9/11

It's hard to believe its been 11 years since terrorists highjacked those 4 planes, destroying the Twin Towers, scarring the Pentagon, and forever leaving their mark on a quiet field in Pennsylvania.
An entire lifetime has passed in those 11yrs.
I was a student, finishing up my time at my school, preparing for the next chapter. What we didnt know was that it wasn't a new chapter that day.
It was a brand new book, one underwritten with fear, anger, pride, sorrow, guilt, and so many other thoughts and emotions.
I was young. I didn't fully grasp the effects of those attacks at the time. How they changed the entire world, in just a few short hours. How much the next decade, or two, would be completely and utterly effected by those few hours. Those dark hours.

We now have an entire generation to contend with. One that doesn't know the sheer terror of watching the towers collapse, for days on end, as it was a constant stream on every channel. These kids will not know what it's like to watch as thousands of lives are snuffed out, as you watched in horror, unable to do anything but remain frozen, eyes glued to the screen as you prayed to wake up from the nightmare, you family, friends, and world intact and unscathed.

When the nightmare didn't end, we moved into action. We took our anger, our sorrow, and turned it towards helping the survivors, remembering the victims, and punishing the offenders.
We came together as a nation, and as a world, to rally against the pure evil that could take all those without a second thought.
We wore our pride for our country, our fellow citizens, and ourselves, as Americans, and as righters of wrongs. We became closer than this country has been in decades. Strangers helped strangers, neighbors supported each other, and brave men and women stepped up to defend it all.

And now we have so many who could not understand the depth of it all. Anyone, 17 or younger, who remembers it all would be a rarity.
Those kids are the future of our country, and they have less than 10yrs before they start taking charge. In a world where apathy has taken hold of so many who do remember, what do we have to look for with an "unaffected" generation?