Everyone remembers where they were fourteen years ago today when the worst attack on US soil killed nearly 3,000 Americans and took down the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in NYC. It was a Tuesday. I remember that because there was a PTA meeting that morning at my son's elementary school. My husband was shaving, getting ready for work, and like millions of others, I was watching the news when the first plane hit. At the time, it was being reported that a small plane had accidentally hit the North Tower. I called to my husband and told him what was being reported. And just 17 minutes later we watched in real time and with horror, United Airlines Flight 175 fly directly into the South Tower. There was no mistaking the intent. We were under attack.
Thirty minutes later, Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon.
Thirty minutes after that, brave passengers on Flight 93 foiled that intended target and crashed into a field in Pennsylvania.
I took a small battery-operated television to the PTA meeting. If we weren't watching the events unfold, we were talking about them in shock and disbelief. In any event, not much attention was paid to the PTA meeting. Parents were taking their children out of school, if for no other reason than to insulate them or cocoon their families from the unthinkable: we weren't as safe as we once believed.
Everyone knows someone personally affected by that horrific day. One of my friends lost her brother that day. He was one of many FDNY heroes that gave his life running toward the danger in hopes of saving others.
Eleven years later, three years ago today, four Americans lost their lives in Benghazi to the same evil.
On this day we remember the thousands of lives lost in the Twin Towers and the lives of the first responders, the lives on the doomed flights, and the lives at the Pentagon. We remember the lives of the four Americans lost in Benghazi. We remember the military lives lost fighting the terror enemy. We remember them, and we remember the despicable acts of terror.
Never forget.
