9-11: 12 years later

I know this is really late to do this (after 9:30 pm where I live), but it's taken me this long come up with something.

Now, I wasn't technically affected by the events 12 years ago.  I wasn't in the towers or at the Pentagon, and I didn't have anyone I care about die.  But I was in the very beginning of my military career.  I was fresh out of basic training and was about to start training in the job I would perform for the next four years of my career.  When the towers were struck, I was in the middle of some bullshit military computer based training that were about some customs and courtesies that I don't even remember this long after.

I grew up that day.  I was 18, months after graduation, and two months away from my 19th birthday.  I was about to start my job training when the attacks happened, so all I was trained to do was hold a gun.  So for the next two weeks, I was posted at a door and told to guard it until my classes started.  Never saw combat during that time, but I spent so many hours during the next two weeks standing with a gun in my hands, watching a door and wondering what the hell was going on.  I didn't get a chance to find out what had happened until the weekend, when I got a chance to breathe and actually see the news.

There was a phrase going around for a few months after; Never Forget.  And for a while, that was true.  People came together, helped each other out, and worked to be better than those who tried to destroy our way of life.  And when the first anniversary of the event came around, I was glad to see that my nearest and dearest were still doing what they could to make the world a better place.

But after that? "Never Forget" became a lie.  People fell into old habits.  They fell into the same fighting, arguing, bickering and outright violence that they had been doing before. The same political bullshit had started again, worse than before.  They've forgotten, which means terrorists won; we're still the same selfish, greedy pricks that they want to destroy.  Their buddies still have an object to hate.  We are still the monsters that they hate.

I do these blogs and remind people I see because I haven't forgotten.  I CAN'T forget, because that day changed me.  The person I was died that day, and he's never coming back.

I don't have a steady job, so when I was done "hitting the beat", I watched stuff I could find about what happened 12 years ago, and playing military shooters.  My way of honoring those who lost someone or something that day, and those who can still serve our military with pride.

Never Forget.