September 11, 2007

On September 11, the strongest nation in the world was attacked by human
bodies inside commercial airlines and then our whole world changed.

I was staying with my parents during summer break and was working as a
first-time trainer (my goal that summer was to become a kick boxing
instructor, instead I became a trainer!) I was 20 years old completing
my double majors in International Relations, Asian History, and minor
in Political Science at UC Davis.

One of my favorite classes earlier that Spring was, US National
Security class. For our big paper of the semester, the professor
asked us to write an essay on what we felt was the biggest threat to
our national security. MOST people chose 2 topics: China and National
Missile Defense.

After pondering about what I felt in my heart to be the biggest threat, I was one of a handful of
people who chose to write about Islamic Fundamentalists. It was a
difficult topic to choose, (since the other 2 popular topics had tons
of current research/articles/information on) but I felt my convictions
and I followed through on those instincts.

It was difficult to research my thesis: Islamic Fundamentalists and their
terrorist threat to our US National Security for I had to dove myself
into intensive research that required a lot of thinking, reading,
dissecting and reflecting.

1) I had to study Middle Eastern History
(btw: if you havent noticed, history classes should be focused less on
Europe and U.S. and more on other nations such as China and the Middle
East) The last time my public education taught me anything about that
region was when I read about Mesopotamia in 6th grade.

2) I had to study the Muslim religion.
Again, this was challenging since no other topic needed to study the
mind and beliefs of the people causing potential attacks to occur.
Other students used diagrams, stats and political power as their
indicators. While I feel all religions have their zealots, my studies
in recent events were showing that attacks from the mindset of that
specific group of people were increasingly happening more often and
more disastrous.

3) I had to study our politics in the Middle Eastern region.
Not many people know of what Americans role is in the Islamic world.
Not many people know of the history of Israel even the history of
Operation Desert Storm. Does anyone remember that war?!!

It was an interesting journey and after 21 books, 48 footnotes and 19
pages I concluded that: The biggest threat to our national security
was a terrorist attack by Islamic Fundamentalists. It is going to
happen big and it will happen soon.So as I watched the 2nd plane dive
into the twin tower I stood agaped in a paradoxical feeling of shock
but not surprise.

Today as we continue to mourn and respect the lives of those lost in that
event – let us all unite in that shared human emotion of pain and loss.
Let us all pray to not become angry (as we have been) about the event,
and instead realize that at any moment we can die and that we must be
prepared for whats next. Lastly, let us all recognize the gifts we
are given today.

These gifts are in the form of our friends, our job, our house, our mates, our pets, our nation,
our president and our body.I dedicate my days to things that inspire me
all the time. Today, I dedicate my life’s work to all those who were
effected by the 9/11 events

I thank God I’m still alive.
I thank God there are soldiers in this country fighting for my freedom.
I thank God I still have a body that is mobile and agile.
I thank God I have a CHOICE to make progressive actions towards future gains.

Today is a day of celebration.not sadness of death. Each event in our
lives teach us a lesson we must use and carry forward with. We cannot
change the past, we cannot continue this cycle of anger, and we cannot
protect ourselves from the mortality of ourselves.

We will all die one day.

I would like to share an award wining, published poem I wrote at age 11.
At this young age, I was still thinking about our world’s challenges,
still sensitive to my surroundings and still walking my dog

Maybe we call all create a world we can love one day… Let’s all pray on that intention today.