9/11 Generation - No Other Option

I was just over a month shy of my 16th birthday on the morning of Tuesday, September 11th 2001. I was a boy then, a mature, strong, well educated (I finished high school the following spring) boy, but still a boy. Today, I consider myself a man. The events of September 11th 2001 are a great part of the influences and experiences that helped to shape me in those formative years.
I said last year that 9/11 is, for a great many of us, what the Kennedy assassination was for our parents, in that its the new "What were you doing when..." question. I think it was a more fundamental event, for everyone, than the assassination of a president - It shook foundations harder, deeper, and changed more. Everything is now Before 9/11 or After 9/11.

After 9/11 I became an EMT. After 9/11 I decided the military was in my future - Elite Light Infantry, come hell or high water. There is simply no other option.
I'm stuck in that day - I was angry, I was shocked, I was hurt, and as a teenager 3000 miles away there was nothing I could do. I heard about the deeds of the passengers of Flight 93. I watched fire-fighters and police strive, and die, and survive, and help others, and lose friends, and go back again - I felt proud that these men and women were of my nation, my species. I felt sad I wasn't among them. I was angry that I could not partake in retribution against those responsible.
As these few short years have passed from that awful day, as I have gotten older my desire, my drive, my belief in the necessity of being a strong hand, a helping hand, in times of need and disaster and chaos has only gotten stronger. It will happen again - The "front line" will again come to our home, our cities and we will need to bring another front line to their homes, their cities, to match the flexibility of the non-nation state warriors of our enemy. There will need to be people ready to meet those challenges head on, with heart, and with strength. I don't know if I have it - All I know is that I have to try. There is no other option.