Every year around this time, we are revisited by the documentaries and commentaries about the 9/11 terrorist attacks.  Last night, I stayed up late and watched again (as I have for several years) the archival documentary “102 Minutes that Changed America”.  To me, it is the truest record of the events of that day—it is quite simply a compilation of videos shot that day. Some by media professionals, but most by people wielding cell phones and handheld cameras.  First person records of what occurred in NYC.

I was reading online a commentary about how we have changed as a result.  The major point was the innocence we lost. There is a story about a Staten Island Ferry pilot dropping off his passengers at the Wall Street terminal that morning, after the first plane had hit. Every single one of the passengers on that ferry exited the boat and proceeded to work. All assumed that it was an accident. Not long after, it became very obvious that it was no accident, and those passengers had walked in the maelstrom.

Now, in 2019, as we stood at Pirates Day a couple weekends ago, I commented to Wayne that I was surprised the PD did not have a blockade of vehicles to prevent some madman from driving through the throngs of people.  I noticed that the trash cans were standard solid cans where an explosive device could have easily been hidden. We never would have thought of these things until the threat of terrorist attacks on our soil became all too real on 9/11 and in the years since.

I took a group of Boy Scouts to Gettysburg this past weekend. One asked how soldiers from the North and South could both visit the same water spring and why they did not shoot each other.  My only answer was that war was different then.  All combatants wore a uniform; and all soldiers followed a code.  The only war that Scout knows from his lifetime has not been fought on those terms.

I have a friend whose son was born 9/11/01. He turned 18 last week. He is a high school senior. He and others like him born in the years since 9/11 are now growing into adults.  Our world is filling with people who have no point of reference about what life was like before that day.  Those are the young men and women who are starting to now populate our armed forces, fighting a war that began that day.

The world we see today is not the same as it was 18 years ago. And while we may not have the same innocence that we had a generation ago, we still have our hope, and we have Rotary.  I can think of no finer organization that distills our hope for the future than Rotary.