Column for September 15, 2011

Last week I wrote about the tenth anniversary of the attacks of September 11th, 2001. There were specials on television all weekend commemorating that anniversary and the events thereof. I have to admit that I was sufficiently busy that I didn’t get to watch any of them. However, on Sunday morning I was driving to worship services with other saints of God and I stated listening to the various memorial services that were being broadcast live on the radio. Live services were being broadcast from the Wold Trade Center site, the Pentagon, and the United Flight 93 crash memorial in western Pennsylvania.

As I started listening, I said to myself that I should turn the station, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. The more I listened, the more I recalled the events of that day. I recalled the innocent lives that were taken by acts of pure evil. I recalled the bravery of citizens aboard United Flight 93 and that of not only emergency response personnel in New York City, but of ordinary people who helped and gave their lives for others. I was literally moved to tears.

One thing that irritated me about the aftermath of 9/11 was that I predominantly heard about the police and firefighters who ran in to the World Trade Center buildings that day to rescue people and perished in their efforts to do so. Maybe I am biased, but I often thought more about those who were trying to run out of the buildings, not just those who ran into them. Don’t get me wrong, I am in full support of emergency service workers. I did it for a living, myself at one point in my life. It is the sheer bravery and sense of duty to their fellow man that drove men to run into burning buildings and save the lives of others. These were people who willingly put their lives on the line and they deserve every last shred of respect that they got. My perspective is slightly different in that this was indeed their jobs. Their jobs were noble and it takes a special breed to save lives and property. It is the untrained, average person that perishes that I weep over even more, especially in such numbers.

I cringe at the special legal and media attention given to “cop killers” sometimes. Again, don’t get me wrong. I have great respect for law enforcement personnel. They are often highly trained and professional. I guess that the difference is that they are just that. They are armed, trained, and are paid to risk their lives. For that they deserve our admiration and respect. It is when untrained, unarmed, innocent lives are taken by evil people and often given far less attention that steams me even more.

I think that my perspective is this way because I have done the emergency response career. I have worked for and with police officials. I expect others who do that line of work to be willing to put their lives on the line as much as I was. My wife is often the biggest critic of and is harder on restaurant wait staff than I am. The reason is because she was a waitress for years, herself. She expects others who do that line of work to be as dedicated to service as she was, and I comprehend that.

I started to weep Sunday morning over the lives that were lost, the evil that came upon people, the children who would grow up without a parent or loved one, and the husbands and wives who lost their life partners.

To top all of this off, I started watching the show “24” on DVD. I had never seen a single episode until about a month ago. I bought season one on DVD and then quickly bought seasons two and three as well. They are fairly inexpensive now on Amazon.com and this is how I often watch TV shows. I find a show I want to see and sneak in an hour of watching in between work cycles. I was watching season two the past few days. It sort of gives the show a different perspective right around the ten year anniversary of 9/11. Yeah, it is just a TV show. I see a lot of things that are very “Hollywood” and unrealistic in the show. I have to suspend disbelief in order to enjoy the show at times, but that is the case with most television shows. Watching terrorist plots destroyed by Jack Bauer does give just a little bit of a desire to cheer the good guy, I guess.

I did not plan on going in this direction in this week's column, but that is what has been on my heart for the past few days. I pray that we never have to endure another attack in this country, but I know that we eventually will. The terrorists only have to get it right once to succeed in an attack. We as a nation have to get it right each and every time in order to prevent one.