I don't know why I'm writing right now. Sense of boredom? Probably.
The 15th Anniversary of September 11, 2001 just passed. It's hard for me to fathom how it's been that long. It feel like just yesterday I was in my World History class sophomore year of high school when the news broke and we watched in horror as everything unfolded. That was my generations loss of innocence. On a national scale, we no longer felt invulnerable.
It also made me think of the 5th anniversary of 9/11, when I was in the Panjshir Valley of Afghanistan. When the towers collapsed I promised to myself I'd serve my country through the military. The military was a mixed experience for me and had equally mixed results in Afghanistan efforts, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't damn proud of myself, then and now.
This year's anniversary also reminded me of the first time I visited the World Trade Center site, as the fountains, museum and New WTC Tower neared completion. Entry to the site was still fenced off, but me and my newfound Muslim love interest saw what we could.
I didn't even know what a Muslim was in 2001, and I hated them in the following weeks until I came to know what Islam truly was and that the vast majority of Muslim people are just that, people. It felt so exceedingly right to be at the site of such past devastation with a Muslim companion, proof I had overcome my blind bigotry and a thumb in the eye of terrorists who wanted nothing less than a Muslim woman to be enjoying the company of a Western atheist man. It also felt as if we were ... part of the solution in some small way; I still believe that to be the case.
For all of our faults, the US has never forgotten. Neither will I.
