When the world stopped turning.

10 years ago today.  9/11/01.  Hugely pregnant with our second child, getting Caleb ready for preschool, I turned on the Today show and watched in disbelief as the second plane hit the World Trade Towers.  The world stood still as Matt Lauer's voice came over the air "I think we can assert that this is no accident - this is a terrorist attack."  My husband called from the base where he was a student, "Hon, we are locked down.  I don't know when I'll be able to get home.  Put the flag out.  I love you."

In our second year of our military career, the shock, disbelief, and indignant outrage overwhelmed me... How could this happen?  How did our intelligence agencies not know this was going to happen and not prevent it?  And how DARE the terrorists attack America?  Do they not KNOW who they are dealing with?  My emotions ranged from a Mama Bear who wanted to rise up and fight the cowards who did this to us, and in the next moment I would want to be like a child and just be told that everything was going to be ok again.  And yet I knew it could never be the same.

 From my journal the week after the attack... "Tonight President Bush declared war.  A lengthy war, not just a couple of military air strikes.  On the news this morning they showed the first troops leaving for the middle east.  Daddies holding their babies, wives wiping away tears.  How long until we are one of those families?  Dear unborn baby, what kind of world are we bringing you into?"

In the days, weeks, months following that horrific attack I saw our country come together in ways unlike anything I had ever seen before.  My grandmother remarked that it reminded her of the nation immediately following the attacks on Pearl Harbor.  Flags flown on all of the houses, attached to cars, memorials everywhere.

And now... here we are... ten years later.  Duane has served one tour in Iraq, and is serving in Afghanistan as we speak.  Our nation pauses to remember... and to maintain the good fight that began when the terrorist cowards took the lives of three million innocent people because they resent America.  We have been hard at work ever since, making our borders more secure, and protecting what we hold most dear:  Freedom for all, justice for all, peace for all.

And I couldn't be prouder.