OPINION:
Like millions of Americans, I remember exactly where I was on Sept. 11, 2001.
I was a young U.S. Army platoon leader at Fort Polk, Louisiana. I gathered with several officers and noncommissioned officers in our company dayroom and watched the news unfold. As we struggled to understand what was happening, we watched live as the second airliner slammed into the World Trade Center.
In that instant, we knew that America was under attack.
In the days that followed, something remarkable happened across our country: We all remembered that we were Americans.
For a little while, political parties and ideologies didn’t seem to matter. We grieved as a nation. Democrats and Republicans stood together. American flags appeared on homes and businesses and neighbors checked on neighbors. Young men and women lined up at recruiting stations to enlist. Our nation stood as one, at least for a little while.
I couldn’t have known it that morning, but Sept. 11, 2001, would change the course of my life. I would eventually serve in Iraq and Afghanistan, as part of a generation of service members whose lives were shaped by the wars that followed 9/11.
I fear we have forgotten something important about those days. We have allowed politics to convince us that fellow citizens who disagree with us are our enemies. Families and friendships are fractured over elections and we increasingly celebrate the suffering of those on the other side.
Twenty-five years ago, I was a young platoon leader watching the second airplane strike the World Trade Center, longing to avenge my fellow Americans. Today, after 26 years in uniform, I long for something different.
I long for reconciliation among my countrymen, for the patriotism that reminded us there was something greater than ourselves and that, whatever our differences, we were still one people. We don’t need another Sept. 11 to rediscover that.
We can disagree and vote differently, but we don’t have to hate each another. I still believe in this country. I’m proud to be an American, and I hope we can find our way back to one another.
U.S. Army (retired)
Huntsville, Alabama
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