September 11, 2001 Liberty Has Never Meant so Much.

When I took this photo on a business trip to New Jersey in 1993 I never realized how profound it would be or how cherished it would become among my personal photos. Thing is I'm sure thousands of people have taken pictures just like this. The picture meant a lot to me then, but after that awful day in September 2001 I could not help but stop and think of the image of the twin towers behind this soldier and how they have since fallen like the man this soldier is carrying. Does anyone but me find it so hard to believe that it's almost been seven years since that day? I remember that day like it was yesterday. I had started off to work and realized I left my id badge at home, so I turned around and went back home to get it. This put me later than normal in my car. I always like to show up to work about a half hour early so that I can get settled you might say. Anyway, since I was running late I was in the car right as 97 FM came on and announced the first plan hitting the tower. I thought they were joking. I know that would be an awful joke, but it just didn't seem like it could be real and then the second plane hit the second tower. I felt like I stopped breathing for a moment. I remember I logged my phone for break and went out in the hallway to use the phones to call my mom and dad. The urgency to talk to my family was so strong it was driving my every instinct, although I was no where near New York and neither was anyone in my family. I remember telling them. I remember wondering if it was the start of a war here on the U.S. soil. The thought petrified me. TVs were rolled out where we could all watch as we worked. My job does communications and we had employees in those buildings. Everything that was to be that day had changed. All employees were told all attention needed to be on making sure the communications in that fateful city were restored and working. Supervisors checked to see how we were doing. Break rooms were filled with people glued to the TVs. Everyone wanting to know what was going on. We all watched in horror as the first tower fell. Numb doesn't even begin to cover it. I remember one customer who called in the late afternoon who had not been watching TV or listening to the radio. I remember telling him and him being panic stricken as his children were on a trip for their school to New York and he needed to find them and find them right then. I wonder if his children were OK. I remember how empty the skies were for the next week or two and how odd it seemed not to see a plane in the sky. I remember everyone including me watching all the news and hoping beyond hope that they would find survivors. I remember when a local news channel aired coverage of people jumping and how they had to pull that feed really fast as people were horrified that they would show such an image. I remember it all. How does one really forget that. Yet somehow it seems most people have locked it away and pushed it to the back. I don't hear that much about it anymore, but I personally for one don't want to forget. It was the worst and the best of times. People came together and showed how strong we can really be. As scary as it was for me, I can't even imagine how it was for those who lived in New Jersey and New York. I just pray that nothing that awful ever happens again. I know though life as it is, it more than likely will at some point. So, it seems to me that we are now living in times when liberty has never meant so much.