September 11th

I said that I wouldn't watch the news today...... but I did. I said that I wouldn't watch the shows featuring memorials/movies/documentaries about 9/11........ but I did that too. Honestly, how could I not?

This morning, on one of the news shows, they read every name of every person who died five years ago this day, as a result of terrorist acts that even today we can't understand or justify. I didn't listen to all the names. It was just too sad.

Last night, one of the stations here replayed the documentary made by the two brothers who set out to follow a rookie firefighter at "house" #10, near the World Trade Center. They began their filming on the morning of Sept. 11. Little did they know. I hadn't seen that film before, and I didn't realize it was on television until it was half over. I watched the second half of it. I wish I had seen it from the beginning.

I watched most of everything that was on television. My eyes kept searching the faces of the firemen, looking to see if I could find my friend's husband, who is a fireman.... he was at Ground Zero along with hundreds (thousands?) of other firefighters after all hell broke loose up in NYC that morning. Thankfully, he wasn't at the firehouse when the planes went into the towers.

I just don't understand, and I guess I never will. How can one group of people hate another group of people so much that they make elaborate plans to kill at random? And not only do they kill others, but they themselves die in the process.... and they believe to be acting with their god in their hearts.

Years ago, when President Kennedy was assassinated on the street in Dallas, the newsmen said that life would never be the same for Americans. How wrong they were. Life didn't change all that much for "regular" citizens across the country after Kennedy was killed. Granted, it made us realize just how quickly a life can be extinguished-- but didn't we really know that already?

Life in the U.S. has definitely changed since Sept. 11, 2001.... and it's not just the fact that more people than ever are hanging flags up in front of their homes and businesses, and even on their vehicles. I hate the fact that we, as a country, have to always be looking over our shoulders, so to speak. We can't just get on a plane anymore without wondering who else is getting on that plane behind us. We can't go into a neighborhood market these days without looking sideways at a Muslim woman who's covered from head to toe in fabric....... I'd like to say "This is America--- you don't have to be all covered up here." But of course you can't say that.

But I'd like to say to every group of foreign-born people: This is America. This country was born of immigrants who came here to be Americans. They learned the language. They adopted the customs, the dress, the freedom. They didn't forget the country they came from, but they surely embraced the country they came to.

There are just so many pockets of people across this nation, and across the world, who are living on the edges of society, not calling attention to themselves until they decide to bring glory to their god by destroying whatever and whoever happens to be in their path.

I watched part of a movie tonight which tried to piece together the days leading up to that 11th day of September, five years ago. In NYC and in Washington DC, life was going on as usual... people living in the cities, some on their way to their jobs, others in their homes. Half a world away, groups of men wrapped in long robes and riding camels in a desert, going into hiding because the message was brought to them that this was the day. So courageous... they went into hiding.

I looked at the television screen.... saw that desert, those camels, the men wrapped in fabric from head to toe. Nevada had a desert like that. Men stood around that desert years ago, but they weren't wrapped in fabric. They didn't go into hiding. They built hotels and casinos and homes and supermarkets.

One desert has nothing to do with the other, of course. Hotels and casinos are not the be-all and end-all of the American way of life.

September 11th wasn't the end-all of the American way of life either, but it surely changed the way we look at the rest of the world, in my humble opinion.

I'm just rambling on here... today was just a sad day. I wish I had unplugged the television sets when I got up this morning.