Nine Years Later

It’s 9-11 again. It seems to be the date everyone dreads. A solemn date that will live on like Pearl Harbor. In time, it may be relegated to the history books as just another event. For those of us who lived through it, it is more. Some of us lost loved ones. Some of us lost our sense of security.

I can remember where I was when the towers went down and what I was doing. It was kind of like what my mother described when she heard of the assassination of President Kennedy. I thought I was watching a strange movie. I had to proceed with my work day as if nothing was awry. I remember as I was at work I passed a recruiting station and gave serious consideration to stopping in and trying to join up. Never mind the fact that I had a girlfriend that I was considering proposing to and that I had unsuccessfully tried in the past to join the Navy. I just felt like I had to do something.

To say that the events of September 11, 2001 were terrible and heinous is an extreme understatement. We sent our men and women to do what they had to. Some never returned. Now, nine years later, what still bothers me – aside from some obvious unfinished business – is how much racism and bigotry has been born out of those events. Maybe they did not begin at that point, but those events gave the bigots a rationale for their beliefs.

It was a radical group that did these things. It would be most unfortunate if we profess to come together in unity as one nation and one people and ostracize a group because of skin color, religious or cultural differences or sexual orientation. If we cannot include everyone, we can never be one nation.