Our youngest child, a son, had graduated high school and spent that first summer working for a company that built houses. I was pleased as I always wanted a carpenter in the family.

Summer was coming to an end and our son’s friends were going away to register at their selected colleges. On one of those occasions he tagged along and decided that very day that he did not want to build houses, nor did he want to go to college.

I received a phone call that night and our son told me that he had decided to join the Air Force. I was floored and he could sure hear it in my voice. He said, “Mom, are you not happy for me?” I replied that he had just graduated a short while back and he had never once mentioned going into the military as his Dad and older brother had done. I told him that I was just not ready for him to leave home I guess and he said we would talk about it that night when he returned home.

I waited up for him and we talked until 3 in the morning. I accepted the fact and after all America was not at war or anything so I guessed it would be ok.

He went ahead and signed into the Air Force and was due to leave home in October. I was sitting at my desk at work on 9-11-01 when my phone rang and it was our daughter, Rachel. She was a stay at home Mom at that time and had her programming interrupted by a news flash. A plane had flown into one of the twin towers in New York and no one at that time really understood why.

I quickly turned on the radio that sat on my desk about the time the second plane hit the other twin tower. I began to shake violently and my first thought was, “ We are at War!”. Our son was already legally bound and heading to the military and we were at war now! Oh my! I began to not only shake but to cry as I heard the episodes of the Pentagon and the Pennsylvania farm field. It all happened so fast and then I heard George W. Bush come on the radio and I laid my head over on my desk and I prayed.

The President was to address the nation that night on television and a few minutes before broadcast time I began to see headlights coming unannounced down our driveway. Every single child we had showed up at our house that night and we all heard the president speak together. It was a very sobering and a solemn time.

Matt left in October for the Air Force and my husband and I were empty nesters. I could be wrong on the date but I think on March the 8th 2004 on a Sunday morning, my husband at age 51 got a call and he was told that he had been called up for active duty with the Tennessee National Guard. Not only did I have a son in active duty but then I had a husband too.

I remember my husband and I driving up highway 111 a few days later and we had a conversation about our golden years and all of our 4 children leaving the nest and who would’ve thought that we would be facing what we were facing at that very moment. It was almost as a dream!

My husband ended up getting orders to go to Iraq as a Bradley Armored Vehicle Commander and our son volunteered to go to Iraq during that same time. I asked our son what he thought he was doing and he said, “Dad might need me over there.” I said, “I am so sure!” I was not happy!

My husband had a roadside bomb explode as he was halfway out the hatch of his Bradley and was badly injured. Sure enough, our son had been right! My husband was transported to Anaconda to our son’s Air Force base. I emailed our son and when his Dad came back to consciousness our son was standing at the foot of his bed.  My husband had his son right there to take care of him!

9-11-01 changed so many things in America and took away privileges that we will never get back. When you have to be at an airport 2 hours ahead of time or go into concerts or ball stadiums with nothing but clear bags just remember why.

Just last week I sat in an examination room with my husband who suffers from PTSD and listened to him recall the man that blew his face to bits right in front of him with a cellphone detonator connected to a bomb. I heard my husband tell the doctor of how that man’s partial face comes to him in nightmares and speaks to him. I watched my husband cry.

9-11-01 changed everything for our family and took from us things that we can never get back.

I remember being at church the first Sunday after 9-11-01 and how at the end of the service someone played the Lee Greenwood, God Bless the USA song and everyone in that building stood to their feet, I remember a country where American flags grew scarce because everyone was buying them and putting them up. I remember sending George W. Bush an email  in the wee hours of

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rallied behind our soldiers and rarely a day went by that a care package didn’t go out from home to Iraq to our National Guardsmen.

Yes! 9-11-01 changed us, it changed everything for all of us and tonight I have tears for my friends local that lost their sons and I remember. I also have tears for an America that was united and kinder and I pray for our land that we can all get back to being what we should be!