I don’t think I can write something here today that will be inspiring or awe-inducing. Even though I’m not feeling particularly chatty today, I thought I shouldn’t stay silent either.
I don’t know anyone who died on September 11, 2001. I didn’t receive a tragic final phone call or come home to one last ‘I love you’ on my answering machine. I wasn’t in New York or DC. I don’t have any sort of ‘real’ ties to the day. I’m probably just like you – an ordinary American citizen whose life was changed five years ago in spite of being removed from the personal events that unfolded, who was profoundly changed.
I don’t look at the people in airports the same way. I’m 100% guilty of racial profiling as I make eye contact with the other passengers as I lug my carry on toward the back of the plane, inspecting them for signs of nervousness and hate.
I couldn’t fall asleep last night and thought about what today would hold for the victim’s families. I thought about children who will have no memory of their father, of fiances with weddings that never came, of all the women who didn’t come home from work. I worried about the safety of our President, the military members serving around the world and the people who are riding elevators to the top of skyscrapers all over the world.
This morning, while the media runs clips from the past and talks about our future, I am both appalled by the spectacle and drawn to the information.
I watched “The Path to 9/11” last night and I got angry; angry at the way we used to think and angry at an administration who did not take the threat seriously. The military knew that the issues were being overlooked when they were attacked on the USS Cole and at Khobar Towers, when the embassies were hit and the response culminated with a few bombs launched in a half-hearted act designed to placate our fear. And we can’t go back and do it all again. We can only make sure that we are doing all we can now to prevent terrorist attacks. But I have no idea what that is. I don’t have action items for you. I don’t have advice. I don’t have the answer.
So today, I’ll just remember.
