09/11/2006

On the five year tragedy of September 11, most people have been talking about where they were on that day. Most of their stories are much more exciting than mine. I did not turn on the news that morning, so I did not know about the event that had taken place. I remember in the car on the way to work, the announcers kept saying what a tragedy had happened. I was wondering what was happening because they just kept saying what a tragedy it was. Finally, they said a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York.

When I got to work, some of the other employees had managed to get the local news on the televisions in the cafeteria. Ordinarily they only showed company broadcasts, but everyone was too curious, I suppose. It's interesting to note that to this day, CNN is still broadcast on those televisions. There were several people gathered around, just wondering what had happened. Just as we all had decided it was an accident, we saw the second plane hit. It suddenly became clear that there was something else happening.

I went back to my desk and tried to get some information from the internet news pages, but all of the web sites were unavailable. Everything was overwhelmed, everyone else was thinking the same thing I was, apparently. Shortly after that, one of the head people said we could go home for the day if we wanted.

I did go home that day and spend it with my family, watching the events unfold. I was not scared that an attack would happen to us, but I was fearful for the people who were there, on the ground, watching in real life what we were seeing on television. The most shocking thing to me was that there were absolutely no airplanes in the air that night. We lived near a small regional airport and the flight path to the major aiport was over us, so there were always the sounds of planes in the air. The absence of that was disturbing.

So now five years later, we're in a perpetual state of war with a noun, we have ridiculous airport security, limited freedoms, increased government surveillance, prisoner torture, corporations getting rich from death and destruction, and a whole list of other issues too numerous to mention individually. I do not think that anyone could have estimated the degree to which the events of that day would be politicized for a fanatical agenda and the blind allegiance these people would receive by invoking the word "terrorist."

The fact is the world is a complicated place filled with a huge array of diverse beliefs and individuals. Few, if any, issues are black and white and rarely are there simple answers to the tough questions. The events of that day were not as simple as them hating our freedom. And one can wonder what drives these individuals to these acts, without being unpatriotic. Something makes them do this, and perhaps those are the issues that we should take a hard look at, instead of simply name calling and labeling them as lunatics. This does not excuse their actions in any way, but I have to believe there is common ground between everyone that can result in a peaceful coexistence.

It is not mandatory that we all get along, but, but we can at least agree to not kill each other. Maybe that's a dreamland, but I have to believe it is possible in our current day and age. But then again, there's not much money to be made from not killing each other.