This week a lot of people are looking back and remembering where they were thirteen years ago when the twin towers fell, the Pentagon was hit and brave souls tried to wrestle for their own fates.
I’m of a generation that ticks its memories against a backdrop of events. Like my parents before me who have recounted where they were when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, my generation can tell you where we were when President Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were shot. We can tell you what we were doing when men first were launched into space, circled the earth and walked on the moon. Most of us remember the Challenger explosion and President Reagan’s shooting.
Added to the historical events that tick off the years of our lives are the memories of what began as a beautiful September day thirteen years ago. I slept through the initial news reports. I awoke to a phone call from my sister who wondered if I was watching the Trade Center tower that was on fire. That’s when the fog lifted from my brain and I became instantly awake.
We were talking when the second plane struck, solidifying the fact this was an event like no other in our lives. We were talking when the towers fell. Then we heard about the Pentagon, then the flight that crashed into the ground.
Our parents were somewhere in Virginia, having left a couple of days earlier on vacation. Trying to reach them was a frantic impossibility. They finally contacted us to say they were returning home because there was no telling how long gas would be available and the cost was rising rapidly.
I was able to reach my friends who lived near the Pentagon and was assured they were safe. I had another friend who was stranded in Florida on a business trip that was supposed to end the next day. It would be more than a week before he could return to Seattle.
More than any other single event in my lifetime, of which there have been many and they have been momentous, the events of 9.11.01 are the most vivid and life altering. Obviously, those events irrevocably altered the lives of those immediately affected, the ones who died in the initial crashes, those who could not escape the buildings and those who died or were injured when the buildings collapsed along with their families and friends. But those of us not directly affected were also altered.
For a time, the nation rallied as I had not seen in my lifetime. There was a sense of sameness that must have been what being an American was like after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. We were Americans first and nationality and color were secondary. Well, unless you were a Muslim American.
In the years since, especially right after 9/11, individual rights have eroded. Only now are people realizing just how much latitude was given up in the name of fighting terrorism.
More insidious though, is the erosion of the camaraderie of being an American. I try not to stand on a soapbox in my blog; however, since my job requires that I get involved on the periphery of politics, I feel particularly suited to give an opinion based on my observations. There is a small but very vocal minority in this country that seems to be of the opinion that anyone who disagrees with them is not only wrong but also unpatriotic in the disagreement. They tend to believe that if they whine or bitch long and loud enough everyone else will give in and cave to their will. This small minority has been not only obstructive to the American way of life, but they have brought the country to the brink of disaster and threaten to do so again. I personally think that ‘we the people’ should kick their whiney butts to the curb and get about the business of conducting business that is best for the majority of our citizens.
My family can trace its roots to people who came here in the 17th century or to a small group who were here when the others arrived. Those early settlers did not build this country by not knowing how to or by not being willing to compromise. If we are going to survive as a country, our leaders will have to summon the roots of our forefathers to move us past the pettiness of today.
I hope that our legislators can remember, as we reflect on the events of September 11, 2001, that this is a great country that deserves great leaders. I hope they can remember as they did in the weeks that followed those terrible events, that we are all Americans first and nothing else matters. I hope they and we can remember the shared experience of that day and resurrect the camaraderie we all felt as Americans.
kathryndstokes 