A letter to 9/11: Happy birthday to the war without end

The day you entered this world I woke to the news on my radio alarm clock. I listened, horror-struck, on my drive to school, then watched your carnage on the TVs in my high school auditorium. On the West Coast, most of us were privileged in our detachment, but the shock, the terror, the anger still burrowed deep.

A month later, the day after U.S. airstrikes began in Afghanistan, I turned 18. Shortly thereafter, I signed a military contract.

Every day moving forward, more who never knew life without you can pledge themselves to your wars. And they’re all yours now, aren’t they? Fresh young men and women who serve will earn the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal. They will join the growing band of post-9/11 veterans. You are an era, the end of which remains, as the service medal executive order states, “a terminal date to be prescribed.”