I was going to write about my recent vacation today, but really decided after hearing Brian Allen tape his "Vlog" I had to write my memories of the day.

Believe it or not I was only a high school senior and 17 years old. (Earlier when I announced that I got a few groans from everyone.) In my first period I heard the room next to us listening to some sort of Breaking news. I really didn't think much of it. When I got to my next class a good friend of mine, Rachel McCartney, walked into the room and said "did you hear about New York?" After turning the TV on I couldn't believe what I saw. At this point only one tower had been hit, but it was only moments later when the next his and it was clear that terrorism was what we were witnessing.

It just happened that government was my second period class. I remember my teacher attempting to give a lecture but constantly looking over his shoulder at the TV. Of course that's where my and nearly all of my classmates' attention was. When the first tower fell, my teacher responded with "Oh no, Oh no, Oh no" I'm not sure why, but that is burned in my memory. I think that's the first time I realized how bad this was. Before that I figured the dead would be in the hundreds and as the tower began to fell that figure rose to the thousands.

To me the day was a wake up call. Before that I never realized just how lucky we are to be born in this country. I started respecting the National Anthem a bit more. It's not like I was disrespectful before hand, but I usually take a bit of time to reflect during the song that I didn't before. Sometimes (assuming the singer and presentation is good) hearing the national anthem brings a tear to my eye now as it did just a few nights ago at the NFL game I attended.

I hope that we never have to witness what we did on that day again, but I also hope that we pass how we changed on that day to the people who weren't around or weren't old enough to remember.