17 Years Ago. My Memories of 9/11/2001.

17 years ago, I was 17 years old. My Senior year of High School had just begun. I'd spent my summer being courted by military reruiters.

As a Junior I had taken notice of them, they'd set up their table in the Cafeteria during lunch hour several days a week.

The promises those guys made were like those of a Snake Oil salesman. College paid for, retire by 45 years of age, a free computer, a huge bonus to be paid after AIT.

It took a lot of convincing. My mother was dead against it. I kept pushing. I come from a long line of poverty, and that college tuition was looking really good. I was young and dumb. It wasn't like we were at war with anyone. Maybe I could go help people the next time the Red River Valley flooded!

Her husband was on board. He helped. And by the time school started in 2001 we won. I was given permission, at 17-years-old, to join the US National Guard. Couldn't vote yet, but old enough to learn how to kill brown people on the other side of the world.

The 11th of September was like any other day, except that I got up early and my recruiters picked me up in front of our house in the trailer park.

We drove down to the MEPS station in Saint Paul, so early it was still dark out. We went in and started the process of doing my physical exam, the last hurdle to join. My hearing checked out, I walked like a duck, peed in front of a stranger for the first time ever.

There was a room where everyone processing that day had started out, getting told all of what was to come. In that room was a huge screen.

On it, we wartched in silence in between stations.

We watched that second plane hit. The gasps and the tears were too much to bare. Until that second plane, everyone thought it had been some sort of freak accident. There was so much speculation. Was it a terror attack? Was it an accident? Just what the eff was going on?

The news lady assured us that George W. Bush was on the move, safe somewhere on Airforce 1. They flashed images of him reading a book to kids.

I remember the bile rising in my throat as the camera followed people jumping to their deaths. The pain of watching them, imagining their fear and their agony. I was 17-years-old.

That second tower was hit and we knew. This wasn't an accident. A lot of people left. A lot of recruits wanted to go home to their parents, and home they went.

We stayed. And when the oath ceremony came round the place was practically deserted.

Helicopters were in the air. We were a short drive to the Mall of America, and both Minneapolis and Saint Paul are filled with high rise buildings.

I took my oath and signed that paper. I was a child in total shock, robotically doing as told. I'd sat and watched for hours, totally numb.

And this. No plane even hit this one.

When they dropped me off at home I called my mom to let her know I was there. She was bawling. Begged me to tell her that I had not signed anything.

Of course I had. I finished what I'd started.

I remember that day when I was half the age I am now like it was yesterday. And I remember the aftermath.

I joined Echo Company of the 434th MSB. A Minnesota Red Bull. I could not go to basic until after school was over for the summer. So I went to BTOC all winter.

Other kids in school were frothing at the mouth to join. They wanted to "Get their revenge". Patriotism was insane at that point.

Most of all I remember that I stood there in formation with my fellow soldiers when Major Miller called us and said words I will never, ever forget.

"You do not have to respect the man, or his decision. Only his power, and position."

At 17-years-old, too young to vote, too young to drink, too young to smoke a cigarette, I was told I was going to war. In the wrong country. Against the wrong people.

George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Tony Blair were all tried in absentia and convicted as war criminals.

What they did was wrong. What they sent their pawns to do in their stead was unspeakable.

17 years ago, a series of fraudulent, horrific events started a chain reaction that killed over 250,000 people between Iraq and Afghanistan.

But we're the "good guys".

'Murika.