Ever since I was a little kid, I always had a nightmare of a great tragedy that would change the world forever. It would always take the form of some natural disaster or some kind of horrible foreign attack on American soil. The world would be thrown into turmoil and our comfortable lives would be replaced with violence and agony forevermore. I never knew what form this great calamity would manifest itself, but I always knew that it was coming, and it scared the hell out of me.

On September 11, 2001, my worst nightmare came true. All I could do was watch as thousands of Americans were slaughtered by radical Islamofascists in the name of Allah. It was the day I had feared all my life. I knew it immediately. The world I was living in had just been destroyed. The tranquility of being supposedly untouchable had been destroyed as I watched those towers fall to the ground over and over again.

But this day had not been without precedent. On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked the United States in the most devastating sneak attack in our Nation’s history at that point. America had done nothing to provoke this attack, but they had done nothing to prevent it, either. Our country had been drawn into a false sense of security provided by two large oceans. It had been quite a while since we fought a major conflict on our soil and all our enemies were across those vast waters. We thought that we could turn a blind eye to the growing conflict in Europe and in the rest of the world. The attack on Hawaii changed all that. We could no longer sit idly by while our enemies attempted to destroy not only us, but the rest of the world. America and the Allies had to do what they had to do to win the conflict against our enemies, including using the world’s most feared weapons to facilitate victory. On that terrible day five years ago we were at war, like we were after Pearl Harbor.

But something else happened on that day that did not happen in my nightmares. Our country united as it never has in my lifetime. America refused to lie down and die. A new sense of patriotism was born out of the rubble at Ground Zero. People began to wave the flag again. People began to take a new found interest in our role as citizens of the greatest nation on Earth. They looked at themselves and decided to not only make themselves better, to make the world they live in a better place however they could. Instead of America crumbling under the weight of the tragedy, as our enemies wanted us to, it was awakened once again to the knowledge of what it is and what it can be.

The events of that day five years ago directly changed the course of my life. I woke up that day, twenty years old, not caring about anything or anybody in the world besides myself. I went to bed that night questioning what was really important in my life, what I wanted to do with it. In the last five years I have become spiritually, intellectually, and politically active. Everything I have done in the last five years seems to tie back to the events of September 11, 2001. I have tried my very hardest to do whatever I can in my capacity to make sure that those who lost their lives on that terrible day did not die in vain. I can point to that day and say with absolute certainty as the day I made a conscious decision to make my life mean something. I am not the same person I was on September 10, 2001.

I am not the only one. We all work as individuals, each doing our own small part. But the sum of our small part equals something greater. We are tired, but we are not weak, nor has our resolve dimmed. We don’t want money and we don’t want glory. What we want is a world where our families and our children do not have to live in fear of somebody blowing them up for not believing what they believe. This is the conflict of our lives, and we will see it done. We are united in this cause and we will prevail.

Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.

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