Never forget

As I sit here, I am forced to remember a day 8 years ago and all that has occurred since. I was just returning to work from a conference in Washington D.C. A close friend & co-worker called me in a panic asking if I'd heard what happened. It was just after 6AM PST. He then, while I was on the phone, described the 2nd aircraft hitting the 2nd tower.

As people slowly began to arrive at work, all of us were transfixed by the images on the news. We wondered if friend or colleagues were affected. The investment industry is a fairly small community and many vendors, colleagues and clients were based in Lower Manhattan. No real work was completed and the markets were, if memory serves, unreachable due to the telephone networks being down.

Many of us went home early as air travel was halted by order of The President. I sat at home with my wife and kids, wanting to keep track of happenings, but not wanting to expose my young children to the horror.

Looking back, the only good I can see that came out of this event was a distinct and focused effort by business and government to ensure that recovery from disasters was an up front and primary issue going forward. The so-called security measures and heavy handed legislation are not what I'd call "good." The Department of Homeland Security isn't either. Too many personal freedoms have been lost as a result of the goverment "protecting us."

Never forget those that lost their lives both on the air and on the ground, but don't let that be an excuse for giving up personal freedoms and abandoning the will to fight for what you think is right and protecting your way of life.