What Does It Mean?
9/11. An instantly recognizable reference. One of those references to an event that all United States citizens of a certain age will always recognize. We will always ask, “what were you doing when you heard” and the question will be answered without a second's delay. It was an event that seared itself into our national psyche along with other societal tremors. 9/11 ushered in a new age for the United States and the decade since has brought systemic changes to our society, some for the better, some for the worse. 9/11 revealed in us a willingness to help others at great risk to our own lives and uncovered a fear that we may not be as safe as we thought we were. 9/11 has been used as both reason and excuse for a lot of things, many not very reasonable.
I recall that day clearly but I won't go into detail about my experience. Suffice it to say that the horror of watching men and women leaping and falling to their deaths to escape the inferno or just the certainty of a horrible death still brings chills to my body and tears to my eyes. I suspect there are many of us that do the same thing. The incredulous awareness at some point that those towers might just fall and then watching them do so. The days that followed confounded us as we searched for some reason why innocents had to die that way. Most of us were unaware of the reasons for the assault on our country, fellow citizens and symbols of our economic might. Many of us still are.
We watched for days as the rubble was searched for survivors and then the anger came. Who is responsible, who would do such a dastardly thing, we must strike back and show them we are not a nation that will take this lying down. We must exact a terrible vengeance and we have. But the price has not been paid only by those who would attack us by also by those who took the fight to the attackers. It has been paid through the fear of our people and by the trillions of dollars we have poured into a vain attempt to insure that it will never happen again. Yes, we have hunted down and destroyed many of the members of the organization that harmed us but we also inflicted many wounds on ourselves.
Our fear and yearning for security led us to demand and accept draconian measures that only a few months before would have been unthinkable but now are commonplace. Our government, in our name, established and huge new bureaucracy charged with keeping the homeland secure but that nobody had a clue how to run. It was revealed that the murderers had lived in our midst and trained on our own soil for their deadly task. Why didn't we know, how could this happen? Heads must roll!
The announcement that we were taking the attack to Afghanistan met with universal approval and hurrahs. We thought that this would surely be a short engagement and that our military might would quickly disabuse anyone else of any ideas of similar actions. Then the excitement that we had trapped the leaders of Al Qaeda in a cave and their capture or demise was imminent gripped the country only to fail when we failed to finish the task at Tora Bora, a place we had never heard of and hoped to never hear of again. But hear of it we did along with other names we couldn't pronounce as we slipped into another senseless war because of our fear.
The decade since 9/11 has not been kind to the United States of America. To many it seems that we have lost our mojo, that we lost the ability to cope with whatever was thrown at us. While jobs fled overseas we continued to focus our might on images that would just slip into the desert sand or the unending mountains. At the end of the decade that we will remember Sunday we may have come to a point where we are willing to lay down the sword to rebuild our home and our national will. I sure hope so. We have exacted a terrible price in many places including our home.
On Sunday preachers will ascend to the pulpit to preach about God and Country, about fidelity and the promise of a better life. Politicians everywhere will attempt to burnish their image with accounts of heroism but what they won't do is ask the American people to sacrifice. We will still be able to go to lunch after church and heap glowing praise on those who suffer that we might not have to. Make no mistake, they deserve our praise and our thanks and much more. We will call them heroes but don't think that only military people and firefighters and policemen are heroes. Ordinary citizens can be heroes, too if some would only step up to make the sacrifices necessary to overcome the love and concern for self and work for the betterment of all.
The lesson of 9/11 should be this. That no matter how we are attacked, we will not give up the essence of what our country is. That no matter how great the fear we will not be intimidated by threats to us and our fellows. That no matter the hardship we will endure it to share in the sacrifice for our country and for those ideals for which it stands. That no matter the selfishness of some we will share our well being with our brothers and sisters.
If we can do that then 9/11 may have not been in vain.
My take on remembering. May it not forever haunt us.
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