This song got me thinking... got me remembering

Hands Held High - Linkin Park

On September 11th 2001 The Twin Towers fell. I was a freshman in College. My very first semester. My dad was driving me to school that day along with my sister. We were fighting about something. Just yelling back and forth. All of a sudden my dad yells at us and tells us to be quiet and over the radio the tragedy that was occurring 3,000 miles away was entering our reality. In a state of numbness I walked up the stairs to class only to be greeted by my professor as he was flying down the stairs declaring class to be canceled for the day. He was a “Cool” guy. The kind of guy who must have been popular in High School… dated the prettiest girls… Succeeded in all sports… could even out-drink my Grandpa… It was odd to see that panic suit him as well. I used a pay phone to call my dad and asked that he turn around and take me home where I spent the rest of the day watching the tv… I was surprised to see that I didn’t cry… I began to wonder why I couldn’t cry…at least … not until they showed pictures of charred dolls among the rubble… children went into the buildings…not all of them made it out.

Grief quickly turned to anger…

I was really upset when “The Day the World Changed” was being used everywhere. It wasn’t the day the world changed; it was the day we were introduced to it.

Anger turned to action…

One of the guys in my class was part of the Special Forces. Talk of war was everywhere. Some opposed it. Some craved it. He spoke of tactics and positioning. How the military was just waiting for the green light… how this war would be over and won in a manner of months… I looked at him and said, “My children will be born into this war” He just looked at me and scoffed. But here we are… seven years later… yeah… poor little stupid girl… she didn’t know what she was talking about…

It is not a people we are fighting... It is an Ideology