by Jason Davis on Sunday, September 11th, 2011 | No Comments »

9-11-2001 | Never Forget

10 years ago I woke up at the U.S. Air Force Academy like any other day.  After marching to breakfast, I headed back to my room where I watched with horror the television coverage after the first plane hit the first tower.  As we all know, that was only the beginning of what was one of the darkest days in our Nation’s history.

It was an interesting place to be during that time – a lot of things changed instantly – just 9 months from graduation and now we were facing the reality that we would be commissioned into a military that was going to be at war.

Today, I took in some of the coverage, blog posts, and many twitter and Facebook status updates, but mostly I enjoyed the opening weekend of the NFL season.  I was resolved that I wouldn’t write a post today – that I wasn’t “close enough” to New York on that awful day, and that I wasn’t as personally impacted as many others were.

But then, I saw this video that aired today during the Eagles-Rams NFL game.  It was done by Spike Lee as a tribute to the New York Fire Department to help honor the victims and heroes of Sept. 11.  It’s pretty awesome, and the lyrics for this Jay-Z song, “Empire State of Mind”, are quite telling of the resiliency and resolve of New York City after that fateful day 10 years ago…  Never Forgotten, Forever Grateful.

Concrete jungle where dreams are made of,
There’s nothing you can’t do,
Now you’re in New York!
These streets will make you feel brand new,
The lights will inspire you,
Let’s hear it for New York, New York, New York.