September 12th rant

Well, its September 12, do you remember where you were 7 years ago, or have you forgotten? (I was at work again, stewing, considering reenlistment) Stonekettle remembers (by the way, thank you), most Americans have forgotten the pain we still felt on September 12th, I remember looking up in the blue sky with zero contrails wondering how things were going to change, for we can not go through such attacks without some kind of change, for better and/or worse.

And this is the curse of an eidetic memory; I remember September 13th too, I remember packing my Grand Am for a long ride to South Dakota, listening to NPR the whole way, listening to pundits, generals, and reporters discuss the events of two days ago, their implications, who had done “it”. The words of Yamamoto Isoroku came to mind, at least they are attributed to him: I fear that all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve. I stopped at a walmart on the way and picked up a flag (they were nearly sold out) and penned on the hoist of the flag “Sept 11, 2001 lest we forget”. I could go on for the next couple days. But that is not my point, do you still feel the anger, rage, and affront? I do. I am not a person motivated by emotion, I don’t get hot and strike out, I may get very angry but it seldom shows, my kind of anger tends to be cold and ruthless. When we smashed the Taliban in Afghanistan, I wasn’t happy, I wasn’t jumping for joy, It was simply duty done, a bit of justice served. Too many people have forgotten those feelings they felt the next day, the next week, the next month. It is remembrance of those feelings that will allow us to forge ahead in a dangerous world. Glen Larson once wrote for one of his shows: The opposite of war is not peace, it is slavery. If you are not willing to stand up, take up arms and defend your way of life, some one else will be willing to stand up, take up arms and take your way of life away from you.