REMEMBRANCE

The rebirth of patriotism after 9/11/01 hit me a couple of days after. I was on a local highway with a nasty speed trap about a quarter mile ahead, when all of the sudden a kid in a rusty old pickup flew by me. It had a huge American flag flying from a 10 foot 2×4 bolted to the truck.

Old Glory is precious to me, but on that day it was really spectacular. It was something to see!

Just seconds later I drove by the overpass where the police wait for speeders. I looked to my right to see what they were up to with that rickety old truck. I’ll never forget that sight. There they were, four of the meanest policeman I know of, standing at attention and saluting the flag. Brought tears to my old eyes.

I was sleeping late that day when my wife called me and told me that an airplane had flown into the World Trade Center. My first thought was that it was a little Cessna. I ended up sitting in front of the TV in a state of shock until later that morning when I had to head to work. Everything else I did that day and long after seemed trivial. May God bring peace to the families of all who died that horrible day.

Watching the two jets hit was awful;watching people hold hands and jump to their deaths was worse. It has been downhill from there, IMHO, with the misdirected invasion of Iraq, the erosion of liberties with the “Patriot Act”, and the whitewashing report of the 9/11 Committee, which was designed to make sure no one who was asleep on his watch was ever punished. The terrorists, in their own way, destroyed America with 19 box cutters. It will take better people than we have in any segment of our political spectrum to put us back on track to “the land of the free.” The spirit and courage of those on Flight 93 have been lost.

I was working for a company with corporate HQ in Norway and I was scheduled to fly over there on 14 Sep 2001. Needless to say, my trip was cancelled… My counterpart co-worker over in Norway has a daily calendar – he saved the 9/11 day for me and when I finally got over there a couple months later, he gave it to me.

He said he had saved it because his grandfather had saved the calendar from when Nazi troops invaded Norway and had passed it down to his son, who was my co-worker’s father, who had then passed it to him.

These holidays of infamy must be remembered so that we can appreciate the holidays of celebration all the more, he said to me…

And we do at my house!

Mas, a key comparison that is seldom made is that of our losses on 9/11 versus those at Pearl Harbor. On 9/11 reported losses were 2977 (not including the hijackers). The losses at Pearl Harbor were actually less at approximately 2400. The term “War on Terrorism” is not “unnecessary hyperbole”.

9/11 WASN’T Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor was a large-scale, well-organized military attack by a nation-state using large numbers of military personnel and high-dollar military equipment in an attack on a military base; 9/11 was NONE of those things.
9/11 had far more in common with the prior jihadist attempt to truck-bomb the same World Trade Center a few years earlier than it did with Pearl Harbor. It – like that earlier truck-bomb attack – involved a small fistful of men, wasn’t by any nation-state, didn’t involve high-dollar military equipment, and didn’t attack a military base.
9/11 even had far more in common with the Nam-era truck bombing of a math center at a Wisconsin university doing contracted work for the military than with Pearl Harbor: tiny number of fanatical people did both attacks, without high-dollar military equipment, in the midst of civilian sites.

We were requested to have a moment of remember yesterday in our classrooms by our acting Supt. Our Supt. just shipped out yesterday to Iraq for another tour with his reserve unit. I started class by playing a Youtube video of Alan Jackson’s “Where were you when the world stopped turning?” After that 5 minute video (no pics of the towers just him signing in concert) you coulda heard a pin drop and you should have seen the looks on their faces. They were 5, 6 maybe 7 years old on 9/11/01 but it’s been part of their life ever since. And they remember. God bless our troops out there protecting us now. I’ve several former students and players out there, some have been in combat, several have been wounded, they know what they’re fighting for. Stay vigilent,… Stay the Course.

At the time, my partner and I shared an office that was co-located with dispatch. It was my habit to arrive early, get a cup of coffee and watch the news on a small TV in dispatch while listening to the calls being fielded by our comm officers.

Reports of a “small plane” hitting one of the Trade Center Towers immediately caught my attention. As I saw the live feeds, the smoke and damage seemed to me to be more than one would expect from a light Cessna or similar aircraft.

Then the second plane plowed into the remaining tower, definitely a full sized passenger plane. This was no accident…this was war.

The rest of the day consisted of a half hearted attempt at some paperwork and call backs, while keeping an ear tuned to the news. A plane hits the Pentagon, another crashes in Pennsylvania. The enormity and coordination of the attacks struck me hard.

After work, glued to the TV. Watching footage of people leaping to their death to avoid the fire, seeing the two towers crumble, the folks running through the streets covered in ash. Tears in my eyes. Sadness, sympathy, ANGER! I wanted our country to strike back. Hit hard, ruthlessly, unrelentingly…NOW!

