The sky was blue. The air was clear. I was driving the office supply van, backing up to a loading dock so that I could have some of my cargo offloaded. I was loving life. I had the windows down. There was sports talk on the radio. They were about to play a game.
All of a sudden I hear dead air, followed by “C’mon! I can win this son-of-a-bitch.”
Then one of the hosts come on and says “We’re watching the World Trade Center burn and you’re talking about a game.” The first plane had hit the World Trade Center. New Yorkers and passengers were already dying or dead with more to come later. I didn’t know any of the casualties, but I know New Yorkers who lost friends and loved ones.
I have to admit to being a bad guy here. It was originally announced as being a commuter plane. I had a friend (actually we’re still friends) who was working at Detroit Metro Airport drug testing pilots. I knew that there were people flying who should not have been. I originally blamed the pilot, assuming that he was drunk, high, or both. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I owe that pilot an apology that I’ll never be able to give him.
I switched to news radio. There was someone on the scene describing what had happened. In the middle of the sentence the interviewee screamed “My God! My God! Another plane just hit the other tower.” That’s when I knew it wasn’t an accident. That’s when I knew it was an attack.
What followed was easily the weirdest day of my life. Work continued in the Detroit area. We’re a blue collar town. I drove to my next stop. It was an automotive supplier. They were all listening to music on CD. It was 2001. That was normal. Nobody had heard anything about what happened yet. Then I stopped at my mom’s while she was at work and borrowed her TV to see if I could get a look what was going on. I watched the towers fall in living color right in my mom’s living room while eating her peanut butter and jelly.
On the way there, a bus went past me. About thirty seconds later, a police car blew past me. I nearly panicked. I was only twenty-four at the time, but I had spent most of my life up to that point reading coverage in my local newspaper about the war in Israel. Palestinians loved to blow up busses full of Israelis. I was afraid to keep driving in the same direction I had been going. I didn’t want to get caught up in the blast.
As I continued my trip around town, I came across all kinds of people; some crying; some furious; some screaming; others scared and ready to surrender. I didn’t know what to make of it all. I still don’t. Still and all, I feel like I saw a better cross-section of the public and their reactions than anyone I know that day. I definitely got a better look at the common man’s reaction than any reporter I saw on TV.
I was living with my cousin at the time. We went to his parents house for dinner that night and prayed as a family. We hadn’t done that in at least a decade and a half leading up to that date, except for holidays. We haven’t done it since. I enjoyed that and there are some times when it’s just good to be around family.
And now it’s twenty-two years later. What have we learned? Has anything changed for the better? My sister would tell you that it hasn’t. She’s a Muslim and a civil rights lawyer. She regularly loses her mind when talking about what still happens to Muslims because of 9/11 backlash. Investigations abound. This is something I’m torn on. I can see the need for national security. I also believe in individual rights. Trying to draw a line in cases like this gives me the heebee jeebees.
What else has changed? Not much. We’ve added some metal detectors I guess, but that’s whatever. I have no problem with being asked to go through one as long as everyone else does. I guess I just don’t see that as much of a violation of privacy when I’m already in a public space.
We definitely haven’t become more unified as a country. The US is a place that is well on its way to tearing itself apart. The two sides stopped listening to each other right around the time the Left decided that anyone who disagreed with a black president was a racist and the Right decided where the Left could stick their ideas if they weren’t open to debate.
Things are getting ugly in this country and it kills me. I was not yet born when Kennedy was born, but I don’t seem to remember reading anything, either in a history book or a primary source, that indicated that anyone was happy when Kennedy got shot. I vaguely remember my parents talking about Reagan when he got shot. Nobody was happy about that as far as I recall. I saw a clip of Trump taking a bullet to the ear. There were many who expressed disappointment that the assassin missed. There are others, myself among them, who believe that the Secret Service deliberately allowed the assassin to open fire before engaging him because they wanted Trump dead.
If you disagree with my belief that’s fine, but I ask you this: How healthy is a country where someone would question the integrity of the people who protected the chief executive? Have you heard of Ancient Rome? Are we headed for the part of our history where the Praetorian is the one who commits the assassination? It’s scary.
Seriously folks, we need to turn the rhetoric down a bit. Once upon a time, assassinating Hitler before he could take over was a joke. Today it’s an excuse to kill a presidential candidate who has been recognized by both the NAACP and the NOW. Cities burn. Businesses and lives are destroyed. It needs to end.
I’ve been known to spit some vitriol myself at times. I’ve never called for violence except in cases of defense, either self defense or against the people who are looting and burning cities. Attacks must be met with force. By that I mean real, physical attacks, not some Leftist definition of attack which means disagreement. We need to cool things down or there is a war on the way.
And I guess that’s what scares me the most. A civil war in a modern context would make September Eleventh feel like a cakewalk in comparison. I’ve often heard it said that those who aren’t willing to kill for their beliefs should be prepared to die for them. There is some truth in that. We’re better off if we can avoid the killing though. Think about that.