Oh, how I wish that our children 25 years and younger could have seen and experienced the UNITED STATES of AMERICA after the insanity that was 9-11-2011.

I was with a small team of my employees in Cincinnati, Ohio that fateful morning, preparing to present to the Ohio Realtors Association.

The news came that a plane had hit one of the World Trade Center Towers.  We all dropped what we were doing and crowded around TV’s located throughout the convention center.  Then, the second plane hit and the realization that this was no accident occurred.

There were tears throughout that conference hall.  People who did not know one another, except as human beings, holding one another.  There were people praying, people crying, people asking why.  People.  Humans.  Fellow Americans.  Robbed.  Attacked.

It was announced that the conference was cancelled and as quickly as possible we all left.  Hugging strangers as we departed.  Now members of a close knit family called Americans, concerned for one another.  And incredible things were happening.  We were laying our pretty differences aside for the greater good of loving, helping, caring for one another.

I lived in Northeastern Ohio at the time and made my way to my dad’s house, that was only 45 minutes away.  As I arrived he greeted me at the door and said “they’re gone,” as the Towers had fallen “and they’ve hit the Pentagon.”  Unthinkable that America’s center of military operations could be hit.  But it was and the horror deepened.

Then I remember the look on President Bush’s face when the aide came and whispered in his ear that ‘America was under attack’ as he read to Her sweet kids in that Florida school.  He was a man working to maintain his composure, struggling to hide his anger, fighting to stay in the moment.  He was our leader and he was pissed!

Then, news that another plane was headed for Washington and the White House.  We all wondered when and where will it hit?  Fighter jets were scrambling.  Media was trying to adequately relay what was going on with truth, not opinion.  Then news came.  Americans on that plane had done what Americans have always done in the face of threat.  They rose up against their attackers and forced the plane to crash in that lonely Pennsylvania field at the cost of their lives, to save the lives of their fellow Americans.

As the reality of what had occurred began to sink in over those days and weeks that followed, there was a sweet spirit of togetherness everywhere you went in America.  People would stop and cheer as fire engines, police cars or ambulances zoomed by on their way to care and protect.  Soldiers would be thanked as they moved through stores and streets.  Churches were filled with those seeking reason and hope in the face of evil in its purest form, that had harmed and killed the innocent.  

The cliche ‘you don’t have to win every battle to win the war’ rings loud in America today.  The buildings that were knocked down have been replaced with new, better, brighter symbols of resilience.  Water gardens and quiet spaces honor those lost.  The children of that day are now emerging as leaders of America’s tomorrow.  Politicians scramble for the crumbs of the 1% who are “undecided,” willing to throw away their and America’s belief system for that precious and confused 1%.  The war is being won for the minds of America by turning Americans against one another.  Congratulations Bin Laden, your long game strategy is gaining momentum.

25 years ago you would not have dared utter the words, Democratic Socialist because it’s devious intent would have been immediately exposed.  Any inference that America was not a Christian Country would have been met with passionate rebuke.  Muslims, while welcomed to exist within the confines of a Christian America, knew that they were welcome to live but not replace the America founded and guided by Christ followers for 200+ years.

Momentum is a beautiful and scary thing.  The speed at which America operates today exposes our weakness to passionate ideals and allows the loud minority to shout down the majority.  Lack of cornerstone understanding of who America is creates easy pathways to change our children’s minds.  America is mocked in many countries as we sell our souls for faster data, easier imprisonment to debt for the sake of comfort and a willingness to know the words to every current song streaming but inability or unwillingness to know the Constitution and Bill of Rights that created the very freedoms that we rally against.

America, we are at risk of losing the war.  Moms and dads, have you forgotten that we are America?  It is time to rally for Old Glory for glories sake.  I pray it does not take another day like 9-11-2011 to awaken us to the insidious plans and ideologies that are invading the very core that is America’s future.  Our children.  It’s time for the adults in the room to put down their phones and explain who, how and why America is.  And if you don’t know, learn!  Recognize that the influencer you are following may be succeeding in their plan to create discontent in your life and in your perspective of America.

“America! America!

God shed His grace on thee

And crown thy good with brotherhood

From sea to shining sea!”

9-11-2026.  It’s time to wake up to what matters.  Let’s go.