My Thoughts on 9-11, written on 9-11-2006

I remember 9/11. I remember hearing on the radio at work that a plane hit one of the WTC towers. No one knew initially what was going on. Then a second plane hit the other tower. The next thing I knew, I heard that a tower had completely collapsed. Soon after, the next tower collapsed.

What a range of emotions I went through! Was this the start of WWIII? Where would they hit next? Then I heard that the Pentagon was hit, and another plane went down in a field in Pennsylvania. My first non-emotional thought was to thank God that George W. Bush was our president.

Stunned. Sad. Angry. Perplexed. Those were my emotions, in order. First, I was stunned. How could that happen? Why would someone do that? Next, I was sad. I knew those towers held thousands of people, especially on a Tuesday morning. Also, the Pentagon was hit! Being a former Marine, I could only imagine what that meant and what those inside went through. I also thought of the loss of life on the planes. Then I got mad! A white, hot, smoldering anger coursed through my veins. Once it was determined it was a group of terrorists that did this, I wanted action. I imagined my hands throttling one of them. I was still on inactive reserve, and I thought about calling a recruiter and getting back on active duty. I wanted a gun and some bullets. I was angry because these scum suckers came into our country, infiltrated our system, and killed our people. I honestly don’t think I’d ever been so angry in my life.

Then the perplexity hit. I was used to hearing about someone bringing a bomb or weapon on a plane, but to use the plane itself as a weapon? Unthinkable. It was a flying deathtrap, as well as a giver of death and destruction. The absolute audacity of the event was hard to get a grip on. How fanatical must these people be! Could I sit on a plane, looking at innocent people-children, and elderly and then take over the cockpit and steer the plane into a building? Even if I was in an actual war, I couldn’t stoop to the level of killing innocent women and children.

It wasn’t until I got home that day and saw the pictures on TV that I realized the full impact of what happened. I realized then that our country would be changed forever. Comparatively, a tiny fraction of one percent of our population was killed. However, the damage done by the terrorists was way more far-reaching. We would be on heightened alert. Our airports were already shut down. Our economy would be crippled for a while. How would we find the ones that did this and bring them to justice? Would we? Could we?

It was amazing to start to see and hear the stories of heroism that came out of this tragedy. Those firemen and policemen were flat-out heroes. Next we began to prepare for war, and sent troops into Afghanistan because we heard that Osama Bin-Ladin was the leader of the group that did this and that was where he was staying. Then I began to wonder how we could have missed this with all our intelligence capabilities. As the months and years unfolded, the finger pointing started. The political haymaking started. A commission was appointed to find out what happened, and on that committee was one who had made it difficult to share vital information, which could have possibly prevented the attack in the first place. I could go on and on regarding the politics involved, but it makes me sick. Books were written, accusations were made, and political correctness had stifled our efforts to thwart any future attacks. I stand behind the actions of our President and his cabinet and leaders. I know that the former President, Mr. Clinton and his cabinet had a chance to capture Bin-Ladin, but because of the way our government operates, nothing was done.

We went to war with Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and he was toppled. A new, democratic government was set up, but there were/are bombings weekly and the radicals from Syria and Jordan are inciting Al-Qaeda operatives to continue to kill and make us look bad. Suddenly, the war on terror was replaced with politicians pointing fingers because of what was going on in Iraq. This has gone on for years.

So, where are we now? Let me sum up the big picture (which is my forte). We are remembering the fifth anniversary of an attack on our country, and its way of life, that was years in the making. Unfortunately, this has turned into politics: the right is mostly working hard to stop terrorists and anyone who harbors them. President Bush has a clear definition and purpose about what he is doing. Terrorism must be fought mainly with a change of ideals, because it is virtually impossible to stop terrorism. Liberals are concerned with taking down our President. They foolishly have taken a stance of appeasement and political correctness. This will get us killed. Other countries hate us now because of Iraq. They also do not understand the far-reaching implications of what we’re doing. We belong in Iraq, for a myriad of reasons. A small percentage of those reasons involve the attacks on 9/11. Secondly, it has become apparent that the Moslem radicals have hated us for years and have been planning the demise of Western culture and Christianity for years, since the 1970s (real beginning of the 3rd Jihad). There were many warnings about 9/11, but we didn’t listen. We actually had identified most of the hijackers, but, because of legal technicalities, they couldn’t be taken. Again, I could go on and on.

So, what’s the solution? Is the threat over? Will we be attacked again? Well, the recent foiling of a plot to attack us from London should answer that question. We are still targets. These people, these vermin scum, want to put their way of life on us or kill us. If they could repeat 9/11, they would. We need to continue to hunt them down and kill them. We need to continue the PATRIOT Act. We need to continue clandestine surveillance. We need to remember what happened on 9/11. Thank God we haven’t seen another attack on American soil. The hand of God plus the efforts of our government (military, law enforcement, etc.) have kept us safe for five years. The anger, sadness, resolve, and unity we experienced five years ago need to be re-visited if we are to persevere under this real threat. We need to wake back up.