We Must Never Forget 9/11/01

And yet we will…if we’re not vigilant

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In August of 2002, I was hired to teach high school history, government, and geography at Bethlehem Baptist Christian Academy (a private Christian school in Fairfax County, Virginia that just happened to be my alma mater).

Despite the significant pay cut this career change entailed, the next four years were among the most rewarding of my entire life.

My first year of teaching history took place one year after the terrible events of 9/11/2001.

At the time the terrorist attacks occurred, I was working in the non-profit sector. I wasn’t feeling well that day, so I was in bed when my wife woke me with the news that something awful was taking place. Like most Americans, we were glued to the television for the next several days.

It was the kind of event that people who lived during it don’t forget — especially those directly impacted by it. And I know several who were — who either witnessed the devastating attacks on the Twin Towers or the Pentagon or who lost friends or loved ones.

During my first year of teaching history, everyone in my classes knew about 9/11/01 and knew how important that day now was in our nation’s history. I had no need to convince of them of that.

And that was, more or less, the case for the entire four years I taught at BBCA.

Today…

We have a generation of adults living who were either extremely young at the time terrorists attacked our nation — or who weren’t even born.

Obviously, there’s no guilt intended in that statement. That’s the nature of life. People don’t get to choose what year they are born in. I myself was born after some of the many significant events in history.

I was born in the summer of 1969. (Yeah, Bryan Adams’s famous song is in my mind right now). That was the summer Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon. Do I remember it? Nope! All of America may have been glued to the TV for that event. Not me. I was still in my mother’s womb. I came along a month later.

My birthday puts me among those Americans who missed the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther…