Garnering Insight: Where were you?

SKYE POURNAZARI/THE FORUM
Garnering Insight: Help wanted everywhere

It seems that each generation has one of those “Where were you?” moments. You know, one of those catastrophic events in life where everyone can recall exactly where they were and what they were doing when that event happened.

Unfortunately, there have been far too many in our young history as a nation. For my parents it was the end of Camelot, when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963, for my grandparents, it was Dec. 7, 1941, “a day which will live in infamy” with the attack on Pearl Harbor. For me and many of my generation that moment was Sept. 11, 2011.

In case you’ve been under a rock somewhere we are approaching the 20-year mark of the Sept. 11 attacks on our great country so many thoughts come to my mind, especially with the current Afghanistan debacle that our president and so many others have put us in. As a former United States Marine, I am so conflicted as to where our nation is today, yet also amazed at the impact that day made on my life and how far I’ve come because of it.

I want to relay where I was at that fateful morning 20 years ago and how it in no small part led me to where I’m at today.

In the summer of 2001, I was attempting — in vain — to get my career off the ground. I was struggling to be honest. In May of that year, I graduated from Northwest Missouri State University with a GPA over 3.5. I figured that with my background of being a veteran, an above average student, had a good internship that I should have no difficulty in finding a job — any job! Much to my chagrin there I was 29 years old, unemployed with no prospects and not even an interview. I couldn’t even get a job sweeping floors in a local lumberyard or gas station in southeast Missouri. It wasn’t for a lack of trying either. So on Sept. 10, 2001, I packed up my belongings and headed south to one of the places I grew up — Pensacola, Florida, to be a kitchen assistant in a cajun food wholesale/retail store. It was a humbling time in my life. Sadly though, I would be even more humbled when I woke up on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, as our world had suddenly changed.

On that morning I woke up after the long journey the day before and went out to grab something to eat. While driving I heard on the radio what was going on and I initially wrote it off as a morning DJ doing some shock jock bit, but the more they kept talking, I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach. When I got back to the apartment I turned on the news and discovered that the world had suddenly changed and like millions of people watched with a broken heart all that unfolded. The sadness was suddenly replaced with anger and turned into what can I do to help.

Quickly, almost overnight, we became a nation united against a foe who cowardly attacked us on our soil. We recited the Pledge of Allegiance and sang the National Anthem with never before seen fervor. We had banded together from all different backgrounds and segments of society.

So where has that unity gone? Have we forgotten? Me, no, but for many sadly the answer is yes. We are more concerned with defund this, critical race that, making America great, kneeling here, don’t get a vaccine, get a vaccine. Everywhere I turn we as a nation are divided on nearly every issue. There is no longer a rallying cry to come together as a country because we are too busy looking at our watches and mobile devices.

So as we remember Sept. 11, I have one question, where were you?

Ken Garner is the owner and publisher of The Maryville Forum and The Post.