Tears were streaming down my mother's cheeks the entire ride home.
She was mourning with the rest of America after they heard the North and South towers were struck by two planes, later confirmed to be hijacked by al-Qaida terrorists.
Precautions were taken seriously on Ft. Benning, the military base in Georgia I lived on, after the World Trade Center was attacked Sept. 11, 2001.
As a seventh grader, all I knew was Americans had been killed, and more were in danger because of the airplane crashes.
I remember telling my mom in the car it was going to be all right. I didn't have a clue what was really going on, or what al-Qaida or Taliban even meant. I was glued to the television when we got home.
Seeing the footage of the planes flying into the towers horrified me, but realizing there are people who willfully want to hurt us changed me.
Watching the Marines, soldiers, airmen and sailors fighting in the Middle East after 9/11 on television motivated me to do something about what happened to our country when I was in middle school.
I wanted to make a difference, so I joined the United States Marine Corps Infantry when I turned 18.
Casualty rates in Iraq and Afghanistan were rising and service people were coming back with the invisible wounds of PTSD, among other things from their combat experiences. I knew it wasn't a matter of if I was going to go to combat when I joined, but a matter of when.
I wasn't worried about any of that. You can't be worried about every bad thing that might happen to you because it prevents you from doing your job.
I just wanted to join the thousands of others who signed up for duty after the 9/11 attacks.
My unit was deployed to some of the worst areas of Iraq and Afghanistan. We saw first-hand the evil the Islamic terrorist groups are capable of.
While I saw plenty of bad things over there, I will never again experience the camaraderie like I had with the Marines
We deployed in some of the most hostile environments imaginable, but we still knew how to make each other laugh, and we all knew we had each other's back when something goes down.
We all shared a sense of pride I couldn't have found anywhere else.
If the attacks on 9/11 did not happen, I'm not sure I would have enlisted in the military or ever experienced any of that. That's the kind of stuff that made me who I am today.
Going to the Middle East and fighting was my way of looking evil in the eye. It gave me the opportunity to do my small part and let people know that Americans are not going to live in fear.
Being able to see many of my brothers, ordinary guys, do extraordinary things was an experience I couldn't have gotten from any civilian job.
As devastating as 9/11 was, it revived a sense of pride in this nation. It encouraged brave Americans to run toward danger and face evil head on.
It changed peoples' lives, like mine, and pushed them to do things they probably would not have. Most of all, 9/11 taught people how to be a part of something bigger than themselves.
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