Six Years

SIX YEARS

I can’t believe it’s been six years. I remember that day as if it were yesterday. It is our generation’s JFK assissination. Where were you when Kennedy was shot? has changed into Where were you when you heard about the planes? Fourth period – Wind Ensemble. I was scared. I thought it was the end of the world, or Armageddon, or World War Three. I immediately thought of all the young men I knew. All the young men who were now eligible for the military, willing or not. They will never draft women into the military, but that’s another entry. I thought of the Persian Gulf War, which I was very young during. My recollections were emotions of fear and anger and annoyance. The sea on fire. What would this war be like? Would this be World War III, or Vietnam or the Greek Communism Revolution? America had never been attacked before. What would happen? I was scared of the future.

Our newly elected President struck back. He’s an ass, and his reasons for getting into a military conflict in the Middle East had nothing to do with the four hijacked planes or the lives lost that day. But it was the perfect situation for him. He could invade Iraq and Congress wouldn’t dare defy him. Well, some did, but look where that got us.

MSNBC had a program on last night about midnight. “9/11 As It Happened” It was the news coverage the morning of the attacks, as the news came in and as the buildings fell. The program was cut down to fit inside an hour, but it was not edited. There was no new commentary or corrections to misinformation or the confusion. It was excatly what the news anchors said and saw as the morning progressed. It showed the towers burning, the reporters in the streets, the fear, the shock. Watch any other news broadcast from the past 10 years. Within an hour, at one point or another, there will be a joke, a smile, a laugh. For over an hour, that morning, no one could crack a joke. Laughs were nervous, terrified reactions to the horror they were witnessing.

After I got home that day, I watched the news channels replay the horror over and over. It was not real in my mind until I saw the gaping hole in the New York City skyline. I needed the TV to make it real. What I never saw, for whatever reason, was the live coverage ten blocks from Ground Zero. There was a reporter standing on the streets of New York with his camera crew, talking about the reactions and the horror around him. At one point, he apologized if he sounded melodramatic, but he just didn’t know what else to say or do. He was a veteran reporter, fifteen years on the job. He’d seen horror and destruction, but nothing like today. Behind him, you could see emergency rescue workers milling about, walking back and forth. Those who had been close to the site were covered in dust from the falling towers. They walked aimlessly back and forth, total shock in their faces. Most were having difficulty breathing. You could see men embracing as they located the brothers of their houses. But they were lost. No one was prepared for this. Firemen received special training to prepare them for horrific scenes, burn victims, intense flames, backdrafts, car accidents. There is nothing like the real thing, but they are coached on what their reactions might be and how to deal with it. They are given strict rules and procedures to follow. When fear has taken over, a person can sometimes resort to just doing what they’ve always trained to do. The military does this. So do emergency rescue workers. A guy is given a task to do – unroll the hose. It may seem stupid and little, but just the imprinted procedures for how to proceed can snap a guy back into reality, back into doing his job. No one was prepared for two huge buildings to come crashing to the earth so fast. There was no written procedure, no set plan for what to do after the World Center Towers fall. There are procedures for what to do in a house fire if the roof caves in. Step one, step two, step three. But what do you do when something like that happens? Where do you start? The firemen just didn’t know. It was heartwrenching to watch them, shell shocked. Then slowly, they begin to disappear back into the smoke and dust. They were returning to the site to go back to work. They knew they had brothers and victims still in there. They didn’t know how, but they were going to get them out. Determination overtook shock.

Two thousand nine hundred ninety three people died that day. Nearly three thousand people lost their lives in an attack on the United States.

I’m mad. I want those responsibily hunted down and brought to justice. I want them locked in solitary, watching the home movies and pictures of the people they killed. Once a day, survivors of those victims will come in and punch them. There will be plenty of volunteers.

BARTLET: Did you know that two thousand years ago a Roman citizen could walk across the face of the known world free of the fear of molestation? He could walk across the Earth unharmed, cloaked only in the protection of the words civis Romanus — I am a Roman citizen. So great was the retribution of Rome, universally certain, should any harm befall even one of its citizens. Where was Morris’s protection, or anybody else on that airplane? Where was the retribution for the families, and where is the warning to the rest of the world that Americans shall walk this Earth unharmed, lest the clenched fist of the most mighty military force in the history of mankind comes crashing down on your house?! In other words, Leo, what the hell are we doing here?!

LEO: We are behaving the way a superpower ought to behave.

BARTLET: Well our behaviour has produced some crappy results, in fact I’m not a hundred per cent sure it hasn’t induced it.

LEO: What are you talking about?

BARTLET: I’m talking about two hundred and eighty-six American marines in Beirut, I’m talking about Somalia, I’m talking about Nairobi-

LEO: And you think ratcheting up the body count’s gonna act as a deterrant?

BARTLET: You’re damn right I-

LEO: Oh, then you are just as stupid as these guys who think capital punishment is going to be a deterrant for drug kingpins. As if drug kingpins didn’t live their day to day lives under the possibility of execution, and their executions are a lot less dainty than ours and tend to take place without the bother and expense of due process. So, my friend, if you want to start using American military strength as the arm of the Lord, you can do that. We’re the only superpower left. You can conquer the world, like Charlemagne! But you better be prepared to kill everyone. And you better start with me, because I will raise up an army against you and I will beat you!

BARTLET: He had a ten day old baby at home.

LEO: I know.

BARTLET: We are doing nothing.

LEO: We are not doing nothing.

BARTLET: We’re destroying-

LEO: Four high-rated military targets!

BARTLET: And this is good?

LEO: Of course it’s not good. There is no good. It’s what there is! It’s how you behave if you’re the most powerful nation in the world. It’s proportional, it’s reasonable, it’s responsible, it’s merciful! It’s not nothing. Four high-rated military targets. <BR>

BARTLET: Which they’ll rebuild again in six months.

LEO: Then we’ll blow ’em up again in six months! We’re getting really good at it… It’s what our fathers taught us.

I don’t know the correct answer to 9/11. I’m not sure anyone does. There does need to be a response, an answer. A retribution. We can’t stand here and take it. There’s a big part of me that wants to care about who gets elected President. But I’m so tired of the politics.

BRUNO:Bruno: Because I am tired of working for candidates who make me think I should be embarrassed to believe what I believe, Sam. I’m tired of getting them elected. You all need some therapy, because somebody came along and said liberal means soft on crime, soft on drugs, soft on communism, soft on defense, and we’re going to tax ya back to the stone age, because people shouldn’t have to go to work, if they don’t want to. And instead of saying ‘Well, excuse me, you right-wing reactionary xenophobic homophobic anti-education, anti-choice, pro-gun, leave it to beaver trip back to the fifties,’ we cowered in the corner. And said ‘Please Don’t Hurt Me’. No more. I really don’t care who’s right, who’s wrong. We’re both right. We’re both wrong. Let’s have two parties, huh, what do you say?

Whenever I think about staying in the States, I think about that. I think about this picture and I don’t want to be here anymore. I’m just not sure its worth it anymore.