I was born on January 12th, 1995. That would make me, and many of my other fellow service members six years old at the time of the attacks on New York City, Pennsylvania, and the Pentagon. We were just kids, but it was a day that was engrained in our minds forever. Many people that were of age when the towers fell rushed to the recruiters' offices to enlist. 9/11 inspired many to serve, but it inspired my generation in a very different way.

I'll never forget where I was on 9/11. I was sitting in my first-grade classroom at Black Rock Elementary, when other students started getting checked out of class early around 11 am. My dad came to get me around noon. We turned on the news to watch the terror unfolding. I wasn't old enough to fully understand what was happening, but my dad explained in a way my six-year-old self could understand. There were bad men that stood for bad things that were doing really bad things to the people of our country. I knew that that was really sad, but I didn't know at six years old how much that day would inspire myself and thousands of others to raise their right hand.

Flash forward to the end of high school. That was when we started hearing about people enlisting that we knew. We had people going into the delayed entry program, or 'DEP' for the Navy or Marines, or they were signing delayed entry contracts with the Army and Air Force before they had even graduated from high school. They were signing four and six years of their lives away to go fight the war on terror that Bin Laden and the like had so hastily created in the early 2000's, over a decade ago. Many that had never serves criticized their decision to serve, and claimed they were going to fight a war for oil and not a war fought for the American people.

2,977 people lost their lives on 9/11. It was the thought of mine and many others that their deaths would not be in vein. I know of many that knew when they were getting deployed to the Middle East that if they left those provinces with one less suicide bomber or one less mass shooter that their work would have been accomplished.

9/11 inspired a new generation of the military. For me, every time I put on the uniform I feel an immense sense of pride knowing that even indirectly, something I and many others have done is contributing to keeping this country free. It's keeping the country free from terrorism, free from tyranny, and free from the slavery to fear we all found on that clear September day in 2001. It inspired a generation to serve that all their lives have never known anything but terrorism. It inspired a generation to serve under the precedence that deployment is imminent, if not definite. It inspired a generation that was ready, motivated and prepared to go at a moment's notice, and would gladly and willfully do so. 9/11 inspired a generation of the Military that I'm proud to know, proud to be a part of, but more importantly, proud to serve with.