For many, September 11, 2001, will be the moment in time, when, at once, we can remember where we were, what we were doing, with a sense of dread and doom, from which we might never recover. Images of horrors more grotesque than in the scariest of movies, surrounded all of our senses not only providing us with fear, but with little understanding of why and what comes next; causing our imaginations to act as ghosts hidden in the shadows. Madness beyond any comprehension visited our nation, innocents were slaughtered, reasoning seemed useless, mayhem immediately became a part of our culture. We watched, we waited, we guessed, we gathered, we coalesced, we changed…we became different, trying to be defiant, but still living in an aura of denial.
We found enemies, we reacted, we tried to look inward, but felt stronger facing outward, needing to demonstrate to the bully that we were not cowards. As is often the case when humans suffer loss, response is created from the gut, while the brain tries its best to understand; sometimes the two never quite catch up with one another. We declared a war, we thought we knew our enemy, but soon discovered the enemy did not think between the lines, was not a nation with conscience, cared less about our perceptions of right and wrong, and had us reacting, often times without reason or rhyme.
It is September 11, 2016. Our enemies overseas, remain the same, only their names have been changed; an army of no nation, warriors for a self serving God, and people playing on fear and loathing. But in the course of 15 years, we as a nation have also decided that there are enemies of the state, from whom we must guard ourselves, and whom, we decided don’t love this nation as much as WE do. On September 11, 2001 we came together finding common ground, and compassion, WE were ALL Americans. On September 11, 2016, ALL of us are no longer the WE, we once so proudly proclaimed. After the terrorist attack on our nation, it took common sense to come together and be inclusive; 15 years later we find ourselves as a nation running away from one another hoping that excluding the OTHERS will make us greater. I have to wonder, is our memorial to those who lost their lives in 2001, a loss of liberty in 2016?
