9/11: Ten Years After

I'm sure you remember exactly where you were on that clear September morning when you first learned about that passenger jet flying into one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center, and what happened in the hours following that horrific event.  I know I do.  I was working in my school library and a co-worker called and told me to turn on my tv.  I said "Why?"  She said, "Just turn on CNN." and hung up.  I did, and saw the smoke and flames billowing out of the building.  As I stood, transfixed by this horrible accident, I remember thinking, "How could this have happened, couldn't the pilot have tried to crash the plane into some less populated spot if it had to crash land?"  Then I saw the second jet crash into the other tower, and instinctively I said "Oh God, we're at war." 

The rest of the school day was a blur, as knowledge of this event and the crashes at the Pentagon and in Shanksville spread and teachers and administrators struggled to find a way to explain to the students what was happening and at the same time mentally deal with the knowledge that we were in the middle of something truly nightmarish. 

I remember in the weeks and months following this national disaster, as we all witnessed at first the heroic rescues, and then the grim recovery work at what came to be known as Ground Zero, how we all joined together as Americans.  Nationwide, there was a  feeling of togetherness, of patriotism.  We had a common response: "We'll get through this and we'll get the people who did this terrible thing."  There was a feeling of real sacrifice, a shared experience that bound us together as a country.  We baby boomers finally knew what our parents had felt after the attack on Pearl Harbor and during WWII.

Fast forward ten years later.  Americans, conservatives and liberals, are battling and bashing each other, literally.  Candidates for high office are being vilified on the evening news.  Our fellow countrymen who are advocating the values our founding fathers fought and died for in order to create this great country are being called jihadists, terrorists, barbarians and worse.  Union thugs are beating people up.  Teen 'flash mobs' are terrorizing neighborhoods and killing vulnerable people for fun.  Political figures are getting death threats.  People who once were friends no longer speak to each other because they can't tolerate their differing political views. 

It reminds me of a portion of that William Butler Yeats poem, The Second Coming:

Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

I hope and pray we don't have another terrorist attack on our homeland.  But ten years later, it seems we may have already lost this war.  Our economy is in tatters.  Confidence in our great nation is crumbling.  Politically, we are tearing ourselves apart.  Morale in this nation is at a very low point.  It's as if the terrorists have won.  Will we ever recover from the attacks on September 11, 2001?