I feel safe being here and I think Vermonters take care of each other in a way that doesn't happen in other parts of the country. I don't think life long Vermonters know how good it is to live here.
The reason I live in Vermont can directly be linked to 9/11 and the conflicts our country became mired in during the decades to follow. My (at the time soon-to-be) brother-in-law was in South Carolina post-9/11. He attempted to transfer to Vermont where he was to take a job with a company his father started after also making the move to Vermont. Just as he was set to make the move, my brother-in-law's transfer was denied because the unit he was attempting to transfer from was to be deployed to Iraq. He quickly married my sister, they got pregnant, started the process of moving to Vermont, and he was off to the Middle East. My sister needed help navigating her new life and didn't want to go to Vermont alone so I quit my job, took a job where my brother-in-law was supposed to be working, and moved to Vermont with her. Thankfully, he came back and they resumed their life here. About 8 years later they moved back south but I stayed. I have fallen in love with this brave little state. Today, I am married with one child and a second on the way. Had his deployment to that unnecessary conflict not happened, I still may be living in the south. I was a high schooler living in the south during 9/11. I feel being in Vermont is isolating, but in a good way. I feel safe being here and I think Vermonters take care of each other in a way that doesn't happen in other parts of the country. I don't think life-long Vermonters know how good it is to live here. Vote. Always vote, every election. George W. Bush used 9/11 as a way to get us involved in the Middle East and we are still paying for those decisions while he, guilt free, is out painting and clearing brush.
Chris VanDenMeiracker
