Seven years. Can you believe it has been seven years? So much has changed and yet I am sure that everyone would say they remember the moment like it was yesterday. My life was so different seven years ago, it was before I was a homeowner, a mother or really, a grown up.

I don’t know why this particular anniversary struck me but this morning it was all I could think about. I remember Kevin waking me up before 6AM and telling me that someone bombed the World Trade Center. I leaped out of bed, being a student of politcs I knew this was of significance. As I came downstairs to watch the television with him, we watched the second plane fly into the towers. We heard the news anchors scream, we heard chaos reign from an institution that is supposed to deliver the news, not emotion. It was chilling.

As you know, the day unfolded and things got so much worse. Stories began to creep out of heroism and sorrow, of patriots and terror. For my generation, this would be our first taste of war. Our first taste of total righteous indignation and desire for defense of country. Generation X would change on this day and so would the world. My parents and their friends watched the news with a cautious eye and a quick recall of wars past, something my generation could not call upon. But we can now.

Three thousand people is a lot. Three thousand mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and friends.  What happened that day, seven years ago was so raw and compelling that it changed the course of Bush’s presidency and the direction of our nation. Everyone in this country agreed in those first fragile days on two things: this deed will not go unpunished and those who died will not be forgotten. Because of the solidarity and the national convergence of emotion and strength, those in political power enjoyed great approval and agreement. Seven years later, those feelings of agreement are gone, along with the blind trust of this nation.

We took the war to Afghanistan and the people of this country were thrilled to see retaliation. Then we went to Iraq. Seven years later, neither war is won and the fragile political grounds of this country are swirling with disagreement. When I think about why we waged war, the pain and desperation that caused a cry for victory against terrorism, I am subdued. When I think about the current state of that war, I am anxious and fearful that the cause has been forgotten and the goals were interchanged for political gamesmanship.

I am no foreign relations scholar. I am no middle eastern expert. I am just a girl who, seven years ago was compelled to sit on my street curb with all of my neighbors and light a candle for the three thousand people who unwittingly laid down their life for this country. Three thousand people who did not ask for war, but had war reign down upon them. I promised then that I would never forget the phone calls replayed of husbands saying goodbye the their wives and mothers to their children. I would never forget the cold reality of death at the hands of an enemy whose soul was black with hatred.

What we know now that we didn’t on that candle lit night, is that the enemy is illusive and cunning and that absolute political power breeds contempt and corruption. The answers are so few and the problems so complex that this nation is collectively trying to figure out a course of action. Hence the importance of this Presidential election. Maybe Obama will chart the right course, maybe it will be McCain. I don’t pretend to divinely know who would be better suited to finish this war on terror and finally redeem the injustice of seven years ago. Just do me a favor fellow voters, don’t be quick to judge in this election because everything that those three thousand people died for on 9-11-01 is at stake.

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