It is their right to do so. Honestly, I'm not much of a "wave your flag high" American. It's not that I'm "not" proud of America, it's just it has never been my character to do so.
Anyways, this entry has NOTHING to do with being a "real" American. What is does have to do with, is remembering those who have died on 9/11 and just remembering how I took it that day.
I'm not here to talk about assumed conspiracies or the Taliban, so don't even think I'm going to touch that subject.
I was about 10 or 11 years old on 9/11. I lived in Alaska. It was morning and I got ready for school. Suddenly the phone rings and my mother picks it up.
It's my grandma and she tells my mom to turn on the TV. I glance at it, see that it's CNN and, being just a kid who liked cartoons, turned away did the rest of my daily routine upstairs. When I came down, I saw my mother still on the phone and staring at the TV. I could sense something was wrong, so I looked at it again. I saw what is the now infamous image of the Twin Towers in smoke.
I don't remember what I said to my mom after seeing it, but I knew I still had to go to school.
At the bus stop, every kid was talking about it, even though some of us did not really know what it really meant at the time. Once I arrived in school, my teacher, Mr. Rath, and the class talked about it for quite a while, but had to continue on with our lessons.
That's all I remember from that day and the next few weeks are a blurred mix of my parents leaving the news on the TV, the images of the plane crashes, and everything else.
I remember a day in history where most people actually liked Bush and me going with my dad and sister to go see Bush speak at Elmendorf AFB. I remember holding a flag that my dad gave me and I remember a woman giving me a really nice pin of the American flag, which my mother still keeps to this day.
I'm writing all this down now because I find it kind of funny how I did not understand just what happened at that age. When you are a child, you think of things differently and you take them differently than when you are an adult.
I didn't...grasp the situation at 10-years-old. As I got older, I did.
I have for the past few years now. It's interesting that we have all moved on now and keep on going, which is good to some extent. You should never forget it though. How can I? I still remember that morning. If I hear the date "Sept. 11," my mind immediately thinks of that day. It just gets triggered automatically in my mind. Sometimes, I see a movie or a show that has an image of the Twin Towers still standing and I remember. It's not an easy thing to forget.
And how can anyone forget about all the people who died? Just give respect to all 3000 of them, if not more. Think about them for at least 10 minutes today, give them even more if you feel it is right. Light a candle in your house, say a prayer, write about what happened to you on that day, bake some cookies with flags and give them to others, anything you can do now and/or with your talents.
As I've said before, I have never been much of a flag-waving person. It's not how I normally express myself. However, I think today is a good exception...
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