So where was I?

I was in class that morning at Lee, just a normal Tuesday/Thursday schedual. After class I went to the sidewalk outside of my class' building to wait for Nathan. It was where we always met after class so we could walk to chapel together. I remember him running up and saying have you heard? I was like what??? He then told me that there had been a plane fly into a building in NYC. I remember him telling someothere people and me saying honey, why don't you find out if it's true before you tell everyone. We then walked into chapel and found some seats. Nathan told me that he had been in class with a girl who heard it all on the radio on her way to school that morning. I remember pre-chapel was just like always, everyone was laughing, meeting up with friends, and such. Nothing different than always. Then there was this girl who got up on stage before everyone and said does no one know what is going on? She continued on about all those poor people and thier families and how we should be more respectful and not be goofing off. The problem was that no one had any clue what was happening outside of Lee that morning. We had all gotten up, gone to class, adn now waiting for chapel, just like everyone else. I remember that during chapel they had told us the news and then shortly afterwards they turned on the huge screen projectors in the audorium to the news. We all just stood there, not leaving for class yet, kinda in this blur. I remember them playing the replay clip of the first plane hitting the towers and it was surreal. I remember thinking it looks no different than an action movie clip? Are we as a society that numbed out that it did not horrify me to see that plane crashing in to that building. To me it wasn't real, just a story on the news. The USA couldn't be attacked? We were invincible! But yet, we weren't. Those were real people who had real families and real lives. It wasn't just a movie, it was something happening before our eyes that would change our lives forever.

They say each generation has it's big event. My mom's was when Kennedy got shot. My grandmother had 2, Pearl Harbor and the great depression. See after each of these events, our lives as Americans changed forever. Not always a bad change, but it would never be the same again. You see the first hint of a change in our lives was that Nathan had just returned from his basic training for the Army National Guard. As soon as he found out he called his unit to see what he had to do. He was told that they were on standby and that he was not to leave the state? But the National Guard was a one-weekend-a-month-pay-for-college-sandbag-tornado-clean-up kinda job? They don't do terrorists attacks do they? Little did we know that they did and that this new war on terror would end up taking Nathan half way around the world hunting for men capable of doing things such as another 911. Another change in our lives was that we are no longer bullet proof. We now have to be on our guard protecting ourselves from that evil that wants to hurt and destroy everything we know as good. I for one am totally for this even if it includes giving up some of my so-called civil liberties such as taking a coffee on an airplane, having my bags x-rayed and possibly even opened, having the possibility of someone listening in on a phone call of mine (not that they would though because it's only those who have a HISTORY OF TERRORIST ACTIVITIES), or even going through a metal detector to enter a government building. I say, hey if it keeps my family and I safe, you're more than welcome to imposse on us! Many people think we are still living in a pre-911 world...we're not. The game has changed and now we have to defend the goal line from the enemy, not just always be on offence in their half of the endzone. On that Tuesday morning they brought the game to us here. When Nathan is asked if he thinks we should still be in Iraq or if he should have gone, he always says the same thing.......I would much rather spend 18 months away from my family in Iraq then for the war to come here to my girls.