My brother Chris enlisted in the Army so he could support his family. The United States was not involved in any major "conflicts." I told him he was stupid for signing up. I was mad and frustrated because he was putting himself in danger. He promised me he would be OK.
He went to boot camp and did his basic training on the East Coast. He flew back to California in a fuel-loaded plane Sept. 10, 2001. It could have been him. He could have been in the plane that crashed. He was asleep with his wife when the attacks took place.
I stared at the television in horror as I saw smoke pouring from one of the towers. At that point only one had been hit, and they weren't sure if it had been done by accident or on purpose. Then a plane flew into the second tower.
It wasn't an accident.
I burst into tears. I was scared and I refused to go to school that day. I sat on the couch in horror. The news didn't get better. More planes crashed, and buildings tumbled to the ground. News stations kept playing the footage over and over again. No one could really believe this was happening to the most powerful country in the world.
I have lived on the West Coast for my entire life and even though the Sept. 11 attacks didn't happen physically near to me — in fact, the attacks happened more than 2,800 miles away — they certainly hit home hard.
People all across the U.S., and even the world, felt the pain. The hurt the nation felt unified it.
The nationalism we experienced drove the country to approve of a war it would not have approved under normal circumstances. We were angry, and we were looking for someone to blame. Patriotism, American flags and yellow ribbons plastered the country.
President George W. Bush declared war March 19, 2003. My brother was sent to Iraq later that month, and he was there for more than a year. He left his pregnant wife and 3-year-old twin sons behind to fight an unjust war. It's a war that is still being fought, and one that is still killing.
Sept. 11 was horrific, I don't think anyone can dispute that. But which is a greater tragedy, thousands of Americans getting killed in a terrorist attack or the government using the event as an excuse to invade a country that had nothing to do with the attacks?
Thousand of innocent Iraqis have been killed, along with American soldiers, and it all seems to be for nothing. Iraq is still in disarray and most Americans no longer support the war.
Is it going to take another tragedy to unify this country again?
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