The One with the Obligatory 9/11 Post

It was a beautiful, sunny September morning for me in Northwest Ohio when the world changed. It was my little sister's 5th birthday and I was excited for my best friend's family to come over for dinner that evening. I was working on my schoolwork while listening to the barely approved Christian radio station. I knew that if I didn't finish up at least my math I wouldn't be allowed to play with my friend and her siblings later.

My brother came into my room about 15 minutes after the first plane hit and told me that the WTC had been bombed. I was 11 and thought that the WTC was something like a big market. We didn't watch TV at that point, (my parents still don't) so me and my 14-yr-old brother had to haul the TV out of my parents' closet, set it up on Mom's dresser and get the bunny ears pointed just right. We stayed in that room for the rest of the day. As we came to realize that it was a planes, and not a bomb, I thought that was better because it would mean that the building could stand because the base was still strong. I knew that the people on the floors where it hit were probably goners, I thought maybe the firemen could get everybody below out and then put out the fires. I watched horrified as the first and then the second towers buckled and collapsed. I remember staring in disbelief and then pointing and gasping because I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

Dad came home from work around 10:30. I remember hearing the garage door opening as I watched the first tower fall. Mom didn't get up from her chair and Dad spent the day pacing back and forth. I made lunch for myself and my siblings and for the first time I could remember we were allowed to eat on the carpet.

We assumed that my friend's family wasn't coming over and so we experienced the rare occurrence of going out to dinner at Fricker's, which is a family favorite. Our waitress was wearing a pin that said it was her birthday too and my sister thought it was fantastic. It was one of the most somber, depressing meals I can remember. No one talked, except for the little kids and even they got the hint after a while that talking wasn't really a high priority right then.

My Dad made the decision on 9/12 that we wouldn't watch anymore coverage because he didn't think that my younger siblings - who were 5 and 8 - should be watching the towers collapse over and over again.

My sister was robbed of a birthday - she turned 15 today and she couldn't advertise it because people would make comments like "oh, I'll bet you'll have a blast", etc. She refuses to put her birthdate on facebook because she doesn't want people to know. While that is awful, the effect that those few hours had on my family were tremendous. My oldest brother had just recently commissioned as a 2LT in the Army. In 2007 my brother who was 14 on 9/11, enlisted in the Army, and a year later, the third of my brothers joined the Army. My younger brother who is 18 now is in his first year of Army ROTC with plans to commission in 2015.

Without that single event of terror, I don't think that my brothers would be placing their lives in jeopardy, but I am unbelievably proud of them and everyone else who is bravely fighting to protect my freedoms. Every year on my sister's birthday I remember the men and women who died trying to save people from a fiery death. I pray for their families, I pray for their children, but mostly I pray that we get those sons of bitches who did that to them.

In the now infamous words of George W. Bush:

"I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.”