Another Day Of Infamy

When I think about the bad things that bad people do to good people, I cry.  It just happens.  It's a natural reaction my body has to evil.  Evil makes me cry.

It's the same with 9/11.  For months after the attack, I just couldn't look at the videos, the actual footage of what happened.  It was too much for me.  Reading about the horror was enough to get the tears going.

That all changed soon after watching a Larry King special on 9/11.  He was interviewing survivors, and unlike most journalists, Larry King never really gets to the heart of the story.  He just glosses over it.  Like when he asked a blind man, who walked down I don't know how many flights of stairs to get out of one of the towers, passed by fire men, on their last call to duty, going up, were you scared?  

Hey Larry, I wasn't even in New York at the time and I was scared, so chances are this young man was out of his mind with terror.  But somehow, these silly questions, and all the others Larry asked, broke the spell that kept me from actually watching the event unfold.  I was able, through tears, to watch the attack.  All these years later, it doesn't get any easier.

I firmly believe that America wasn't attacked for something we did, but for something we are.  America is the one place anyone can come to, a nation with ideals that have never been upheld among a diverse population at any time in human history.  Freedom and justice for all.  It's a really great theory, and sometimes it even works.  But it's not the belief of the people who brought down those towers.  They don't believe in freedom and they don't believe in justice. And they certainly don't believe in the fundamental right to live.

We know who these evil people are.  In this instance, they are Muslims.  But when it comes to destruction of lives and cultures, they certainly don't hold the monopoly on evil.  Plenty of religious and political ideologies have stepped up to that plate.

To those evil people who attacked America on 9/11, it doesn't show how strong you are.  It shows how weak you are.  Because only the weak destroy, while the strong build.  G-d bless America, and all people everywhere who believe in freedom, and building a better world.

To all the innocent people who died that day, may their memories be a blessing for the rest of us.  May their blood be avenged, and may we be reunited with them speedily in our days.