Despite what anyone says, I think we have made significant progress in the war in the last decade. No, it hasn’t been perfectly planned or fought, but key figures of the enemy command structure have been captured or killed. They talk a lot of shit, but can’t seem to pull of another attack on American soil…yet.

Even though I wasn’t an adult at the time of 9/11, I realized there were true monsters out there. I think the images from Somalia of the US soldiers being dragged through the street first taught me that.

More than anything, 9/11 really showed me what people are capable of. All the brave rescue personnel who gave their lives trying to save others like Walter Weaver. Running into danger when common sense tells you to run the other way. People who put a total stranger’s life above their own.

On the flip side of that, I recall the clips of people cheering at 9/11. To me, that was almost worse than the towers actually collapsing. That others would rejoice at innocents dying.

Then the sheer stupidity of some people, claiming the buildings couldn’t have collapsed and someone like Bush must have planted a bomb. It’s not like the weight of a passenger aircraft on fire could have done that…Or the people critizing the 15 minutes it took to get the Air Force mobilized. Nothing is instant, information takes time to relay, especially something as big and cumbersome as our military. Planes on standby for close air support, take at least 5 minutes to get airborne and that’s when the pilot is sitting in the plane to begin with.

Recently I took a trip up to the Spyderco outlet in CO and saw a piece from Ground Zero. I didn’t know Spyderco had that and it was a sobering reminder that evil still exists. It’s a good reminder that the only thing evil needs is for the good to do nothing. It felt appropriate I was standing before a piece of Ground Zero armed.

Just a reminder: that J-frame in this story is a SUPERB backup or concealed-carry weapon – especially for women. It’s a lot easier to shoot very well than a semiauto.

Matt, in further reference to the difference between 9/11 and Pearl Harbor, Pearl Harbor was an attack on a well-defended military base that posed an actual threat to Imperial Japanese expansion. 9/11 was an attack on a completely defenseless civilian complex that posed no threat to anyone. In the case of Pearl Harbor, the Japanese did not have a good reason – empire – but at least they attacked a legitimate military target in an overt act of war. The jihadists? I can understand their reasons (ticked at US influence and presence in the MidEast), but in the end they committed an act of cowardice and mass murder that was totally unjustifiable by anyone’s standards.

Sadly, not only did 2977 innocent human beings die needlessly, the terrorists also made matters worse for the people in the Middle East. It reminds me of Shakespeare’s tragedies – someone commits an act of murder, which leads to an act of revenge, which leads to MORE revenge, in an endless cycle of violence that ends with nothing but a huge body count and misery on the part of everyone involved. Shakespeare understood the way people work – it appears that most of us don’t.

I won’t get involved in any debate over the last 10 years. I just finished watching the dedication of the National Memorial to Flight 93. The sun dappled field in Pennsylvania, the simple monument, brought tears to these old eyes.

I find it hard to believe they still haven’t raised enough money to complete it. All the billionaire’s who mouth off about not paying enough taxes could write a check today to pay for the thing. So its up to the little folks to chip in. I don’t know if it is violating blogosphere etiquette to post a site for donations, but I will leave it up to Mas to either post this or delete it. It is the National Park Service and they accept credit card donations.

http://www.honorflight93.org

I dont think anyone would claim that 9/11 was exactly like Pearl Harbor Matt, I would say that its effects were similar.

In 1941 you had a government that was very well aware of the threat and had taken many steps to prepare for it (including nationalizing the national guard in spring of 1941), however the political will and the will of the people to do much wasnt there. Pearl Harbor changed that.

In the late 90s, the CIA wanted Bin Laden dead, but the administration wouldnt authorize it because it did not perceive a national will to take risk with American lives to do it. We, as a nation, saw terrorism as an “over there” thing with the exception of some isolated incidents. Then 9/11 occurred. The Doves lined up with the Hawks, NATO invoked Article V without US prompting, patriotism became popular again.

There are many parallels between the events that are useful enough for consideration.

I was out with my Air Force ROTC Detachment at Arizona State, doing our regular morning physical training/exercise routine. On the drive from home to campus I had heard on the radio about the first plane, but no further details or conclusions were made before I went to the ROTC event. Near the end of our exercise period, another cadet ran onto the field to tell us that a second plane had hit the WTC and the Pentagon was hit too. Shock and confusion had hit all of us.

