One of my fondest memories from when I was a child was going to the airport. When I was little, my father traveled a lot, and I remember that often times he would come home somewhat later in the evening, sometimes past my bedtime. Mom would bundle me up, we'd go to BWI, and get to the security counter. Sometimes I would bring a stuffed animal, and I'd giggle as it went through the X-ray machine, and I got to see it's insides on the screen. We would head to the gate, watch the plane approach, and wait in the seats until my father got off his plane.9/11 occurred two days before my 18th birthday. I remember my initial worry - would I have to go to work that day? I was so innocent. It never occurred to me that work would be canceled - initially more because they were afraid of having us in a large building, and to keep traffic off of one of the straight roads that could be used as an emergency landing strip for BWI - than because of grief over what had happened. We couldn't process it. We didn't know how we were supposed to respond, the images on the screen seemed surreal. They were scenes that I'd seen before hundreds of times... but in fiction movies and video games. My brain wasn't equipped to handle something that big.
As the day passed the scope of things started to hit me. My father was working near DC when the plane hit the Pentagon. I honestly don't recall how long it took him to get home that day, but I remember being worried. The TV announcers started using a word that I had only heard before in History class. Draft. Obviously we were going to war. But would they make service mandatory? And in this day where inequality is regarded as a tremendous sin, would women have to be drafted? Would my friends have to go off to war? Fortunately, I'd graduated High School that May, and I didn't have to deal with trying to go to school with all that going through my head.
I don't honestly remember my 18th birthday that well, or rather, I don't remember anything good or happy about it. I remember trying to go down to Crystal City for a convention, and how packed the roads were. A trip that should have been 2 hours even with the heaviest DC traffic possible ended up taking 3 and a half hours.
I am a product of the last generation who will clearly remember what life was like before 9/11. It was something that didn't really occur to me until last night, when I saw myriad people in their early 20s at the White House. They were perhaps 10 years old when it happened. They don't have strong memories of what it was like before America responded to terror. They don't remember picking up their father at the airport gate, and chances are, they will never experience anything like that for the rest of their lives.
My decision to go to the White House last night for the celebration after Osama bin Laden's death was criticized by some of my friends. They asked, "How could you join a crowd cheering for someone's death? It's never right to cheer someone's death." I didn't go because I wanted to cheer about Osama being dead. Regardless of what anyone's personal feelings are about the war, terrorism, or Osama... his death will go down in history. In 20 years, when we reflect on last night, we will discuss where we were, and I couldn't live with myself if I said, "I was 30 miles away from the White House watching it on TV." And after attending, I think that people who criticize others for "cheering over the death of another" have an overly simplified view of the situation.
Yes. There were people in the crowd screaming, "Fuck Osama," but they were a small minority. For every person screaming that, there were 10 others saying "Bring our Troops home," "God Bless the USA" and "We Remember 9/11." There were widows of 9/11, who finally get to feel some sort of completion over the loss of their husbands. There were families of men killed in combat who finally believe that perhaps their deaths had some justification.
The aura in the air was tangible. It was hopeful, proud, and patriotic. It was one of the few crowds that I've ever been in where people talked openly to strangers, and where people walked around the Downtown DC area at 2am without fear. Whether legitimate or not, people felt safe, for the first time in 10 years. Yes, bin Laden was not the only terrorist in the world, and we're not truly safe. But for one night, we were able to forget about that, embrace what it meant to be in the US, and pretend that maybe things weren't quite so bad.
The crowd was loud, alive. People spontaneously broke into the Pledge of Allegiance, and the Star Spangled Banner, without getting involved in a debate over whether it was truly Constitutional to say "Under God." The meters in DC weren't being checked, because there were things more important to this evening than parking tickets. People hung out of the windows of their car with patriotic songs blaring, waving flags, and screaming USA. If this occurred for any reason other than the death of a human being, not a single person would be able to speak foul of it.
The only thing that made me sad last night is that we only come together as patriotic Americans when something bad happens. When someone dies, or when there is a great disaster. It seems the rest of the time, we're too busy focusing on our differences, whining about public policy, and cowering in fear to remember that we do have it better than so many other countries in the world.
And that is what makes me sad.
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