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Sept 8, 2003 Well it's three days and counting to the second anniversary of September 11th and already I'm dreading the twenty-four hour deluge of depression and images from the darkest day in U.S. history. Don't get me wrong I'm not complaining. I don't think that we should ever, and let's face it what sane person can, forget what happened that morning. How many people senselessly loss their lives. Who specifically perpetrated this horrible act and the blind hate behind their actions. For me it just gets to be too much to see the same scenes played over and over again when I can't say that I'm over the moment two years ago when someone called the library and wanted to know how tall the World Trade Center was. After I gave him the answer to his question he gave me the news and I remember thinking: "Please God let it be an accident." Last year I was flipping through the channels and for some reason or other stopped on the Dr. Phil show. I'm not a big fan of Dr. Phil, but for some reason I stayed my thumb and waited to see what it was he was talking about. He was discussing 9-11 and talking about the guilt that some people were feeling when their emotions over the terrorist attacks subsided somewhat. "It's okay to be angry." He said, or something along those lines. "It's natural for feelings of anger or remorse to subside over time." Again I'm paraphrasing but that's pretty much the gist of what he was saying and I'm not saying that I wholly disagree. I can see why this would happen. Why we would get back into our daily routines and move one with our lives which in itself isn't a bad thing, although it did seem that we went back to our old ways of fussing and fighting with each other, especially on capital hill, way too soon. Again for the average person to put this whole thing behind them and move on is probably a good thing, although can we say that we'll ever be the same again? Isn't that what the powers that be told us? Don't change your way of life. Don't let the terrorists win. The reason that I'm even bringing this up is that while I think I've moved on I can't safely say that I've put it behind me. In fact if I stop and think about it I'm probably just as mad now as when it finally sank in on 9/11. There is a reason for this, other than the obvious. It concerns one aspect of the tragedy that I haven't heard mentioned or highlighted on any news story. That would be the eight victims of the terrorist attack who were age eleven and younger. I'm not saying that I don't feel for every victim despite their age, but, and I guess it's because I have a child of my own, I think it's especially tragic when someone so young gets caught up in an act of such reckless hate. I'll list each name after this article and I hope that I haven't left anybody out. Remember as you go down the list that the three eleven year olds were on an educational trip to the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary near Santa Barbara, California and from what I understand they were traveling without their parents. All of the children were on the four hijacked airplanes. The bad part about that is they knew something was wrong before it happened and probably had a long time to think about it. If you think about it you can picture them filing in with the other passengers or being carried or lead in by their parents. You know they were excited, I know mine would be. You can see their eyes light up when the plane's engines started revving and it started moving down the runway. You can see them craning their necks to look out the window and see the ground get smaller and the world passing beneath them. You can see some crazed Arab stick a box cutter in their face and force them to the back of the plane, while they busied themselves flying the plane into a building. It's that image that makes me want to grab somebody by the neck and squeeze it until his eyes pop. That was the image when everything sank in that helped me to decide that somebody needed a first class butt kicking and I've been supporting the butt kicking that's been going on since then. People always tell what they want for their children's future and a lot of peaceniks say that they want a world without war for their children. Well that would be fine and good if this were a perfect world but it's not. What I want for my daughter is for her to grow up safe, healthy and happy. Without having to worry about flying on an airplane or somebody poisoning the water supply or parking a nuke outside the building where she works and in order for that to be achieved certain people need to be dealt with. People always like to mention the innocent people in Iraq or Afghanistan who are being caught up in the military operations going on there. I feel for them but if I were a parent living in a regime like you find in those countries somebody could drop a bomb on my house with me in it if it meant that my daughter didn't have to live like that. It looks to me that a lot of people would be willing to live through war for the chance, of a better life. The chance not to live in fear of being shoved into a plastic shredder feet first, so you'll scream longer. If you have a daughter maybe she'll have the chance of growing up having the freedom to show her face in public and not have to worry about being ritualistically raped for something her husband did, or being publicly stoned. I have to ask the people who are fighting against American forces in the Middle East: "What are you fighting for?" Can life in a society that has not made one single contribution to the world at large other than terror in over one thousand years be preferential to the lifestyle that the majority of Americans enjoy? I know our society has it's faults but how can you compare, indoor plumbing, gainful employment and Papa John's to a mud hut, herding sheep and rice three times a day, that is when you get anything at all? A democratic society in the Middle East would be a long time coming for sure, it took 200 years for it to happen here, but it is possible, it just takes the cooperation of the people whom it would benefit the most. I realize that war is Hell. In this day and age, however, and I'm not saying that the U.S. is blameless in making it this way, war may be the only way of assuring that not only ourselves, but our children and our children's children live in a world where they can feel safe. It's like that T-shirt says that I've seen advertised on some of the conservative sites: "Peace through superior firepower." If you want something a little more intellectual then I'll leave you with the words of Voltaire: "The true nature of liberty is independence maintained by force." List of children who died on 9/11: Bernard Curtis Brown- age 11 Asia Cottom- age 11 Rodney Dickens- age 11 Zoe Falkenberg- age 8 Dana Falkenberg- age 3 Christine Lee Hanson- age 2 David Reed Gamboa Brandhorst- age 3 Juliana Valentine- age 4 ------------ About the author: Jonathan Farlow is a frustrated writer/librarian and lives in Archdale, NC with his wife Kathy and daughter Sara. Visit his web site. You can read some of his stories there. Feedback is welcomed. Email: jonathan-farlow@excite.com Comment on this column in the forum. Tell a friend about this site! ------------ |
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