9/11 Tribute

Today is September 11.  For those of us old enough to remember, it will by a date never forgotten.  For the young, it has become an unquestioned way of life. This was the day that we became vulnerable or at least realized our vulnerabilities.  This was the worst attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor and for me it represented a special loss.  Not only did we lose our innocence, but we lost our cousin.  On board American Airlines flight 77 bound for Los Angeles, Bryan Jack, an analyst at the Pentagon, was heading for an assignment for his work in the clandestine world in which he lived.  Middle aged and newly married, I'm sure that he didn't expect to become an early casualty in the war on terror.   But he did.  As the Boeing 757 careened towards the Pentagon, there is no way to know what went through the minds of the 58 passengers, 4 flight attendants and 2 pilots that day.  But certainly, in the minds of the terrorists, they were destroying America.  Thankfully, they did not.  Though many mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, wives and husbands, children and cousins were destroyed, the United States was not, the Pentagon was not, we were not.  As we contemplate our losses today, whether personal or not, let's thank God for the strength He gives us to carry on.