Here it is, the night of September 19th, 2006.  Remember what you were doing on September 10th in 2001?  I don't either.  I do remember that I had just moved back to Nashville from Austin, Texas about two weeks before that and was starting my second week at a new job.  On the 11th, I woke up and got ready as I normally would, got something to eat, and started my car to drive to work for another day.  I was listening to sports talk radio since the NFL season had just started, and remember being ticked off they weren't talking football but instead talking about the possible return of Michael Jordan to play in Washington that season.  I was on I-65 North looking right at downtown Nashville when one of the hosts said there was a report of a small plane hitting one of the World Trade Center Towers, and there would be more information when they got it.  I pictured it was some kind of private plane, as a lot of us did, and dismissed it somewhat figuring the only damage would be to the person in the plane.  The hosts go back to talking about Michael Jordan and I told myself I'd get online sometime that morning to see about this small plane.  I get to work and cut on my radio.  Shortly after, ABC news broke in about another plane hitting the other Tower of the World Trade Center.  I tried to get on the internet to see what was going on, but couldn't log on to any sites because traffic was so bad.  Several of us went into the company's exercise room and cut the TV on.  I couldn't believe what I was seeing, and thought the exact same thing someone else stated while we were watching this - "This isn't an accident".  I went back to my desk for a few minutes to try to get back on the internet, and ABC news radio said a plane had hit the Pentagon.  Do you remember how you felt at that time?  I do, I was never so glad to be back in Tennessee close to my family.  I called my dad and asked if he was watching TV.  He had been doing some computer work and I told him what was going on and he cut the TV on and I told him I'd call back.  Several of us went back to watch TV, and it was reported another plane had crashed in a field.  Soon after, we watched the Towers fall.  I'll never forget this one guy I worked with who was in the Navy at one time.  He had his teeth clenched and just said "those mother#$#@"  because he knew, just as we all did at this time, it was terrorists.  The rest of the day at work is honestly a blur.  I think I was, like a lot of us were, in shock.  I do remember driving home that afternoon and I started crying while listening to the news on the radio.  All those people who got up that morning and went to work, all those people who boarded a plane to head home to see their families or for a business trip to provide for their families.  They were fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, sons, and daughters.  When I got home, I turned on the news and one of the first things I saw were the clips from the middle east where it showed tons of people cheering in the streets over the deaths of so many American civilians.  My honest reaction when I saw that was that I wanted the entire middle east carpet bombed into oblivion.  Over the next several days, candlelight vigils where held everywhere, Congress stood together to sing "God Bless America", brave men and women started enlisting in the military.  The country was united.  American flags started appearing everywhere and there was a great sense of national pride.  It didn't matter if someone was a Republican or a Democrat, we were all Americans.  We watched the tireless efforts of the New York Fire Department and Police Department sifting through the rubble of the Trade Center looking for survivors.  Hundreds of thousands of people lined up to donate blood and started sending money in to help.  We were truly the UNITED States of America.

And now here it is, five years later.  We have a government who refuses to close our borders and enforce immigration laws.  We have "leaders" in Washington who fail to see the war going on in Iraq as a piece of the entire war and think that just by capturing or killing Bin Laden that the whole thing will end.  We've had people all over the world "outraged" over pictures of a prisoner with panties on his head, but those same people are strangely silent when video is released of a civilian being beheaded by terrorists.  We're told that those of us who look at the Muslim religion as not being a religion of peace are bigots, when it was this religion that was responsible for creating an ideology that resulted in more Americans dying on 9/11 then died at Pearl Harbor.

There are so many of us who "get it".  There are so many of us who understand just how evil our enemy is and know that they can not be reasoned with but need to be wiped out.  And there are so many of us who feel powerless because our elected "leaders" won't do what needs to be done to secure our very existence.

I am not trying to politicize 9/11 or the war at all.  All I'm saying is there was a time in this country where people cared about right and wrong, good and evil, and those of us who truly care about and love this country were the vocal majority...and it wasn't that long ago.  Since then we have been made to feel like bigots, racists, intolerant, close-minded, or religious zealots.  If someone wants to label me these things then so be it.  Never let anyone make you feel ashamed for loving this country and seeing things as right and wrong, I know I won't.