It was a clear, warm September day like any other. Satsuma was set to take on Baker in our annual “which team sucks worse” battle of the 6A bottom feeders in Mobile County, Alabama high school football that Friday, and I was set to make my home debut as the firmly entrenched starting punter and placekicker for the mighty Satsuma Gators. Big moves folks.
Then, just 30 minutes of time passes, and our lives change drastically and dramatically forever. My question is, how have we forgotten?
We have forgotten to care for our communities, love one another and find the common good in each other. We have forgotten what it was like to have pride in ourselves, our community and our country. We have forgotten how a common cause, pause and reflective point in history changed how we viewed the world, its politics and religions.
It is easy to point to politics and figure heads and say “it’s them! It is all THEIR fault with the division they create.” The same goes for the pulpit and platforms.
No, my friends, it is us. It’s us who allow argumentative tones to lead our conversations that should instead celebrate our differences, not divide us by them.
We had a point in history where what mattered more than anything was understanding what it was like to have a common cause, a common good and belief underneath us again as a country and people.
So many Americans perished that day by just going to work or hopping in a plane for a regular day in the air. Following that many of our friends, brothers, sisters, partners and parents have gone to war—some making the ultimate sacrifice in hopes our country would never face another day where people at their desks on a conference call perish because they simply show up to the office.
As a kid I was fascinated by military history. The stories of Revolution, the Civil War, World War Two, Vietnam and Korea. I never imagined my generation, or myself, would be thrust into a world where war was an assumed normal. Those were supposed to be times long passed.
I remember watching videos of father’s and mother’s, brother’s and sister’s leaping to their deaths to avoid the flames of the Twin Towers post air strike. I can still see the towers fall when I close my eyes. I recall the story well of Flight 93 and the brave souls that fought back to bring that plane to the ground in Shanksville, Pa.
So much despair was felt that day, but in the coming weeks and months we found hope. We need to find it again.
What made September 11th, 2001, so unique to America—to us as a people—was not just the number of deaths or the destruction from the tragedy. It was that everyday citizens living their seemingly ordinary lives can instantly be found in a war-like scenario at the blink of an eye.
We weren’t ready for that. We weren’t prepared for it. I told our principle of Satsuma at the time as we were prepping the school announcements that morning “There is no way someone bombed the Pentagon!” shortly after we heard of that news. I was wrong clearly, but that’s how surreal the events were. There was no way this was happening to us, to the USA.
We had our Pearl Harbor moment as a generation on September 11th, 2001. The difference was that everyday citizens became warriors that day and beyond. We united and found community in being American again. We loved our neighbors and rekindled a fire that built this great nation.
Unfortunately, we have squandered and divided ourselves instead of utilizing the movement. We are likely further apart than ever before as a country, but not today. Today should bring us back together.
Remember where you were, watching the towers fall and remember that feeling you had that day. Be thankful for daily freedoms, talk to your neighbor, smile at each other in the grocery store, use the name on the nametag at checkout.
Today is a somber day of reflection for our country and those lost. It also needs to be a day of thankfulness and pride as we still live in the greatest country in history with more freedom and opportunity than ever seen before. Embrace our good, focus on fixing our bad and return to the time where community mattered, let freedom ring!
Never Forget.
