Some of you have read this in my other, more private, journal. Some are reading it for the first time. I wrote this slightly more than a decade ago, when the horrors were fresher in our memories than now but I still believe this holds true.
I'm not going to write a memorial post. I'm not going to tearfully outline the memories I have of the days following the attacks. I'm not going to tell you where I was when I found out though I do remember; don't we all? I'm not going to flip on the TV and watch memorial shows or go out to buy any newspapers or magazines offering coverage on it. I'm not going to do a lot of things today to remember the attacks. Why? Because it's been three (now 14) years ago and we have other, bigger, issues.
It was horrible. It was tragic. It affected all our lives by virtue of the changes in the country and loss of innocence. I am sorry beyond belief, beyond the telling of it, with an aching bone-weariness in my heart, for the losses suffered by those living and working in the areas affected by it, for those who lost loved ones in the attacks, and for those families seperated by or loved ones lost in the wars started in the aftermath.
But I will not let this rule my life. I will get on a plane and travel. I can't tell you what the current "terror" alert level is in the country. One, because I don't particularly care and two, because it means nothing. I don't stop and sing the National Anthem at the drop of a hat or turn up the radio for all those songs about how wonderful America is. Generally I change the station then. And my reaction to the patriotic backlash has been to all but stop wearing the colors red, white, and blue simultaneously.
Should we forget? Of course not! We need to remember; some of us still need to mourn. Those close to NYC and DC may be grieving. In many ways, we as a country will always be grieving. We lost something that day: hundreds of lives, healthy, happy, productive men and women who are gone much before they should have left us, the illusion everyone loves us, of our invincibility. We lost the idyllic idea of America as we knew it. But that does not mean we need to see it all over again every 9/11. Who is that helping? The people who wake up shaking in the middle of the night from a nightmare with the taste of ash on the back of their tongue and images of a tower dropping in their head? The children who are too young to remember what happened, too young to remember the horror of seeing 100+ story buildings dropping like a house of cards? Does it help us? No.
I would bet nearly all I'm worth terrorists aren't going to strike this country again for years, if not decades. Why? Because we're doing a good job of terrorizing ourselves. Every new terrorist alert that comes out, every time we raise the alert level, every time we replay that video and relive the horror of that day we're doing more to terrorize this country than any terrorist network could hope to do. We're keeping the fear alive.
I refuse to live in fear. Sadly I am never again going to live in the America that once was. Is this going to be brought up forever? Are we going to turn on the TV 40 years from now and see "9/11 Memorial Held in Pinkerton, AL" run on the evening news every 9/11 from now until we die? Probably. For everyone of those shows aired, for every article written, every media outlet giving new information or retelling the story for the new generation, the generation post-9/11, we lose America a little bit more. I'm still waiting to find out is if this America is better or worse than the pre-9/11 America. Right now, I'm not sure it looks good.
