Ten years ago today, thousands of people lost their lives in an act of violence that, in it's scope and scale, was far different than we had ever experienced, on our own soil.

I remember what I was doing that morning.  I remember turning on the news after I had heard that the first tower had been hit.  I was watching, live, as the second plane slammed into the second tower.  I remember watching in horror as desperate people took their chances plunging from windows rather than being burned alive.

New York City is not my home, but I remember the tears in my eyes as the first and then the second tower fell.  I remember sitting, leaning over with my head in my hands, thinking about all the people that could not have made it out or were working the situation at the ground and didn't have time to run.

New York City is not my home, but I remember, desperately, wanting to be there so that I could go up to one New Yorker, any New Yorker, hug them and say, "we are ALL here with you."

I remember the plane in the field.  I remember Todd Beamer and "Let's roll!"  I remember the Pentagon burning.

I will never forget it, and I will never get over it.

God bless and keep the firefighters and police that died, that day. 

God bless and keep the people that just went to work that day to earn a living, and didn't know that they wouldn't be coming home.

God bless and keep the people that took that plane down in the field so that no other citizens would die on the ground.

God bless and keep the United States of America.