Sept. 11, 2001 was a tragic day in which over 3,000 civilians, including firefighters and police, had their lives involuntarily and horrifically taken away while beginning a normal workday.

To use this awful day to promote awareness of a highly contested invasion of a foreign country is appalling. Iraq did not do this to us, people. Most of the free world knows that we were wrong to invade Iraq (remember the anti-war protest consisting of millions in cities around the world?), and attempting to link the tragedy to the war is a shameless act of misleading the students of this campus.

I whole-heartedly agree that those in the armed forces who have sacrificed themselves overseas deserve to be recognized, heralded and celebrated, and not just on one day, but everyday of our lives. Someone should be out on the front lawn reading that list of names everyday as we make our way to class, so we all never forget.

But there are 364 other days in which to accomplish that goal. Today was the day for the innocents. Today was the civilian day, the day where there was no war, no enemy, no brothers in Iraq, no sisters on the front-line, no fathers or mothers on their 3rd straight year of fighting, without believing why.

I grew up in New Jersey, and traveled to New York City in December of 2001 to see ground zero. The intensity, the destruction, the makeshift memorials and the outpourings of emotion were un-imaginable. My hometown of Basking Ridge, N.J. saw eleven mothers and fathers not come home from that fateful day and countless others missing.

Do you know anyone that never came home? Can you say you have seen the pit of the towers still smoking? I am a patriotic American who believes in justice and truth and who knows this war contains neither. To interject a wrongful war into a day of loving memory is a tragedy of its own.

Michael Robinson

Geography senior