Dear Editor,
I will never forget September 11th, 2001; I remember it like it was yesterday. Fifteen years later, I can still remember so many things about that day. I remember many of things that I was doing and thinking about on that day. For example, I remember getting dressed for work, in our apartment in Minnesota. My wife who was four months pregnant, was watching television, when we saw the planes hit the World Trade Center, a building that I had been to many times.
After the first plane hit the building, I thought it was an accident. After the second plane hit the building, I realized it wasn’t an accident but an act of terrorism. At that moment, I knew that my life would never be the same. I immediately knew that the American soldiers were going to be called upon to find the terrorists. I knew at that moment that the country would be going to war. I knew it was just a matter of time, until I would be called upon to go to war.
But what I didn’t know was when I’d be called upon to go. Editor, what I didn’t know at the time, was how that single event in history would transform the trajectory of my life and future radically.
On my birthday in November 2004, I received the call to action. Three years following the attack on the World Trade Center, I was in Baghdad, Iraq serving with the US military; it would be the first of my three deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan with the US military.
Looking back 15 years later on September 11th, I had no idea how much the planes hitting the World Trade Center would have a great impact on my life for the better and in some cases for the worse.
Editor, what a difference this day made in my life. Because of the terrorist attack on September 11th, 2001, I can truly say that I am a changed man. There is not a year that goes by on September 11th, that I don’t remember how much that single event and day changed my life. September 11th will be a day I’ll always remember, because it was a day my life experienced a pivotal and transforming moment that changed me forever.
Yours faithfully,
Anthony Pantlitz
