In many ways it's hard to believe that nine years has passed since attacks on 9/11/01. In some ways it seems like yesterday, but in others is seems like a life-time ago. So much has changed.
Before the attacks most of us in the military - especially those I knew in the Air Force - were concerned with not being assigned a remote tour (a tour where the active duty member went for a year without the family). Now just about every active duty member I know has done at least one deployment if not more. While deployment usually last six months now, with the extra training it can add one up to two or three months. We have become very apt at being happily married but still a single parent.
Yesterday I was discussing with a friend about me getting a job. Part of the problem is that the kids are at different schools with different time schedules. Whatever I do I have to be able to do by myself. I can't rely on Drew to get the kids to school because he may not be here to help - he may deploy at some point. I think my thinking was a little shocking to her. Her husband does travel with work some, but never for more that a few weeks at a time - and that only once or twice a year. To plan your life for the "what if" is foreign to her.
But that's the legacy the attacks have left many of us. While we live in the present and enjoy every moment we have together, we never take it for granted. Tomorrow will come. And it won't always be pleasant.
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