Remember 9/11

Never, never, NEVER forget this day. Our country was forever changed by a group of terrorists who decided to attack America with commercial airplanes. The 2001 attack killed 2,973 innocent people.

I remember that day well. I was sick. I watched the coverage for hours, then wished for the channels to stop carrying the horrific images. It took a long time for things to calm down, though our way of doing things has not been the same since.

For starters, air travel is much more complicated. You can't take a bottle of water with you - unless you buy it after you've passed through security. You have to take off your shoes at the checkpoint and must walk on some floor people with nasty feet have stepped on. You can't say bomb. You can't knit on the plane, let alone pluck your eyebrows - those tools needed are weapons!

I haven't forgotten about the biggest change of all: WAR.

I was totally on board when the President said our troops needed to go after al Qaeda. I was like, "Yeah, get those jerks who attacked us!" Then, when he said our troops were needed in Iraq, where Saddam Hussein had WMD, I was all, "Um, OK. Saddam's a bad dude. Get him." Then, no WMD's, Saddam was captured while Osama bin Laden - a frail man who's 8 feet tall - managed to elude the best special operatives, presumably in the mountains of Afghanistan, but could very well be anywhere in the world. And the most troubling part of all this: more American men and women have died in Iraq than in the 9/11 attacks. True - read it here.

War is ugly. Is it necessary? Sometimes. I admire all those people, especially those who answered the call to serve after 9/11 - knowing the war they'd be fighting was different than one troops had previously fought. They probably had no idea they'd still be at it seven years later. I hope they come home soon. I don't consider their mission accomplished - OBL is still out there, after all - but I do consider it a worthy show of strength by our great nation. We have not been attacked on our own soil since that tragic day. That has to say something.