On this day 15 years ago we as a country learned how important our freedoms are. Many of us woke up to the terror on TV, many where there and witnessed exactly what terrorism looks like first hand and many of us saw our government scramble our defenses waiting for another attack. The men that boarded those plans had a purpose, that purpose was to place fear in our hearts and try to destroy our freedoms. On this day our country took a different turn. We came together as a country. We saw many flock to join the military and many heroes were born. We witnessed the birth of a new nation that stood together stronger than ever before without prejudice and without racism. A country with a purpose!
That day will forever be alive inside me. A day when I realized that the enemy was real. As a soldier in the Army I knew that we had enemies in the world, but as an American I had never witnessed an attack on our land, especially one from an enemy thousands of miles away. Why would anyone want to attack America? We are the home of freedom. We are the home of immigrants. Why would anyone want to attack us? Over the next 8 years I would understand and over the next 15 years I would ask those same questions again.
The freedoms we have in the country aren’t a new thing. There are plenty of other countries that share some of the same freedoms we have. But at the core of what we believe and the fact that we actually care about the world and try to help others doesn’t sit very well with many other countries or groups of people.
The fear they put into the lives of Americans turned into purpose, turned into hate and gave America a new beginning. But as the left side started questioning our government more and more and as we began to forget about that day we started turning inward again and all of that purpose disappeared. We started turning against our Military, we started fighting among each other instead of trying to defeat our enemy we began defeating ourselves. We forgot that we allowed an enemy to come into our country, destroy our buildings, kill thousands of lives, and to put fear into our hearts. Why?
Plan and simple….the media turned away from showing how important the war was and instead started showing things that weren’t as important. We lost faith in our government and plainly our economy started taking a hit and the birth of the proximity people was born. Simple, if it doesn’t affect me than its not my problem. Americans started looking inward and forgot why we were fighting a war. A different America from when we were in WWII – The war was starting to look and feel like a Vietnam again. Military personnel were starting to be looked down on. Many Americans started hating the Military and began protesting the war. Seems we started reliving our past.
Now 15 years later we are worse off than we ever have been. We live in an America I could never have imagined. One where refugees and illegals have more rights that Americans. A country that is completely torn apart and nothing is sacred anymore. One that I fear will get worse before it gets better. A place where we fear our police officers, can’t trust a word our government says and a place I fear to raise my kids. Our constitutional rights have been infringed. Our civil liberties are slowly being taken away and with this election coming I fear even more will happen to implode our country from the inside out. We as Americans have allowed our country to fall into the hands of the enemy and the enemy I fear has been here the entire time waiting for its chance to strike when we are at our weakest. Right now we aren’t a country anymore. The men and women who have sacrificed their lives for the past 200 plus years did it to protect the rights we are losing. At this point in history it seems it was for nothing because Americans are allowing it to happen.
Today, I pray for America. I pray that each person understands that the freedoms they experience each day was provided by an American that gave their lives. That each breath you take has been given by a breath lost. That we wouldn’t be a country without the sacrifices by the many. I pray that we come together as a country again and begin to heal our communities from the internal fight we have put ourselves in. We must turn back to our creator to give us a better way and a better future. We must turn back into the country, “In God We Trust.” If we don’t we will become no better than the countries around the world that allow slavery, that allow no freedom of speech or freedom to protect yourselves. We must turn back to the very ideas that this country was built on and become a country again!!
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