It’s that time of year again but it seemed like yesterday that the world stopped turning on that fateless September day. Eight years ago many American lives were shattered. We all know what happened. We stopped whatever we were doing and in disbelief, watched the news as the tragedy unfold… What were you doing at that moment? How can we ever forget…

“Out of the ashes of 9/11 comes a ship forged from the steel of the World Trade Center”, the Amphibious Transport Dock: USS New York (LPD-21), constructed by Northrop Grumman Ship Systems in New Orleans, LA at the NGSS Avondale shipyard and commissioning ceremony to be held in New York City this November. I want to visit New York City again for this occasion but I only come to NYC to find solitary. It’s a place where I can get lost in a crowd, where I can be alone yet surrounded by many... but 8 years ago today, it was the cynosure of a disrupted American life, it was where we all wanted to be to help, yet so helpless we were...

I’ve been to New York City twice this year now and every time I come near Ground Zero my heart seemed to skip a beat or two. I close my eyes to keep that same teardrop from revealing itself again, to keep it from overcoming my vision, to keep it from falling. I inadvertently paused for a moment of silence and a prayer, not really sure what to say to God but just a thought or two for the ones who lost their lives here, the ones who perished on that Pennsylvania field and the ones at the Pentagon, their families, their friends, for every American who felt the pain. As a civil engineer, it is my job and some say, my privilege to cross construction lines but why is it so hard here? Dejected yet tenaciously I enter the construction site. My heart grows heavy with weariness but my hopes ascend because once again 9/11 reminded me that America, we can stand united once again. It’s a sad slow scene at Ground Zero but I remember how we all stood together, how we, as a whole nation came together, the tears that fell simply because we were so proud of being an American. Will Old Glory nevermore be so glorious? The stars and stripes were so boldly displayed, its red, white & blue proved us to be the greatest nation in the world… If only we could have that same spirit again without such a tragedy. Has that spirit morphed into something else? What has happened to us, so divided upon all sorts of issues, all this bickering about what’s the true meaning of being American… The cries today, isn’t it not the same as yesterday? Maybe just for today, I hope that we set aside our differences and just quietly reflect upon the feeling we each had that September day, remember how hard it was to hold back the tears whenever you and I saw the Star Spangled Banner? Remember?