This is, I know, long. I hope that you read it. I hope it makes you think.
The day was 9-11-09. It was a beautiful morning. A normal day. No one knew that this would be
the day that we in the US finally took notice of the war the Islamist radicals had declared on
us years ago.
A war it had been, just an ineffective war. Like flies buzzing around us, we ignored them,
occasionally swatting at them, neither side having much effect on the other. We as a nation
took no real notice of the danger, and we ignored those who would harm us. The warning signs
were there, and we had been given plenty of notice by the other side in their previous
attacks. But ignore them we did.
No more. On that day, we learned, we took notice. But did we, as a nation, learn?
I remember thinking that it was a terrible accident, that morning, seeing the pictures on TV.
But knowing nothing, I left for work, not realizing that we were at war. I though it was just
another day, albeit one in which a errant airliner had had an accident.
At work about an hour later, I remember my employee telling me…”another one! Another plane
just hit the other tower!”. I knew then, that very moment, that we were at war. I said to my
staff “the world as you know it has just changed, nothing will be the same after this day”.
Was I right?
Have we changed? For a few months after the attacks, we pulled together as a nation, as a
people.
But how soon we forget.
Sadly, 8 years later, most have forgotten the horror that we all felt that day. Sadly, we
forgot the fear and anger that pulled us together. Islamic radicals are far away, being bled
and distracted by our finest young men and women, in a place most of us don’t really care
about. We care little that our soldiers are undergoing deprivation and are under constant
deadly danger in order that we might have the luxury to forget.
And forget we have.
The additional security at airports, while probably ineffective (we really don’t know or have
any way to measure), is just an additional irritation to the ordeal of flying somewhere…. No
one has really cared about the changes in the alert level…green, orange, yellow, red… We
really pay little notice and care even less. Do you know, right now, what the current “color
of the day” is? Do you care?
No one knows what the Bush administration has done to protect us, or the Obama administration either….How many successes have they had, of which we know nothing? How many plots foiled? All we know is that there have been no major attacks on our soil since that day.
Yet.
All that they (the islamists) have to do to succeed in elevating our fear and terror is to
succeed one more time. Until then, we might never know how many times our government has
successfully guarded us. We will only know if they fail.
Perhaps then we as a nation will remember, and pull together once more, forgetting our petty
squabbles and turning as one people to face a common enemy.
From where I sit, we have forgotten. We as a nation have let the lessons of that day slip from
our consciousness, and fall away to the abyss of obscurity. And for that, I am ashamed.
Individuals may still remember, many, such as myself, will never forget. But most, fed drivel
by the mainstream media, have indeed forgotten the horror and anger of that terrible day.
I have not forgotten. Have you?
Have your forgotten the day where we, the most powerful nation were attacked by a few men
using our own airplanes against us? Have you forgotten the fear, the anger (and yes, the hate)
that flowed like water that day? Have you forgotten that while on the first two planes people
(as far as we know) did not fight back, when the truth became known to the third set of
passengers that instead of being sheep, some occupants of that third airplane became wolves
instead and fought back? Can you remember the fact that for a short time, we became one people instead of blue or red, and for once, acted as a nation instead of a bunch of selfish, childish, individuals?
I have not forgotten. I remember those days with horror, and anger, and pride. Many have
forgotten, and many more will in the years to come.
I won’t. Ever.
Will you?
