Everyday when I get up I open up a business-like day planner to write down how much sleep I get, what I do during the day, how I rate the day, and how many meals I have eaten. This is my way of being able to gauge how well I'm doing and where I should make changes.
Today as I was writing in it, I noticed that it said today was "Patriot Day." Somehow that made me feel uncomfortable. That day our country was attacked, and nearly 3,000 people killed. "Patriot Day" seems to downgrade the significance of what happened. We don't call the anniversary of Pearl Harbor any other name. It is Pearl Harbor.
I can't look back on September 11, 2001 and think that there is anything about it patriotic. That came afterward. The day of the attacks was just death and destruction to me. And there were people who acted heroically.
When I look back on that day, I remember the numb shock, the tears, and how much I was frightened. I lived outside of Chicago, and they were evacuating the Sear's Tower and other skyscrapers just in case.
Mom woke me up with a phone call saying to turn on the TV because a plane just hit one of the World Trade Center buildings. I was thinking a small plane with mechanical issues or pilot error. Not even the press was aware that it was a large airliner. That is until the second tower was hit. I will never forget watching that.
I also remember that while they were evacuating the first tower hit, they weren't allowing people from the other tower too. That always struck me as odd, since the towers were right next to each other. However, at that time it wasn't thought of as an act of terrorism. The First Responders were intent on getting people out of the first building and trying to figure out a way to rescue people who were trapped up above the impact zone. And no one expected either tower to fall. Even architect to the attack, Osama bin Laden, who was a building engineer, was surprised by that. It seems as though the people above the impact already knew their fate as they began to jump. There is a program they show every year that was filming at what became "Ground Zero" before the 2nd tower was attacked. It shows people jumping and the sound of impact makes me flinch. I recently found out that they had edited a lot of that out. Many more people actually jumped in that video footage, but their deaths were, kindly, edited.
I don't need to go into the rest. I'm sure everybody reading this has their own memories that come up on this day every year.
I will say this...the First Responders, police and firemen who rushed to the World Trade Center buildings were phenomenal. They are heroes, and I can't imagine the number of people saved - and the toll of what they sacrificed doing it. They are still paying that toll, both in PTSD, survivor's guilt, and 911 syndrome.
After the dust had settled, the unity that we displayed in the wake of the attacks is really hard to believe. We weren't Democrats or Republicans, we were Americans and dammit, we were proud of it. We reached out to the survivors, raised money, donated blood, sent supplies, gifts, and cards to people who had survived the worst day of their lives, either in having been there or losing a loved one. Congress was bipartisan and support for President Bush was high. American flags and yellow ribbons were found everywhere.
Isn't it so horribly sad that it takes large-scale tragedies with tremendous loss of life to unify this country?
Fifteen years later, and this country is so divided that I find it frightening. As it pertains to 9/11 exactly, of course, we went to war in Afghanistan to find Osama bin Laden, leader of al-Qaeda and architect of 9/11. However Bush then started his personal war against Iraq, using lies about weapons of mass destruction and ties to al-Qaeda to get congressional approval from Congress to pass a Use of Force resolution. Once the war was launched in Iraq, Afghanistan was pretty much forgotten. Today we are still in both countries, and Iraq is pretty much a free for all with the Iraqi "government" not really able to deal with much of anything. It is a cesspool of terrorists that were founded in the vacuum left behind of our toppling of the government. ISIS is one of these terrorist groups.
Meanwhile, on the Afghanistan front, in 2006 the Administration had closed the agency whose sole purpose was to find bin Laden, and by 2011, Bush said that catching him was not even close to being a priority. On May 2, 2011, bin Laden was killed in a raid, under the Obama Administration.
Now men and women who served in either Iraq or Afghanistan are coming home only to find out that there are a lot of problems with the VA and that there really are no benefits. Especially medical. Twenty-two soldiers a day commit suicide. More military people have committed suicide than have been killed in the two wars. They fall through the cracks in a fatally flawed system. Many serving were only kids when 9/11 happened.
And those heroic first responders and people who survived? Due to chemicals that were released, there has been a significant increase in cancer and respiratory issues. After the attacks, Congress passed a bill that would pay for medical costs due to illnesses from Ground Zero. Last year Congress let it expire while Senate Republicans used it as leverage to pass other bills. It was finally signed in Dec. 2015 and it won't have to be renewed for another 75 years. Really, wasn't this a no brainer?
On a beautiful autumn morning in September, thousands of people died in not only New York, but at the Pentagon, and a plane that passengers forced down in rural Pennsylvania. And a lot of heroes were not created but did what they thought was right.
For one brief moment in modern American history, we were united in a cause. It didn't last and First Responders and soldiers who fought in the wars that were linked to that awful day are once again having to fight for their lives. They shouldn't have to beg and stalk the halls of Congress in order to get a bill passed giving them funds to support themselves with their illness.
I choose not to remember this day as "Patriotic Day." Today is the day that tragedy and terror struck this country, killing almost 3,000 people.
Today is the day that I remember with reverence and prayer of all those lost in the attacks, their family and friends, and all those still suffering from illnesses.
It's been 15 years since the attacks, and they have no less of an impact on me than they did on that day. I don't feel patriotic, I feel extreme sadness and shock.
Never forget.
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