Remembering

I suppose telling you I spent time today reflecting on the terrorist attacks ten years ago wouldn't come as much of a surprise.  Most people did, I suppose.  With the media coverage I think you'd have to make a special effort to avoid it, although I'm guessing most people wanted to take time to reflect and mourn. That so many people were killed for no good reason is tragic.  Watching their friends and relatives today at Ground Zero well...it's heartbreaking.

I could write so much about what I think of the individual loss.  I could easily speculate on how their relatives feel about the terrorists, about Islam, about the public nature of the crime.  I could make assumptions about how they feel today and how they've coped the last ten years.  But you know what?  I would be talking out of my ass.  I'm not one of them and I can't relate.  That part of the tragedy isn't mine.  It belongs only to those that experienced that day, and that loss, first-hand.  My father-in-law covered the attacks in mid-town Manhattan as a cameraman for NBC and I've talked to him about it, so I suppose I could speculate on how people feel who were there and survived.  But again, that's not my story so I won't presume to tell it.  The story I think of is the one that I feel, the one I think of every September 11.

My story isn't dramatic; in fact it's not even a story.  Rather, it's a series of emotions based solely on the perspective of an outsider.  I was 19 on September 11, a college student living in Denver.  I didn't know anyone in New York.  I'd never been to New York.  That didn't negate the horror I felt watching the carnage unfold but it did minimize how it related to me.  Did things change in Denver?  Maybe, but not a lot.  My emotions now are related less to New York City, Washington DC and Pennsylvania and instead to the country and its citizens as a whole.  In the immediate aftermath I do think people were nicer, kinder.  They took more time and some of the hard edges were softened, but it didn't last.  I don't know when the change started--it probably didn't take too long, Americans have notoriously short memories--but I'm certain that by the time we invaded Iraq in March 2003 the tides were starting to shift.  People were becoming divided and it would only get uglier as time went on.

I think of the utter loss of human life.  The 2,977 on September 11; 6,240 U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan; countless Iraqi and Afghani civilians who'd done nothing more than live in a country America invaded; at least a handful of people that committed suicide in the wake of September 11.  I think of how our politicians have squandered the opportunity to work together a build a better country.  This isn't about Democrat or Republican (as far as I'm concerned my personal politics have no place on my blog), this is about the absolute selfishness of our elected officials and the utter selfishness of the American public.  In the last ten years, unless you or a loved one are in the military, nothing has been asked of you except perhaps a little more inconvenience when you go to the airport.  Maybe if we all were being asked to sacrifice something the outcome of our wars would matter a little bit more.  As it is, people can turn on the TV, hear about a soldier or six that was killed and go back to dinner.

Frankly, I'm pissed off.  If there's anything I could impart on my countrymen it's this: BE BETTER.  Do what's right.  Try harder.  The divisiveness, the anger, the petty infighting in regard to politics.  This is the legacy left behind in the ten years since September 11?  This is what all those people died for?  We should be ashamed of ourselves.  The people who died deserve better than this.  We deserve better than this.  If we can't figure out how to lay down our proverbial swords, solve our problems like the adults we claim to be and make our country and this world a better place then maybe there really is no hope.