Tomorrow marks the 16th anniversary of 9/11. I can't believe 16 years have gone by.

World Trade Center Attacked
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It's hard to believe that my oldest son is learning about it from a history book and younger generations don't even know about it, while I remember exactly where I was. That morning I was with my girlfriend at the time, at the University of Idaho. We woke up to screams from the next room yelling at us to turn on the TV. That an airplane had crashed into the World Trade Center. It was exactly like everyone describes it. Like watching a movie. We turned on the TV in disbelief. Watch as Matt Lauer and the Today Show walked us through the events that were unfolding in front of us. Then it happened. We all stopped talking and watched the second plane hit the second tower. I remember vividly sitting back on the couch and was angry. I was angry at the fact that this was happening to so many innocent people. Nothing could prepare the country and our small piece of the world for what was happening on our TV's on this amazingly beautiful Tuesday morning. I was boiling up, and what was the most frustrating was not knowing what to do next. And honestly, what could we have done from a small town of Moscow Idaho at that time. I left her house before the first tower came down. The smell and sound of the campus are something that still to this day has never left me. It was sweet and aromatic, the season was coming of age. Moving from the heat of the summer to cool embrace of an upcoming fall. And the silence was deafening. What usually was a packed campus of college kids talking about the weekend and drink specials that accompany a Monday night, was silent. The wind didn't even seem like it came. It was just still. Just like the rest of the country during those moments between the second tower struck to the fall of the two giants. It was a feeling of disbelief. It was a feeling of helplessness, and it was also a memory that will never fade. Each year the anniversary comes and each year I remember walking into the doors of Delta Tau Delta talking to all my brothers and discussing who was going to go to the recruiting office and which branch we were going to serve in. It was no joke. We felt a need to help. We wanted to help, we had to serve in some way. Many of us since then have giving back in ways that we never thought we could, and many have joined military service. It was much like that day back in December of 1941 that lived in infamy. This was our Pearl Harbor. Each year that passes feels just the same like it just happened. And it still stings. WE have come a long way since then and in many ways its crazy to look back and think, how in the world did we even live in a time like that, before 9/11.

 

Where were you when you heard the news on September 11, 2001?

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