OKAY, JUST TELL ME WHY WE SHOULD NEVER FORGET

I better clear my name first, before I'm accused of being a terrorist sympathizer.

My husband's job for years and years and years before 9/11 has been anti-terrorism.  The last seven years being active duty Army, his job was visiting government facilities world-wide, coming up with possible avenues which a terrorist organization would take in a possible attack at that particular location, and then see how the facility could counter-act the imagined assault.

Before 9/11, these visits would be viewed as a necessary evil - no one likes being evaluated for something that hasn't happened, and in the view of many organizations, isn't going to happen - and then having to prepare their facility just in case of that abstract, hypothetical situation.

But after 9/11... well, we can discuss that later.

So while the terrorist attacks on September 11th were unimaginable to the majority of us, it has been discussed and, well, imagined. A plane being used as a missile towards the Pentagon has been thought of. An air attack towards the White House had long been viewed as possible and prepared against carefully.

My husband woke me up early on 9/11/01 (we were on Pacific Time), saying only that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York, and he had to get into the office immediately since this might be a terrorist attack.

So I was sitting watching CNN news when the second tower was hit.

I was watching as the each tower fell.

And I cried. And shook. And was so scared.

For weeks.

But back to the title of this.

Why "never forget."

Why "never forget, never forgive."

Why "never forget, honor those who died in the towers."

I can understand and accept that this should never happen again, and if that means longer lines at airports, more security check-points, careful photo identification, I'm fine with that.

I can take, to a point, the need for some liberties taken with tapping telephone and computer lines - reading people's emails - some civilian private actions being opened to government scrutiny.

But I can't live with the knowledge that we moved into Iraq for ten years, supposedly to "take care" of the terrorists and weapons on mass destruction... which didn't exist in the first place.

I don't want to sit still for 'honoring' the 3,000 plus victims of a senseless act of terror by sacrificing 100,000 plus lives in Iraq.

I refuse to believe that we honor any or all of these deaths by holding firmly onto the sense of anguish and hopelessness that we as American citizens felt on September 11, 2001.

It happened - it was terrible - it helped unite us as a nation for a brief and intense period of time.

But the reason it hasn't happened again here is because of tightened security - individuals like my husband who work long and hard hours on tracing terrorist cells, who track activities such as fertilizer orders, weapons, ammunition, innocent items that can be combined to produce bombs. Carefully watching the activities of American citizens as well as foreign-born visitors, education, travel, social contacts.

Not because we went barging into the Middle East.

This anniversary has been hard on me every year. I don't want to watch the films of the planes hitting - I don't want to hear the tapes of people screaming - I don't want to hear the stories of the families of those killed.

I do not want to feel that sense of terror and loss.

I do want to know what we are doing to prevent this from every happening again.

And I'd like everyone else to know and acknowledge this - not my husband in particular, but the work being done in his field.

And I wish we would honor and recognize just as much as the 9/11 victims the 100,000 plus Americans and Iraqis and British and French that have died in Iraq. I wish we had flown the flag at half-mast for every day that someone died in that war. I wish we were arguing about what type of memorial should be built for them. I wish we would honor so much better the thousands of vets who return home, suffering from PTSD, wounds both physical, mental and emotional. Who are then relieved of duty... and of support and help.

Okay, I've gotten this off my chest... for at least this year.