by Geoffrey Maney
September 11, 2001. On this day, now 11 years past, four jet liners filled with innocent people were violently hijacked and intentionally flown into predetermined targets. Those targets included the north and south tower of the World Trade Center complex in New York City, as well as the Pentagon in Washington DC. Thousands of people worked in the twin towers, hundreds were trapped above the impact zone with no hope of getting out alive.
When the towers collapsed dust and debris covered the surrounding area. I remember being glued to the television in Painesville, Ohio, my mother calling my grandparents and telling them what was happening. We watched in disbelief as two massive towers disappeared in a cloud of smoke. America watched as hundreds of her sons and daughters were erased from the face of the earth on live television.
I remember watching President George W. Bush standing on the rubble of the world trade center as he spoke to the firefighters and emergency workers laboring to rebuild and repair a wounded city and a weakened nation. “I want you all to know, that America today – America today is on bended knee in prayer for the people whose lives were lost here, for the workers who work here, for the families who mourn,” he spoke through a bullhorn.
The crowd shouted for him to speak louder. “It can’t go any louder” he responded. “We can’t hear you,” one person in the crowd called out. “I can hear you,” he responded without hesitation, “I can hear you, and the rest of the world hears you, and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear from all of us soon.”
What followed were the spirited chants of American citizens angry and appalled by a crime so extravagant in its scope, so astounding in its furiosity, so incomprehensible in its heartlessness. “USA! USA! USA!”
I remember a president who brought together a nation to decry terrorism as a tyranny of fear, and who staked his reputation on fighting and defeating that evil. I remember most of all the people onboard United flight 93. The people onboard this flight heard about what had happened in New York City and Washington DC and made the decision that they would not allow their flight to be turned into a weapon of destruction.
They stood up and fought back knowing that doing so would probably result in their death. I remember the picture of American patriotism incarnate in the deeds of those aboard that flight. Their sacrifice is solidified in the granite strength of the American memory; a memory which has weathered depression, and triumphed over slavery and discrimination and achieved victory over evil in the forms of Nazism, Communism, and most recently radical Islam.
Eleven years after the 11th, America remains. Cries of tolerance, pleads for us to forgive and forget, remind me of the failed rhetoric of Neville Chamberlin who postulated that if we allowed Adolf Hitler more and more territory he would be satisfied. That turned out to be false.
Can there be peace between America and the nations of the Middle East? I do not know. How can peace be made and alliances be forged with nations run by tyrannical religious leaders who murder entire groups of their population and squelch all semblance of freedom from flourishing? How can peace be made with leaders who call upon their warriors to walk into crowded town squares and detonate bombs that have been strapped to their chests in the name of Allah?
It is not only radical Islam that has raised its fist against this great nation, and our quarrel is not and should never be against Islam. The enemies of this nation come from all walks of life and all religions. It is important for us to remember that we have enemies, and we must remain ever vigilant so that September 11th, 2001 is never repeated again.
Remember the truths that unite us, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Never forget those lost and those heroes who have helped us rebuild.
gmaney@capital.edu
