nmah6368.xml

nmah6368.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2003-11-22

Our daughter called and said, "Turn on the TV" and I did. I asked was it an outside attack and she said yes. She works for a congressman so had the TV on in the office. Later I ran into the street as I heard a loud explosion..it was theplane hitting the Pentagon...most of our neighbors were in the street as well and we were all frightened but ignorant of what had happened.

The hardest part came later when I found out that a man I had grown up with, Don Peterson, a lay minister, had been killed on the Pittsburgh plane.

I think I value even more each day and our country....it is impossible to believe that Al Quaeda could set out to murder us but they did. I cannot imagine why Bin Ladin didn't help his own people but I guess hate motivated him more than love.

I was mostly always patriotic but am much more so now...I did not lose anyone but my friend from childhood Don Peterson but I grieve for those who lost so many more.

That many of us were murdered by an irrational force called Al Quada...that we need to be vigilant against such extreme muslim sects and other groups..that we need to strengthen our democracy ...for instance through everyone voting at election days. We need to teach more history in our schools. We need to remember how fragile democracy is and how we need to protect it...look how many foreigners want to come to our country....the reason is we are free, but free to not exercise our responsibility as well (viz. to vote)...

Yes we will fly it always