I was in the bathroom of my residence hall in college, brushing my teeth. It was pretty late in the morning, actually. A guy ran in, telling me that 50,000 people probably just died in the World Trade Center, because some terrorists attacked it. I remember saying, "Come on man, don't joke about that. That's not funny." He wasn't joking.
I was sort of numb, but I went to the front desk, where I knew we would have news. On the whiteboard which had news every day, there was a little box off to the side, and it said, "In spite of what has happened, we are committed to not judging people based upon religion, or national origin." Today, it is fashionable to bash sentiments on diversity, or even to claim that a certain openness in that regard stifles discussion as to the nature of the truth. That may be true sometimes, but I have never been more proud to have been spoken for in that way. I did truly fix in my mind that the attackers were some sort of radical fringe, and I already knew from experience that real Muslims didn't do this. Even so, it was really hard to keep the anger and the tears at bay, and it was that way for weeks and months.
I had to go to class that day, and ironically at the time, I was taking a class called, "Politics and War." I made my way toward the class, and I saw my friend Liz Stover (Garber). We talked for a couple of minutes, whereupon I probably said something ridiculous, but we both agreed that we didn't know how to feel, or what to do.
When I got to class, there was a guy from somewhere in the Middle East, and he flat out said that America got what it deserved. There are a couple of days in my life where I have been angrier than I was that day, but I remember that it took all of my restraint and good sense and tolerance not to punch him, or at least scream in his face.
I remember a couple of moments from the aftermath in the days following. I remember when President Bush went to Ground Zero; I remember the speech he gave there, and that it was on a bullhorn. He said, "In the past few days, we've heard from our police, firefighters, and first responders. Those who did this will hear from all of us soon." The workers started chanting, "USA, USA, USA!" And it went on a really long time. That was the first moment that I felt a twinge of discomfort about where the response might go.
It is really true that patriotism surged after the attacks, and it wasn't a bad thing at all. I also remember that it did seem as though people were more neighborly than they had been, and they were looking out for each other. On the other side, there's a guy who owned a coffee shop in Columbia, Missouri, where I went to school. Some bad people vandalized his shop, because his name is Osama.
I still remember the speech from the president to the joint session of Congress on September 20. I can't even read the speech today without weeping. We could have a fantastic debate I am sure, about the actions that President Bush and Congress initiated after the fact. But in my mind and heart, President Bush came up huge in those days, and I will always be thankful for it.
In a certain way, the events of that day were a bit like the death of Princess Diana for the British, in the sense that we largely were mourning as a nation people that the vast majority of us did not know. Was it too much? Did it reveal some weakness in our character? I'll leave that for others to decide.
Maybe the biggest lesson that I learned is that true patriotism takes a lot of different forms, and that "coming together" does, too. And that war is never desirable, or good in itself. Aside from that, I've had to re-think a lot of what I probably thought was self-evident.
There is a certain goodness in being reflective today, and even in being sad, if we feel like that is appropriate. The media played the tapes of the video footage, and the intimate phone calls from the people to their loved ones on the hijacked airplanes, and it never fails to move me. At some point, though, I decided not to seek that stuff out, because I didn't want any negative feelings to become permanent habits of being.
You often hear about "remembering" 9-11, and I have to think about what it means to remember. I think very simply that I want to remember people who were friends and loved ones, and fellow Americans, and their lives were taken unjustly. They were snuffed out in moments, and others died, trying to save people, or at least recover their bodies. I want to be the sort of person who recoils from whatever habit of mind led those attackers to believe that killing innocent people was the right thing to do. That's my personal lesson: don't become like those who did this. Do your best to seek peace, and to be an agent of peace, in all areas of life. We can all at least try to do that, and to make a grace-filled effort to improve each day.
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