{A moment of silence please}

Thank you.

There are 525,600 minutes in an average year.  Being that this year was a leap year, there were an additional 1440 minutes added to that total.  For the majority of these minutes, we all go about our lives without taking time to reflect.  Life is too busy for most people to do so.  However, we should never be too busy to observe a moment of silence at least once each year on the anniversary of 9/11.

In a post that I wrote earlier this week, entitled The Other 9/11 Victims, I spoke about the victims of 9/11 that do not have their names read in a ceremony because they died as a result of the aftermath of 9/11 years later.  In this post, I introduced Mike Ryan, a Hauppauge resident, beloved family man and football coach.  Coach Mike passed away in November.  Cancer caused by his heroic efforts took his life way too soon.  This was the first 9/11 that Mike's children were in school since their father's passing.

When my son came home from school on 9/11, I asked him what they did in school to honor those that have lost their lives as a result of the terrorist attacks.  His answer made me angry, sad and disappointed all at once.  The school did nothing, aside from flying the flag at half mast.  There was no moment of silence observed, not at 9:59am, when the first tower fell or at 10:29am, when the second tower fell.

Tonight, there was a dedication made to Coach Mike Ryan at the HYO Complex in Hauppauge.  The details of this event will be a separate post during the week.  I got the chance to speak to Mike's wife at length after the dedication ceremony.  She and I discussed many things, including the lack of an observation of 9/11 in the middle school with a moment of silence.  The middle school starts their day even earlier, so they had the opportunity to have a moment of silence at 8:46am, when the first plane hit the Twin Towers, and at 9:03am, when the second plane hit.

Mike Ryan's wife complained to the middle school, and was given a very poor excuse as to why there was no observation, even though there was one in all of the schools last year.  The reason was that "it is too hard on the kids."  What a disgrace!  Mike Ryan's children deserved better.  All of the children of Hauppauge deserved better. 

The media spends a good portion of the day remembering those that lost their lives.  Any child that sees the news on 9/11 is exposed to the coverage.  I am all for protecting our children from the evil in the world, and sheltering them as much as possible from the bad in this world.  However, there is no reason for them not to spend a moment in silence on 9/11.  This is not about going into graphic details of the events of 9/11.  It's about paying their respect to those whose lives were tragically cut short because of the events.

Thankfully, many families were a part of the ceremony to honor Mike Ryan tonight, so our children got the chance to pay their respect to Mike and his family.  Many more families were not in attendance tonight, so their children did not get the opportunity to have their moment of silence.

My hope is that the Hauppauge School District will see the error of their ways and rectify this situation for next year and beyond.  We owe it to the Mike Ryan's of the world to take one minute out of the 525,600 minutes that are in a year, to have a moment of silence.