Birthday weekend

Posted on by chrisco7030

This past Sunday was my 22nd birthday. Originally, the plan was that I would spend my weekend in High Point. My girlfriend would drive here from ECU and my parents were going to drive up from Charlotte and spend Saturday with me. Last Monday, my mom called me and asked, “How about we spend your birthday in New York City? Duke is playing this weekend and it’ll be Coach K’s 1000th win.” Needless to say, I said yes. What a surprise, right?

We arrived in NYC Friday night at 9 o’clock and we didn’t do much that night. Just went to dinner and called it a night. Saturday, however, was very eventful. The first thing we did on Saturday after we got something to eat was go to the 9/11 memorial. It was my first time seeing the memorial even though I went to NYC two years ago to visit a friend and I couldn’t believe myself when I thought of that. The memorial is beautiful. If any of you readers do not know, the two memorials are two large square fountains where the buildings once were. There is no railing around the fountains to keep people from falling in. Instead, there is a large barrier around the fountains that display every name of every person who perished that day. Whether they were firefighters, police officers, or the passengers on the flights, it said their full name and what squad/flight/department they were in.

Next, we went in to the 9/11 museum. The first thing that you’ll notice about the museum is how far down you have to go in order to reach the museum. You go about seven floors beneath ground level. Once you go down, you can either go into the south tower exhibit or the north tower memorial. We chose the south tower first. One interesting thing is that you can see the foundations of the buildings when you’re about to enter the exhibit. It helps to give perspective because you are standing where these magnificent buildings once stood before they were destroyed. Inside, there are all sorts of artifacts recovered from the buildings, audio recordings from people inside the buildings after the attack, and other firsthand accounts from firefighters, cops, and various other people. In the north tower memorial, you can see the names and photos of all those who died. It is absolutely gut-wrenching. Not at all for the feint of heart. While walking through the museum, I had so many thoughts rushing through my mind, but there were a few that stuck out the most.

It was a pretty heavy experience. It made me appreciate what I have. I value my life so much more now. Not that I didn’t appreciate things before or anything like that, but this heightened what I already felt to a whole new level. The thought that shook me the most was that at any point, any time you see one of your loved ones, it could be the last. That day, thousands of people were going to work and going through any day like they normally would. They had no idea what was going to happen. Now think about how many lives are permanently changed because of the events on that day. It’s absolutely heartbreaking. Before I left the museum with my family, there was a touch screen that had messages written by people who had stopped by it. You could write it with your finger and it would pop up later at some point in time. It shook me because many of those messages were written by people who were directly affected by 9/11. I remember two very vividly. One read, “For my uncle that I never got to meet.” That was tough to read, but the next one shook me. It read:

“For my dad

Love, your spitting image”

I’m very thankful that I got to go to NYC for the weekend. At first I was kind of hesitant, just because I was looking forward to a weekend where I wasn’t moving around for a change. After all this, though, I’m very happy I went through with it. I will never forget how fortunate I am or how lucky I am to be where I am. I only wish that these people had the same good fortune.

This weekend

Posted on by chrisco7030

This past weekend, I went to go see American Sniper with a few friends and my girlfriend. It was a truly incredible movie. Not only was it a great movie, but almost a life-changing experience. The movie does not sugar coat anything about people going off to war and the difficulties soldiers have with assimilating back into civilian life. It’s brutal. Not the action in the movie itself, but the psychological turmoil that soldiers endure in war. It puts things into perspective because I feel that many of us sometimes take for granted what veterans have done for us and the sacrifices they have made to maintain the freedom we experience every day.

My godmother’s nephew used to be very close with my family. When he was a teenager, he was a great kid. He was very smart, had ambition, and was a normal person. He joined the Marines after high school. He was shipped off to Afghanistan after basic training and a few months of everyday living at one of the military bases (can’t remember which one). His job in Afghanistan was to detect IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and to disarm them by using a robot. It’s not an easy task and if something goes wrong, it’s deadly. Literally. Unfortunately after a few years of doing this, he had seen more than a handful of his really close friends die. After returning home, he developed an alcohol problem. He spent most of his nights with a bottle. It’s terrible to see it happen, but this is a very common occurrence for our veterans.

I know some people won’t think very much of this, but it is very important to remember the sacrifices that our veterans have made for our country so their efforts have not been in vain. They do not do it for glory or for popularity, they do it so we can continue to enjoy the freedoms that we have always had. If you ever see a veteran on the street or in a museum or wherever you are, please go up and thank them for what they’ve done. It may be seen as a small gesture by many, but you have no idea how far a single small gesture can go. It can make the difference between a horrible day and a great day. As I have heard a veteran say, “The real war doesn’t start until you get home.”