Always remember so you'll never forget

I watched a television show the other day that put me in mind of something that I have not thought about in a while. Where was I on September 11th 2001? I was a month or two away from my restaurant's one year anniversary. It was a beautiful day, as usual I was running around trying to figure out how two keep two nickles in my pocket to rub together. That's what I did every day since the place opened. Two ladies walked in and asked if I had heard what happened. The television that I had planned to mount in the cafe that was still in the back room was showing the aftermath of the first tower collapse. I then called my father and asked what he had heard and he said the twin towers had been hit. He was in his car and was listening to the radio.
"Well one is gone." I remember telling him. He did not believe me. It took me a few minutes, but he then realized what was happening. I then set up the TV in the cafe and then the second tower collapsed. I then sat and watched, along with a couple of handfuls of customers the replays of that morning's events. The tower being hit, the towers burning, people jumping out of them, and then the towers collapsing. Awful.
I remember driving home that day, it was a gorgeous day. The sun was setting, you know how it is in the fall. The orange sky with a purple hue and not one contrail from an airplane, which usually cross the sky like tic-tac-toe games. That was eerie. The world felt so small at that point. I felt so small at that point. As I drove I listened to the radio and heard the replay of the members of the House and Senate singing "America" on the steps of the Capitol. I pulled off on the side of highway 43 and wept.

At some point that day I received a phone call from a friend that I will never forget.
"Well, what do you think?" He asked
I snapped right back, "I think we are going to war."
He laughed and repeated my comment to someone else in the room and they both laughed, I was pissed.
"Going to war with who?" He managed in between giggles. "They don't have a country. It's not like they have a navy or an air force."
I took just a second, befuddled that someone my age could be so naive. "Well, you better believe that we're going to war with somebody."

Not many days go by that I don't remember that conversation, because we did go to war. Twice. And nine years later we are still there. Now I know that no one has "forgotten" about that day. But I think people don't like to think about it. The world changed that day. September the 11th, 2001 changed everything.
And as I sit here typing this, I think of philosopher/novelist George Santayana's quote, "Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it it," I wonder if there is someone sitting in a cave planning the next one?
Oh, by the way, he is the same guy that wrote, "Only the dead have seen the end of war."