A day to remember

   Today marks the 12th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center's Twin Towers and the Pentagon. For many born after the attacks, Sept. 11 has already become part of history. For others, including me and countless others, it was a day that changed America, and the world forever. It was a singular moment that defined a generation. In years to come, it will become the kind of moment where everyone who was alive and conscious will remember where they were and what they were doing on the day the Towers fell. For Generation X'ers, Sept. 11, 2001 was the equivalent of the Kennedy assassination in 1963, or the Challenger explosion.
   I remember exactly where I was on that tragic Tuesday morning. I had gotten up early to have breakfast in downtown Jackson, TN, with my best friend, Steve Taranto. At his request, I was walking the final two blocks to work when I saw a coworker, Todd Kleffman, hurrying toward me. He stopped me and told me that I needed to get to work immediately, since an airliner had just hit one of the Twin Towers. I remember my first thought was, "Todd, I haven't had enough caffeine yet. It's too damn early to be joking about stuff like this." Unfortunately, he wasn't joking. When I got to work and walked into the newsroom, I saw every reporter frozen and staring open mouthed at the TV, which was tuned to the "Today" show. On the screen was a picture of the Twin Towers billowing black smoke from two gaping holes -- one in each tower. My executive editor, Dick Schneider, was standing in the middle of the room screaming, "Where are all my fucking reporters? It's 9 o'clock in the fucking morning!" When he caught a glimpse of me, he threw a roster at me and told me to call everyone on the list and "get them here!" So began the most surreal day of my life, professional or otherwise.
   In years past, I have attempted on this anniversary to bring some meaning to this tragedy, to try and discern what could be learned from the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil. I don't want to do that today. Today, I think I'd rather take a look back on how Sept. 11, 2001, changed both America and the world.
   I think the biggest change wrought by the Sept. 11 attacks is that it forever shattered the illusion that America was somehow immune to terrorism, I can remember, when I was growing up, seeing news stories about suicide bombings in far-flung places like Beirut and hijackings of cruise ships such as the Achille Lauro. I remember the tragedy of Pan Am Flight 103, which was blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988. All of these were tragic, yes, and I was both shocked and saddened by the senseless loss of life in each case. But each of these incidents happened somewhere else, far away from the safety of our own shores. And after a bit, they each faded from memory. Life continued on. Even close calls such as the attempted bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 and direct attacks such as the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya failed to shake the illusion for me, and many others, that it could never happen here. I remember telling a friend that "no one would dare attack America on our own shores." Sept. 11, 2001 changed all that and destroyed our naivete. Not only would they attack us, but they could succeed in doing so.
   Sept. 11 also served as a wakeup call as to how our country is perceived by the world. Growing up, I, and many others, bought into former President Ronald Reagan's vision of America as a "shining city on a hill." We were raised to believe that America was the world's knight on a white horse. We were always on the right side of history. We were the good guys. Sept. 11 proved that not everyone in the world thinks that way. There are nations out there who hate us, and whose people would literally die to hurt us. In the Arab world, far from being the "knight on the white horse," we are "The Great Satan."
   Sept. 11, 2001, introduced us to new concepts that were old hat to the rest of the world. For the first time, we heard about "Terrorism alerts" and experienced heightened security and armed soldiers standing guard at airports. For the first time, my generation tasted real war, the kind that couldn't be watched on TV, first in Afghanistan, then in Iraq. We saw soldiers being deployed for lengthy deployments. And we began to see our soldiers die.
   Sept. 11 shook our nation to its core. It made us question previously held assumptions, and it raised serious questions about how far we were willing to go to protect ourselves. In the months and years following the attack, we ceded unprecedented power to the government with the PATRIOT Act. We began to disturbing reports about our government wiretapping civilians and stories about the torture of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Terms such as "waterboarding" became part of the common lexicon.
   And yet, for all that Sept. 11 did to shatter our illusions, some things never changed. The attacks brought us together as a nation in a way that only a national tragedy could. We saw a resurgence in patriotism and a reordering of our priorities. For a while, we tried to bridge the partisan divide. And we saw a renewed appreciation for our police, firefighters, first responders and members of our military.
   Sept. 11 tested our nation's resolve, and in the decade-plus since, it has shown us that we are a resilient people. We have rebuilt. Soon, a new Twin Towers will once again grace the Manhattan skyline. We have moved on with our lives, and today, are as prosperous as we've ever been. What I hope we don't do on this somber anniversary and in days to follow is forget. Already, we have a generation of children who have no direct memory of Sept. 11, 2001. To them, it's become part of history. But let's not allow them to forget about those who died, and about the brave emergency personnel -- police, fire, paramedics, first responders all -- who sacrificed and saved untold lives that day. Let's not let them forget about the brave soldiers who fought -- and in some cases died -- in the defense of freedom. Let's not let them forget the hard lessons taught by the tragedy -- primarily that we do not exist in a vacuum are not immune to terrorism. And let them not forget that we are a resilient nation, capable of  surviving even the most horrific tragedy. If we can pass those lessons on to future generations, and if we can continue to remember those lessons ourselves, those who died will not have done so in vain.