Has it been four years?

September 11, 2001: once again, "a date that will live in infamy." What does that mean? It means we will never forget. I can still vividly remember that day. Still in high school and home schooled, I was beginning my work when mom called us to the living room to watch the news. There was a plane crash, she said. No one knew what was going on. At the age of 14 I had no comprehension of the phrases they were using. Sure, I knew what terrorist were, but a terrorist attack in America? Don't those kinds of things happen in Israel? I watched the first tower burn, the images of the plane flying into it being played over and over again. It went off course, I thought. Some people will die, but this will end and everything will be explained. I went back to my school work. Minutes later I was called back to the television with the crash of the second plane into the other World Trade Center tower. I began to doubt my assertion that this was definately not a terrorist attack. But even if it was, what did that mean? Mom said the word "war". Even then, I had no comprehension. I had never been through a war; I barely remember the election of President Bush. You must remember that age when everything is just beginning to come into perspective. As events happen you develop a gradually more clear vision of politics and world affairs. The picture was still blurry for me.
Reality struck when I was called up stairs for a third time, this time to watch the first tower collapse to the ground. As I watched images of a giant dust cloud flowing through the streets of New York my only emotion was disbelief. This isn't really happening. Then the second tower fell. I didn't know what to do. Mom said I still had to go to my dentist appointment, so I walked in to the office in a daze. Everyone was talking about New York, all televisions were tuned in to the news. I let the hygenist check my braces, feeling stupid for caring when so many people were dying. When I returned home more events were added to the list of tragedies: a plane flying into the Pentagon, the crash of Flight 93 in Pennsylvania, the evacuation of the White House. As I watched our president make his famous speech condemning terrorism I wondered if we would go to war. Little did I know that by this fourth anniversary of that terrible day, thousands more would be dead. Now I am 18. I know what the word "terrorism" means. I can smell it. I can see the images of Saddam Hussein in his hole and the videos of kidnapped innocents in Afghanistan, later unmercifully beheaded. Should we have gone to war? That is a question that I can't answer, but I can tell you the last words of my opening argument in our high school debate. Held several weeks after the war had begun, we debated whether or not to go to war. These were my words: Bush says "'we will be weakend if we wait". God says, "They that wait upon the Lord will renew thier strength." You can't argue with The Truth.