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...