by Greg Slack

Created on: March 08, 2010   Last Updated: March 12, 2010

Before we ask why it is important to remember 9/11. Ask yourselves why we have graveyards or headstones. Then ask why we erect monuments to fallen heroes and events or people who affected change in our world. Keep these questions in your mind for now...

Ask any person who was around then what they were doing on September 11, 2001 and they can most likely give a detailed description. They can tell you what they felt at almost any particular moment that day, the sensations, the thoughts and fears plaguing them every second of the attacks...

My parents could do the same thing when asked about November 22, 1963, or December 7, 1941. In Fact I bet I could ask many high school history students what happened on either of those dates and get a reasonably correct answer.

The JFK Assassination was the first date, and the attack on Pearl Harbor was the second. I was not alive when those things happened but they are in my thoughts just the same. I didn't experience them but I keep them alive in my memories out of reverence and respect.

Why do this? Why keep such painful things around in my head?

So the sins of the father do not become the sins of the son. I am not speaking of sin in a religious sense, but a philosophical one. Because it was the deeds and wrong doings of us and those before us which brought that end.

As of right now 2752 people are believed to be casualties of 9/11 according to the New York Times. That number should haunt us for all times... That is the number of people who did not see the their loved ones again. And the number of loved ones affected are too frightening a number to speculate.

The majority are people just like you and I. People with children, with families, with wives or husbands. Folks just going to work the same as any other day.

I remember 9/11 because one of them could have been a friend, a daughter, or a son. I remember it for those who will be going to work tomorrow or the next. I remember it for the families and loved ones of its victims.

I remember it for my children who will be in charge of preventing these things in the future. I remember it because I can, I am here to do so where so many are not... And I remember it in the hopes it never happens again.

At the beginning I asked you to keep some questions in mind. We keep graveyards and headstones, memorials and statues to honor our past, vilify our mistakes, and deal with our losses.

These things give us hindsight and hindsight is always 20/20. These tributes will not bring back our fallen ones, nor change the past, but they can give us strength and purpose when we falter.

Remember 9/11, remember it as if our lives depended on it. Because I fear they do...

Learn more about this author, Greg Slack.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.