It's been a really busy year for me - obviously, given that I haven't written since January - full of school, college preparation, graduation, swimming, working, traveling, and just plain living this typical suburbanite life that we love so much.
A few days ago, after exhausting myself by first ripping up an old ruined floor and then starting to lay down porcelain tile in our kitchen, I sat down with my tablet and began looking for something interesting to watch that wouldn't require much concentration or energy. I landed on the Smithsonian Channel app, and chose "9/11: Day That Changed the World". It described the events of the day in the words of the participants themselves.
I think my husband has decided I like depressing myself. He walked in the room as I was watching the program and gave me a puzzled expression. I'm sure I had a pained look on my face, and tears welled up in my eyes on more than one occasion. It's the kind of thing you don't want to see, but need to see. I place documentaries on the September 11 attacks in the same category as Schindler's List and The Passion of the Christ. They're painful to watch, difficult to see, yet important to remember.
My children are too young to really remember 9/11. My older daughter, now a freshman in college, has vague memories of what we did that day. She was 7 years old, in second grade. I chose to pick her up from school early, as did so many parents that day. We got in the car and she asked me why all the adults were so sad. I told her what had happened in simple terms, and she asked, "Why would anyone want to do that?" Why indeed, sweetie.
We picked up my younger daughter, who was a couple weeks shy of her third birthday, and we went home. The neighborhood we lived in was a tight-knit community of friends, and we all gathered out in the street to talk as we trickled home. I had left the television on to ABC and at one point Peter Jennings announced to those of us in the Indianapolis area that we would soon be hearing fighter jets from Grissom Air Base that were being sent to accompany Air Force One back to Washington. My older daughter heard it and thought it meant a jet was headed to downtown Indianapolis, and her daddy worked downtown! The panic she felt made me realize that while the youngest of children were largely unaware of what was going on, they weren't completely isolated from it.
Today my girls have little to no recollection of that day. An entire generation of young people, now emerging into adulthood, does not have the first-hand experience of shock, horror, pain, agony, and anger we experienced. When I went home to Michigan for a visit with my family shortly after 9/11, I chatted about it with my grandmother. We compared this attack to the Pearl Harbor attack, and she very wisely pointed out that the big difference was in 1941 we knew whom to blame, and against whom to defend ourselves. With 9/11, we just didn't know. There wasn't a single country to point to. There wasn't an evil, seeking-to-rule-the-world dictator wanting to spread his brand of oppression across the land. The participants were nameless, faceless, unknown, and for all practical intents and purposes, homeless. We couldn't point to one single country and say "They are to blame!" It was several countries, some of whom knowingly and willingly harbored these animals, and even trained them.
We stand at the brink of another war, with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars winding down. Do we want to get involved in Syria? Is it our responsibility? Do we have the moral imperative to intervene? These are questions to be answered by people smarter than me.
What we must do, what we absolutely cannot fail to do, is remember. Remember how we felt that day. Remember our resolve. Remember how unified behind a common purpose we became. We are AMERICANS. We FIGHT to defend ourselves and our ideals. We are like an overly indulged family of Waltons on this Walton Mountain we call the United States. We bicker amongst ourselves, and do things to each other we shouldn't. But like a family, in times of crisis we pull together, unify, and strengthen our resolve to continue our way of life and the deeply rooted conviction that all men are created equal, and are endowed by their Creator certain inalienable rights.
We cannot fail to remember. We do ourselves and those innocent victims a great disservice if we do. Remembering is a Moral Imperative.
No comments:
Post a Comment