9/11/2001 thoughts

 Few events in our history have so affected us that we remember them and relive them our entire lives.

None of us were around on April 19, 1775, but I can imagine that a whole generation asked each other, “Where were you when Major Buttrick shouted, “For God’s sake! FIRE!” and that shot was heard around the world, ultimately changing the course of history forever.

My mamma and daddy could tell me exactly where they were on December 7, 1941, a “date that does live in infamy”.

Some of us still ask, “Where were you when President Kennedy was assassinated?”

I was a teenager, it was Fall of my senior year, and I was in art class at Woodlawn High School.

On June 11, 1963, Governor George Wallace had stood on the steps of Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama and declared, “Segregation now. Segregation forever.” It would come to be known as the “Stand in the Schoolhouse door”  That footage became so well-known made it into the movie Forest Gump.

In Birmingham, we had survived the “Long Hot Summer of ‘63”, with firehoses and police dogs versus peaceful demonstrators on the streets of downtown. A time that would be replayed over and over on national TV for 50 years.

On August 28, 1963, a quarter of a million people marched on Washington D.C., and they were calmed by Reverend Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech – a presentation that will be repeated so often it is more recognizable than the Gettysburg address.

We had already been horrified on September 15, when the 16^th Street Baptist Church was bombed, killing 4 little girls attending Sunday School. I remember where I was and who I was with when that news was received moments after it happened.

So we wondered what the hell else could happen? could It possible get any worse? 1963 said, “Here. Hold my beer.”

On November 22, 1963, one deadly shot in Dallas, TX horrified our nation, and the world. For a time, we were no longer Republicans or Democrats, but Americans - UNIFIED in grief. John F. Kennedy was President of the United States. That’s ALL of us. Nobody said, “The Democrats lost their President.”

The next 40 or so years, though, were painful on many issues. Black vs white, North vs South… we were still fighting the War Between the States, Marines vs the rest of the military, Vietnam, Gulf War, Somolia, Panama, and on and on, until

September 11, 2001.

Where were you on Sept 11, 2001 at 7:46am Central time? When American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center?  If you were born before about 1991 (the year of Desert Storm), you probably can remember exactly where you were.

By 9:07am, an hour and 15 minutes later, when United flight 93 crashed In Pennsylvania, I know where you were, and what you were doing. You were glued to a television somewhere. You were shocked, angry, and feeling confused and helpless.

You watched in anguish as the Twin towers fell again and again, and the Pentagon exploded. You watched first responders rush through noxious smog into barely visible black holes into crumbling buildings, and people leapt to their deaths from dozens of stories up to escape death by fire. Maybe you wept. Maybe you prayed.

Unless you lived and worked in NYC. Unless you were a first responder in the area. There was no time for weeping or anger. For them, there was only FOCUS.

Of the almost 3000 citizens who perished that day, over 400 were first responders, most of those were firefighters, and ALL of them were true heroes.

My pastor says the church isn’t the building. The church is the people. Its symbol is a cross. Likewise, the United States isn’t the Twin Towers or the Pentagon. The United States is the people. Our symbol is our flag. None of the heroes of 9/11 rushed into the Twin Towers to save a building. Their purpose was to rescue PEOPLE.

In my heart, I KNOW most of them realized that rushing into the mouth of hell that day could most likely be their last action on this earth. I believe most of them knowingly sacrificed all their tomorrows so that somebody’s mother or father, or somebody’s son or daughter could have a TODAY.

The Bible tells us  “Greater love hath no man than this: that he lay  down his life for his friends.”

Except maybe that he lay down his life for a complete stranger?

In the years after 9/11/2001, thousands of first responders suffered the effects of the heat and breathing the toxic dust that day, and many would die from it in a couple of years. By 2013, over 1400 first responders who had worked the scene that day had died from the diagnosis “exposure to toxins at Ground Zero”.  By 2016, another 2100 firefighters had retired on disability with World Trade Center-related illnesses, mostly lung diseases and cancers. This brought the total count of “first Responder casualties” to almost 4,000.

But for a time after the attack on us on 9/11/2001, we ceased being Democrats or Republicans, black or white, Christian or Jewish, rich or poor. Nobody cared if you ate at Chic-fil-a or Ruth’s Chris.

For a time, You remember. we were ALL Americans. We stood shoulder to shoulder, arm in arm, suffering and grieving the same profound loss. American flag companies sold out. There was hardly a car or a truck or a house that did not display an American flag.  What mattered was NOT what divided us, but what UNITED us.  It was the greatest surge of patriotism in my lifetime.

Lest they forget, it is VITAL that we teach our children and grandchildren the pride and glory that being a patriotic America citizen feels like. That’s the real importance of our annual 9/11 memorial services.

We remember and celebrate the day the fires of patriotism burned the brightest, and the day the American spirit could NOT be quenched. It is why we call September 11 “Patriot Day”.

So remember … Where were you on 9/11/2001?  and please… tell the story