Twelve years

It has been twelve years since the day the world changed. Twelve years worth of children growing up knowing fear, and war, and the scourge of terror. Twelve years worth of children who were not alive to see the fateful day when civilian aircraft became weapons of war. Of all the people on Earth, I envy and pity these children the most, that they never experienced life void of a world in which terrorism and conflict play such a casual role.

A dozen years since a younger me watched the live news coverage of planes flying into buildings, of people who preferred to fall to their deaths than be burned alive, of the unleashed fury of a nation and a peoples united in their grief. A younger me was prematurely thrust to the precipice of of adulthood, was reminded of the bonds of kinship that unite the world. On that day, I felt like an American. On that day, I felt like a citizen of this planet.

I have had the honour of visiting the 9-11 memorial in New York City. It is a quiet, sombre place - no towering monuments, no gold or glitter. Two pools of remembrance, gouged out of the very flesh of New York like a scar that will never quite heal. 2,958 innocent people plucked from our midst, but not from our memory. Innocent men, women and children going about their daily lives. Firefighters, police, first responders who charged up the stairs no less valiantly than the men at Lexington and Concord, or Gettysburg, or on the beaches of Normandy. We are all the poorer that they have been taken before their time.

In this year, in the twelfth anniversary of the 9-11 attacks, we conclude our military involvement in the Middle East. As we step into the unknown future, may it always be with an eye and a thought towards the events of the past that have led to our present.

Lest We Forget.