Sept. 11: The anger still smolders
By Steven Murphy
Seven years since the events of 9/11. Wow. Has it truly been that seven years have passed?
I remember the horrible events of that day. I remember where I was when I heard. I remember not being able to take my eyes from the television as each new revelation appeared. I remember the twin towers falling. I remember the Pentagon burning.
I think what impacted me the most, however, were the days afterward, when air travel was banned. There were no contrails in the sky. No distant drone of jet engines. Just an unnatural hush that told me that nothing would be the same, ever.
Seven years later I am disappointed, even angry, when I think of 9/11. Angry at the perpetrators and their heinous acts, to be sure, but angrier at the government, the people of the United States who seem to have forgotten.
I remember being proud of our president, our government for seeming for once to be unified in their righteous anger. Never forget, "Let's roll!" This was my generation's Pearl Harbor - my generation's "Remember the Maine!" I remember being proud when our military began to deal death and destruction at the feckless cowards who had killed so many innocents wholesale.
Today, we are seemingly mired in a conflict that has absolutely nothing to do with the events of 9/11. Our leaders have forgotten a hard-learned lesson from the past: Do not go where you are not wanted. Do not stay where you are not welcome. Do not fight a war for reasons that are less than honorable. Our military is the best any nation can muster forth. Do not squander such a precious resource.
I remember feeling pride at seeing our politicians amid the rubble, bullhorns in hand, healing the pain and telling us what we all so desperately wanted to hear. Justice. Triumph. They heard us, and the people who knocked down these buildings would soon hear from all of us.
Now, I am faced with hamstrung politicians who failed to deliver on those promises or, even worse, used those events to pad their political resumes. I don't care who voted for the war before whom. I care that the leaders of al-Qaida are free to dispense further hate and violence. That the man who spearheaded and inspired these attacks will still have a job, albeit from a cave, after the present occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has gone back home to Texas.
I remember hoping that we would not forget those who died on that wicked day. I remember hoping that we would avenge their deaths and create a world reflective in purpose and one that would be safe for the innocents of all faiths to walk free.
I think we have forgotten that horrible day -- tried to brush it aside like a bad dream. We should never forget the sacrifices made that day. We should never forget the names of those lost. We should never, ever forget the evil that visited our shores that day and struck us down where we should have been safest -- our homes and offices.
Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the architect of the attack on Pearl Harbor, is credited with saying that with the assault on Pearl Harbor, Japan had awakened a sleeping giant.
On 9/11, the giant awoke, swatted viciously, then rolled over and went back to sleep. What will it take to awaken the behemoth now?
Steven Murphy of Winston-Salem wrote this in response to the Aug. 31 Question of the Week: Seven years after 9/11. What are your thoughts?
