The date: September 11th, 2001

I am a Junior at West Valley High School and sitting in class working on a worksheet. Suddenly, my teacher starts frantically searching for the remote control to turn on the TV after receiving an obviously distressing phone call. After she finally turns it on, I look up to see the horror on her face as the rest of the students gasp in bewilderment. The second tower of the famed World Trade Center has just been hit by an incoming plane! What in the world is going on here? What is happening?

Being the simplistic immature dolt that I was at the time, I didn’t fully understand the gravity or significance of the situation. I just sat there, confused, looking around at many of my classmates’ saddened faces. My teacher stood there silent, eyes still glued to the horrific images displayed as if in a trance, as she clasped her face with the remote still in hand, tears streaming down her face. I (regrettably) remember saying to my friend who sat next to me, “I don’t know what the big deal is, but at least we don’t have to do any more classwork.” My teacher yells at me, exclaiming through her tears for me to have some respect, as I sit back in my chair in embarrassment, not quite understanding the gravity of the situation taking place in real-time.

20 years later, as I reflect on the events of that day, I understand now what I didn’t bother to comprehend then — “America the Great” suffered a devastating attack resulting in a tragic loss of life, for which we never recovered from.

I wish I could go back to that specific time & place and talk to younger me, the young man who couldn’t comprehend the human tragedy and suffering during this ghastly event.

I wish I could explain to my younger self that there were sons, fathers, brothers, daughters, mothers, sisters, cousins, etc., who woke up that morning, kissed their loved ones goodbye as they left for work. They were never to return or be seen again, as their last words leaving that day were heard by the survived families and friends of this dreadful tragedy. I would help 17-year-old me understand our fellow Americans deaths would forever etch in history the day when complete strangers would embrace each other, comfort, and weep over the fallen that were senselessly murdered in cold blood, including the first responders who put themselves in harm’s way, paying the ultimate sacrifice in efforts to save those trapped within the smoldering buildings. The poor souls who, in a final act of intense desperation many floors up, would leap out of the fiery inferno that was once their place of employment. This unfathomable act committed was to grant one last reprieve from the intense heat as they fell to their unfortunate demise. I would try as best I could to convey the amount of anguish going through the minds of those imprisoned in their final resting place, as they realized in their last moments who they were leaving behind and the words unsaid that should have been spoken.

“Stop being selfishly ignorant,” I would say to this younger version of myself. “Think of those family members living lives full of uncontrollable anxiety, as they try to frantically call the phones of their loved ones and friends to see if they made it out alive, as they live minute to minute in anxious turmoil pondering their fate. This isn’t even to speak on the subsequent days following those very people waiting by their phones with hope, waning as time ticks away, waiting, wishing, and praying for a phone call from their family members and friends affirming their safe emergence from such an earth-shattering event. A call that would never come from the 2,996 lives lost in this tragedy. Think of the families and have some respect!”

With such an opportunity at my feet, I would also further explain to younger me the societal impacts of such an attack. The concept of “Left” and “Right” regarding politics melted away along with any petty differences, as we all became one truly united people. The devastation that took place spurned an entire country of citizens to, once again, love one another and band together in such a fashion that our love for the country and the American way of life became paramount once again. Partisan divides were put on hold as we remembered (by way of a brazenly despicable attack) we are all indeed one race (the human race), one people (the American people), and one nation under God that is truly indivisible — a nation race of indivisible people who began living out the very tenets of the “Golden Rule.” I would inform my younger self that many unpatriotic Americans were reminded how blessed they were to be an American. An overwhelming sense of American pride filled the air for citizens to breathe in deep and regain a love long lost for our blessed country.

I would then conclude my constructively criticized rant by stating that such an act committed by those who wished harm on our beloved country and its citizens brought about an entire war to root out the perpetrators of this dastardly attack on our nation. This would then precipitate a further loss of American life by our brave soldiers who would pay the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of the country they loved. At least 7,000 service members would lose their lives in this war, for which they will forever be immortalized as the heroes they undoubtedly are, while countless others who survived such devastating engagements with our enemies would suffer from PTSD for the rest of their lives for the sake of our nation. Younger me will be made to understand the price our men and women in uniform selflessly paid to answer the call on our behalf.

But alas, it is September 11th, 2021, and as much as I would love to educate the former (young) me, I am unable to do so. However, I can, in return, learn from the mistakes of my past and pay it forward by helping others understand the significance of 9/11. As President Franklin D. Roosevelt strongly put it after the similarly unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor, “A day which will live in infamy.”

So as we remember this day, do not behave as I did when I was 17 years of age. Show respect to those who lost partners, loved ones, and friends, pay homage to our fallen, and love our country and countrymen as we remember on this day. Left or Right, young or old, despite sexual orientation, color, or creed, we should come together as one people: THE AMERICAN PEOPLE!

Salute to the fallen; you are gone but NEVER forgotten.