Even today, it's hard to grasp the horror, senselessness and insanity that took place during that day. I can remember at the time, we were taking a quiz (I was in the 4th grade), like any other normal day. The teacher next door entered and spoke in a panicked whisper, to which I can still visibly remember the look on our teacher's face. She turned on the TV. I can't remember if both the towers were smoking at that point, but I can remember the atmosphere in the room. I don't think anyone beside the teachers were old enough at that point to grasp the worldly significance of the footage we were looking at, but we all knew it was big, bad and ugly.
The image I most readily remember when I think of that date was when I got home however. As a kid, I had a paper route up until High School. I've never experienced this in the subsequent years after 9/11, and I don't think I ever will. Every single house I stopped by on my route had their doors open, and every member of the family was sitting in front of the TV. Every time I opened the door I saw the same panic-stricken look.
Why aren't you home right now?
Nearly 3000 people didn't make it home that night.
I remember asking myself "Why?"
It's impossible to come up with an answer. How could you describe to me why 19 men, so vehement in their belief that they were the Soldiers of God, went through months of extensive flight training and preparation for a kamikaze-like suicide mission into the New York Skyline, the Pentagon, and another unidentified target.
The only thing I know for sure is the result of their actions.
On a broad level, I can remember the unfiltered and pure hatred and rage that exploded in the following months, the invasion of both Afghanistan and Iraq, and the empowering sense of unity that followed in the early years of the "War on Terrorism".
On a personal level, my childhood interests in the military were solidified, as were (I'm sure) thousands of others, including some of my family members and my friends.
The candlelight vigil held tonight at my college in the honor of those who passed on September 11th came a little bit easier knowing that the mastermind behind the attacks had been destroyed.
But I was still uneasy.
I remember at some point sifting through old family photo albums and finding the images of our family trip to New York, which I believe was in 1999. The image of my little brother smiling happily on my Dad's shoulders holding a stuffed animal, the image of my family smiling in front of the Trade Center, the image of the skyline from the top of the Towers...
It's terrifying to look at those images and imagine families just like mine being there, not in 1999 but 2001. Having visited the Towers, its hard to imagine having to make the decision to perish in flame or to jump. That's an unspeakable tragedy that ended the lives of many.
But it can happen again.
I paid my tribute to the fallen tonight at the campus-wide vigil, but I shied away from their request for us to pray for our future answers to not be one of retaliation, but instead the "rebuilding of human connectivity and the human community".
In theory I'm sure that would be a noble demonstration by our country after a terrible and tragic man-made calamity.
There's only one slight issue: It's not over.
The blatant and unfortunate reality, for which I'm sure I'll be told I'm a condescending, narrow-minded and violent barbarian for pointing out, is that the results of September 11th did not just result in the unjust loss of nearly 3000 lives in a matter of hours. 10 years of world-wide chaos, on multiple fronts, across many nations, have been executed in the name of the ideology of the fundamentalist jihad, whose world does not have room for a "human community."
First of all, it is not my intent to disrespect the fallen of the 11th by addressing what I personally perceived as a naive and out of place request during a rememberance vigil. I mean absolutely no disrespect to those of whom I know who lost family members on that day.
The sheer fact of the matter however is that as a direct result of the actions that took place on September 11th, we still have troops overseas.
I feel I'd be disrespectful to forget the lives, of my family members and their friends, and those of just the general soldier that are still in harms way overseas and continue to bravely take on combat tours 10 years after the fact.
Thus, the mere suggestion of human connectivity and the "human community" in replacement of the "us against them mentality" while two full-scale wars are still taking place, a full 10 years after the terrible events of one day, passed off to me as utterly ludicrous.
I enjoyed a quote from an interview with Tom Brokaw on Steven Colbert's The Colbert Report a couple of days ago. In which Brokaw was asked what the biggest change to the country was in the aftermath of 9/11. Mr. Brokaw replied: "Well the biggest change doesn't get enough attention, we're in the two longest wars of our nation's history...less than 1% of the population is taking 100% of the bullets for this country in Afghanistan and Iraq..."
It's a harsh truth, and again, I certainly am not trying to out-do the tragedy and injustice of 9/11 and those who lost family members during the carnage that took place on that date. I just personally think it's inappropriate towards the memory of the victims of September 11th and to the troops who have died overseas to ask for me to forgive the masterminds behind 9/11, and the plotters of future offenses.
It's not over.
We're still locked in combat with an aggressive and morally-devoid enemy.
3 days ago I followed up on that childhood interest that solidified on 9:03am on September 11, 2001, and signed a contract with the Army.
I will be serving a minimum of 8 years. And I'm fine with that. I hate to be blunt, but I'll leave the "human community" to the naive college idealist. There are people out there planning terrible acts against this country, and I'd really rather try to prevent another 9/11 than sit down, take it, and then talk about love and humanity afterwards.
If I can offer a prayer that I personally think would have been more appropriate given the context of our current affairs overseas, I'll end this post with:
"Pray for Peace, but Prepare for War"
--Fin--
