In some ways, it still doesn’t seem real. I’m sure that those directly affected by the tragedy of 9/11 would disagree, but to someone who wasn’t, it’s still just hard to believe that it happened.
I remember that day well… I had just woken up. Jodi was gone to work. I settled in to do my usual job hunting since I was unemployed at the time. Flipping on the TV, it was on CNN… I had been watching some silly report on jobs the night before when I finally drifted off to sleep. The anchor cut in on the news and said they were going live to where a plane appeared to have crashed into the side of the World Trade Center in New York.
Immediately they pointed out that this wasn’t the first such event… once upon a time, a plane had hit the Empire States Building. Of course, that was a small bi-plane I believe, and this was a passenger jet.
I watched, eyes wide open, in shock and a little horror as the events of the day played out… a second plane hit the other tower. Then the Pentagon got hit. Another plane went down in Pennsylvania. Then the towers fell…
Three years of yesterdays have passed since then, and still the event weighs so heavily on the United States. I think I finally understand how my parents, and their parents before them, felt about Pearl Harbor. Only, in a way, they got satisfaction. The US retaliated against Japan, we bombed them, and then with the first and last use of Atomic weapons in combat we took them out of the war. Today, there is no country to bomb, there are no people to bomb. The World Trade Center was a terrorist attack carried out by people who fight for an ideal, not for a flag. And how do you fight an ideal?
We’ve attacked them as best we could… removing a regime that supported them, the Taliban… but we haven’t stopped them, they still take and execute prisoners. Japan was stopped because we showed them that the losses to themselves would be too great to pursue their course… but Al Queda… they are all willing to die for their ideal, so even 99% losses isn’t enough to stop them. Fighting terrorism is like punching water, it shifts and moves but you never damage the water. And deep inside, down in the places where only my fear of death lives, its now joined by a fear of a war that will not end. A war against people without a country, without a flag, without borders or a homeland… a war against an ideal.
I extend my deepest sympathies to all of those who lost someone in the 9/11 tragedy, and to all of those who have lost someone in the following three years of trying to find and fight the ideals of terrorism.
And lastly, I extend my sympathies to the administration that has had to deal with a situation unlike any that has come before them. They’ve done about as good a job as can be expected, despite what those who oppose them would have you believe.