Where were you on 9/11?

What does 9/11 mean to you?

Where were you on 9/11?

This is a question everyone ask every year.  Me.  I was lying in a hospital bed in my bedroom where I had been confined for almost a year before, and would be confined for a year after.

What does 9/11 mean to you?

This is another question asked every year.  To me, it's a time of mourning.  A time of remembering.  A time of reflection.  A time of serious thought.

A time of mourning.  A time of remembering.  For me, it is a special day of mourning, and remembering.  As a veteran firefighter and law enforcement officer, I mourn the lost lives of that day of my brothers, and sisters, who sacrificed the ultimate to try to save as many as they could from the Towers, and Pentagon.

During the September 11, 2001, attacks, 2,977 people were killed, 19 hijackers committed murder–suicide, and more than 6,000 others were injured.  Of the 2,977 fatal victims, 2,753 were killed in the World Trade Center and the surrounding area, 184 at the Pentagon, and 40 in Pennsylvania.  These deaths included 265 on the four planes.  The attacks remain the deadliest terrorist act in world history.  343 members of the New York City Fire Department and 71 law enforcement officers who died in the World Trade Center and on the ground in New York City; a United States Fish and Wildlife Service Office of Law Enforcement officer who died when United Airlines Flight 93 crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania; 55 military personnel who died at the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia.

(From: Casualties of the September 11 attacks /Wikipedia)

A time of reflection.  What exactly is there to reflect upon? Well, to me, again, I reflect on life as it was BEFORE 9/11 as to AFTER.  How this country was a free country. Free to everyone to come, and enjoy a better, FREE life.  After 9/11, it all changed. Our borders closed like a clam shell.  Everyone living here that wasn't caucasion suddenly became a terrorist, especially if they were from another country from overseas.

A time of serious thought.  For me, I think about how this country was prior to the attack. This was the first foreign attack on our soil, in my lifetime anyway, to my remembrance.  This changed our country drastically, forever.  We are no longer the land of the free.  We might still be the home of the brave, but free, we are not.  Look at our election system, how it has been attacked.  Look at our Democracy.  It is a shambles.  Like it or not, this is the way it is now.

We ALL need to remember, reflect, and stop for a moment of thought on this day to remember all those that died that day, and the years that followed due to many various illnesses, or injuries, sustained on that day and the days following.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_victims_of_the_September_11_attacks