September 11, 2008
Remembering 9/11
In that small space between three hijacked planes and color-coded terror alerts, between a small field in Pennsylvania and conspiracy theories, there was a brief, lit-up moment when we felt like one. I remember thinking that this tragedy would fix us instead of break us. I want so much to feel again that hope and unity that existed in the days after the attack. There was proof, ever so briefly, that we could come together as a nation to help and comfort each other, when we were all just human beings on common ground instead of left or right, Democrat or Republican.
(Visit Michele's Voices Project, right here, for a heartwrenching compilation of persoanl 9/11 stories.)
I remember one clip more than any - a sea of green shirted soldiers pouring from the building being directed by military policemen, until a call went up for volunteers to help with the evacuation. The sea tide changed at once and swept back into the burning Pentagon. To me that became the enduring symbol for this war. Me and my fellow civilians running away from the danger while the military got it’s bearings and rushed back into the flames.
Today, I will stand in silence in honor of those murdered this day. I will also salute those who have died since in the cause of freedom, sacrificed of themselves with portions of their bodies, and watered the Tree of Liberty.I ask you to do the same. I ask you, Never Forget.
Outside my building, two doors down, a guy on the first floor had set his big speakers in the window and had turned them up loud. A group of about thirty people from the neighborhood -- people I had vaguely seen but rarely before acknowledged -- were standing in a half circle, some with hands over their mouths, listening. Listening to the same things they'd already heard thirty times at least, but still needing to hear again. And hear in the company of other Americans.
I have a better plan. Let's remember. Let's face the awful, stark, horrifying, disgusting reality of 9/11/2001 without flinching. I do not seek blood and gore for the sake of blood and gore. I don't even seek blood and gore per se. I seek only the resolution of a simple proposition: A catastrophic and murderous attack was launched by fanatics against the United States. Nearly 3,000 people were killed in a single day. They have earned the right to haunt our thoughts. And we owe them an obligation to ensure as best we can that those who perpetrated this disgusting act will feel the natural consequences of a just and thinking anger of a wounded but powerful nation.
Chris Muir:
Posted by Val Prieto at September 11, 2008 10:24 AM