Yesterday was September 11.

That single, solitary date still carries so much impact with it. I can barely remember the year the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington D.C. took place because that month and day stand alone to carry all the necessary information about that horrific time.

The thought of that day recalls in my mind so many minute details that on any normal day I would have no chance of remembering.

I remember that current semester, my first outside of high school, was spent going to Joliet Junior College on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. On Tuesday, when the attacks occurred, I was at first disappointed because I couldn’t even watch my morning dose of SportsCenter.

Instead of watching ESPN that morning, every channel had a picture of a burning building that happened to be the second World Trade Center building to be hit by planes piloted by terrorist suicide attackers.

At this time, while breakfast was being cooked by mother and grandmother in the kitchen, I asked those who had been awake for longer than me what was happening in New York. The casual response that came back to me was that some building was on fire, but that it probably wasn’t that big of a deal.

Apparently, family business took precedence over world news that morning.

But the fact that I, along with many other members of my generation, can recall many different things about that day just proves how important Sept. 11 was for an entire generation.

People say that each generation has a moment that becomes the landmark memory for everybody. The terrorist attacks were just that for those young enough to have had nothing else so incredibly critical happen during their life span.

For generations in the past these moments could be spotted at different time. People could look at D-Day during World War II, anything on TV during the Vietnam War, the immediacy of the terrorism hostage situation during the 1972 Olympics when Jim McKay told people all the hostages were dead by simply saying, “They’re all gone” and realize that moment could define a generation

These moments become more than just fleeting times that people forget about the next day, they stick around in the back of people’s minds for their entire lives.

Sept. 11 was it for us.

That day will be forever etched in the minds of those who watched the news all day that day, or even those who were barely able to watch anything about the attacks. Because of that tragedy so many lives have been impacted, many have been lost to conflicts overseas in the War on Terrorism, or whatever the president and his team want to call it now.

No matter what happens from here on out, whether things turn around in Iraq and the war becomes a U.S. success, the attacks in New York and Washington will always be what people point to as the start of this longer than expected time of conflict.

Because of this rocky time, families have been torn apart and people have lost their friends to war and to conflicts overseas.

Yet, the moment that everybody will remember is Sept. 11, and that will probably never change when people think of this time period.