What were you doing 21 years ago on that fateful day? I was sitting in my family room with my wife and then one-year-old daughter watching the Today Show.
The first plane hit the first of the twin towers in New York and the news coverage showed the building on fire. It also showed the pandemonium of the people on the ground, doing everything they could to get out of harm’s way.
When the second plane hit the other tower a sad realization came home. It was then obvious that it was an attack rather than an accident.
I wonder if any of us had any idea just how much this would change our lives and our country.
We immediately began a war that would last twenty years with no discernable or realizable goals. It ended in defeat with a shameful withdrawal leaving unknown amounts of weapons and money to our adversary. In doing so, our enemy is now the best equipped and financed army in the region.
In that period we’ve gone through several difficult economies. The energy crisis, subprime mortgage crisis, and the housing bubble have made the last two decades difficult for Entrepreneurs.
Let’s not forget the Pandemic with hundreds of thousands of businesses gone and tens of millions of people affected worldwide. But we can’t forget the toll these events have had on us as a nation.
We lost over 3,000 Americans on that fateful day back in 2001. Innocents who were just going about their day, doing their jobs, not knowing that thousands of miles away a terrorist had ordered their deaths.
Over seven thousand American men and women in uniform lost their lives fighting the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. An unknown number became casualties, coming home with a body no longer whole.
Another thirty thousand have taken their lives since the start of that war. The true cost of the defeat is simply incalculable.
Then there’s the Pandemic. A conservative estimate puts the number of American deaths over 1 million. No one knows how many businesses closed.
And what’s next other than more bad news. Crippling inflation, supply chain issues, and an economy that may or may not be in a recession.
Either way, the road ahead isn’t an easy one.
In the middle of this craziness, I’d like for you to take a moment and remember the person you were 21 short years ago. Also remember your family members and other loved ones. We were very different people back then.
In many ways, when the Twin Towers fell, we matured as a nation.
We’ve had two trying and difficult decades of war, death, and pestilence. The next couple of years don’t look like they’re going to be much better either.
So let’s take a moment and remember what we’ve lost. Remember the innocents who died on that fateful day and our first responder heroes who died as a result.
Remember our brave men and women in uniform who didn’t come home, or who came home missing a part of their body. Also remember those who took their own lives as a result.
Let’s also remember the Americans we died from an invisible foe in the Pandemic, and all the other heartbreak that continues.
And while you’re at it, say a prayer. Pray for all the brave souls that we’ve lost, their families who continue to suffer, and the incalculable hole that these events have created in our nation.
For before all of this occurred, we were children, but not so much anymore.
Pray for our nation, and the healing we need to again be one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. For united we stand, and divided we fall.
At the end of the day, if we don’t have each other. we have nothing, and remember…
We’re all going to get through this. Let’s get through it together.
*Words from our exceptional leadership
