9/11/ 2020

Hard to believe that it has been 19 years since The Twin Towers fell, the Pentagon crumbled, and the fields of Shanksville, Pennsylvania were forever marred.

Our lives, for those of us who remember, were inexorably changed (even if you don't remember, your life was altered too.)

There are memorials to this event in every state of the union and today, I will share one of these with you in honor and remembrance.

Belen, New Mexico is about 100 miles southwest of Santa Fe and has a population of about 7,000 people.

I was looking for a Vietnam memorial, as usual, and I stopped to ask for information. Right near the Wells Fargo Bank on Main Street was this really extensive memorial to 9/11.

This detailed explanation  is attached to a huge section of the Pentagon. 

This mock-up of the Twin Towers stands eight feet tall.

This is an actual shovel used at the Pentagon by first responders

Finally, this guy protects it all. His wing span is over eight feet!

The bricks in the wall just behind all this list the names of service men and women from New Mexico who made the final sacrifice.

So, nineteen years later it astounds me that people now in college and high school, a whole generation, were not even born when this fateful day occurred. Take a moment, then, to recall, to remember, and to honor those lost by telling them about it, what you were doing at the time and how you felt.

Next time, on the 16th, we will return to Maryland, so as always, meet me there at 9:00am.

To see Vietnam memorials from any state in the union, please click on the state name on the left side of this page.