Remember the heroes...

On September 11, 2001, my mom called me at work to let me know that a plane had just crashed into the World Trade Center. Like many Americans, I imagined it was an accident...a small jet veering off course with an inexperienced pilot at the controls. I immediately asked about the safety of my cousin Andrew, who I knew worked in the financial district. My mom replied that he worked in the World Financial Center, so she imagined he was safe.

He was safe, but his father's best friend was not. He died that day, on the job in the World Trade Center, and his remains were never found. I had just met him at some of the festivities surrounding my other cousin's wedding, which was held on September 22, just 11 days after terrorists took on America, between two funerals that were held for fallen firefighters from their hometown in Westchester County.

Almost five years have gone by since that beautiful summer day. There was not a cloud in the sky that day, I remember. Over the Lehigh Valley, we had one of those clear, blue skies that makes you just look up in wonder. It was marred over Manhattan by the smoke of first one, then another, plane, piloted by terrorists into Manhattan's Twin Towers.

In Washington, D.C., the terrorists piloted a plane into the Pentagon, also altering the landscape. Over a field right here in Pennsylvania, passengers on United Flight 93 thwarted an attempt by hijackers to reach another target. When we woke up that morning, the world was one way. When we went to bed that night, it was very different.

Now, we are left to remember the 2,996 individuals who lost their lives that day at the hands of evil. On September 11, 2006, won't you please join the Blogosphere in remembering those who were lost that day? Sign up at the site 2,996 to write a tribute to one of those who lost his or her life that day. You will be given the name of someone who deserves to be remembered as a hero. On September 11, you will post in your blog your tribute to that individual. I signed up this morning, and I immediately went to work, looking up this individual on the Internet and learning as much as I could about him. And just as I expected, he was a hero.

Won't you remember a hero too?