9/11 Anniversary

Some quick thoughts about the attacks that took place eight years ago today.  In the news today was a report about efforts to develop a curriculum for teaching about 9-11.  Since I home school our kids, I thought it a worthwhile site to look up. It is learnabout9-11.org .  Although I did not yet purchase the curriculum, my 12 year old daughter and I did view the 12 minute video which summarized what happened on that day.  She was only four when it happened, but she does remember so much of that day as we were getting ready to check out of an Illinois motel and drive to our Maryland home.  We had the TV on in the motel room as the terrible events transpired and we packed up our stuff for the long drive ahead.  She remembers our discussing the wisdom of driving to Washington as we traveled on near desolate highways contemplating the attacks that had been going on that day.  Here we were, in the middle of central Illinois, far from any targets, and we were headed straight for the Washington DC metropolitan area.  No one could say for sure what would happen next, so why not stay in the midwest for a few days?  Well, we just kept on going and got home and thankfully, no attacks have been committed on U.S. soil since that day.

Today, I was reminded of how it felt to watch that first tower collapse to the ground at 10:00 AM.  The plane crash and fires and explosions were bad, of course, but somehow the pancaking of the entire tower brought the true nature of this awful and devastating tragedy home.