Remembering 9-11

I remember the morning seemed quite normal. The clinic wasn't hectic yet. Somehow word got to us of the events marring that day and all future mornings. Immediately when my mind digested the words coming from now a borrowed radio my mind developed images of slain innocent people. I excused myself to the restroom. My stomach in knots as tears tried to wash away the visions of broken tattered bodies. Strangers to me now flooding my heart with grief. At the end of the day as I tried to return to my home on the air base, I realized our lives were forever changed in a matter of minutes. There were soldiers at the gate with loaded weapons and what through my eyes looked like a tank pointed at every car trying to enter. We all sat in our cars for hours as they searched every vehicle. The sound of airplanes would send feelings of terror through our hearts--even the crop dusters that once was as routine as a flying mosquito. I didn't loose anyone I knew personally in those attacks, but I believe we each lost some of ourselves that day. The ideology that we were safe. That the days of blood stained American soil were over. We're still searching for our enemy. Yet the question remains, at his discovery will we then somehow recapture the feeling we had that seemingly normal peaceful morning.