As already mentioned above: the dedication of all civilian (and military) quick response to the attack was stupendously admirable, and the pride and patriotism that surfaced in that time was encouraging and beyond reproach…at the same time, the relentless (and continuing!) emergence of the Police State via bodies like the TSA, DHS, Patriot Act, and two war money-furnaces- those are an absolute disgrace and one of the biggest shameful maneuvers our foolish (at best) and likely criminal (at the worst) leadership have chained us with in the last ten years.

May God bless and keep THESE United States of America.

I laughed! The irony was too much to bear. Here we’re spending billions of dollars on a missile system to prevent this from happening and they “low teched” us. a All the info was there and nobody listened to the field agents. A moribund bureaucracy that failed us so badly and is worse now.Clinton passed on several chances to get Ossama, Bush was more interested in getting Saddam and Obama had to be pushed into it. The present administration kept the “patriot act ” Obama campaigned against and is now practically molesting six year olds and ripping diapers off ninety year old grandmothers in airports. Nobody does a thing. If a muslim gets looked at there’s hell to pay. That’s only part of the story. Our freedoms are rapidly sliding away and those of us who believe in the constitution are labeled terrorists, racists and worse. It’s hard to fathom such an epic crisis that lifted us up as a nation for awhile has dropped us so low. 9-11 isn’t even taught in some schools and is bearly mentioned in others, read that in the paper this last week, can you believe that? AND I don’t feel one bit safer. Mas was right five months ago when he said stay alert our safty is up to us.

Oh, yes, I forgot to mention one important similarity – both resulted in massive expansions of government power.

One thing I despise to no end is so-called “patriotism.” The kind that appeared after 9/11 in the majority of people was fake patriotism. That’s the patriotism that says “My country, right or wrong” and blindly follows the federal government, expecting it to make us safe. Real patriotism is questioning your government no matter what it is they’re doing, and standing up for your freedoms when they’re taken away in the name of “safety.”

To Marc-Wi:
While I’m not laughing, I do agree with what you say completely. It is beyond me why or how, after 10 yrs the only ones really paying the price for 9/11 is Americans. The freedom -stealing laws and bureaucracy thats been leveled on us, and the politically correct freedoms given to the outsiders that cheered the falling towers that day is unbelievable. It is really sad what has become of our nation in the past decade. If we do not stand up and take back our country and demand the return of our freedom, I’m afraid in the end the terrorist are going to come out the winner…and their greatest ally will be our own government.

I was a grad student and helping to set up a computer lab for the new school year. Someone had the radio on, and for about ten seconds after the report of the first plane hitting I said to myself, “that is a really disgusting to be joking about something like that on the radio, someone might think it’s true”. Then I realized it was no joke, and only minutes after the initial reporting the second plane hit, and the tone of the voice of the reporter mirrored what everyone felt and was thinking at that moment.

I ran out of there and drove to the nearest gas station to fill a full tank of gas, figuring that our supply might get cut off in the commotion by who-knows-what other attacks were to follow. I drove home and threw a tape in the vcr to record the events and reactions as they happened. It was clear history was being made and I knew that my emotions at that moment was something that I would like to express to my future kinds and grandchildren, and being able to watch the news as the events were unfolding was one way to be able to communicate those feelings.

Following great pride of our country in the days following, it has been hard not to fall into despair over the last ten years. It was never hard to understand why the attacks were made. How would you feel if countries in the middle east and asia set up military bases in the US? How would you feel if countries in the middle east were sponsoring criminal organizations in the US with weapons? Actually, how do you feel about it, it is happening right now. Some of the murdering drug gangs from Mexico that are spilling into our country have been proven to be supported by militant muslim organizations. More meddling in other countries business is not the way to stop future terrorism.

In the years following 9/11, our congress has been reduced to being driven by personal agendas and bickering at the best. And at the worst, we are right now experiencing a civil war of the words among ourselves. Congress and the people that support them are as divided as they have ever been and no one listens to the other side, and the politicians in charge and journalists supporting them keep enlarging the crap that’s ripping our country apart.

I hope we will all live to see the day when we can say that the lives of those brave souls, and those whose lives were taken without having the choice on 9/11 were not in vain. How about a reset to the days following 9/11 on our ten year anniversary. Let’s unite our United States of America again and become true patriots, fighting together to restore the glory of our contry?

T. Conner- I only laughed about the irony of our efforts vs theirs. It didn’t last long. I fear for the Republic, They steal our freedoms and bury us in debt.

Marc. Yeah, I see where you’re coming from. I think the irony of this situation is really a clear picture of how our government always works.They spend trillions to “solve” our problems and yet, never even come close to the real root of a problem.

642, I think. One sits nearby right now.

I don’t think I could do what he did.