I'm Just Sharing

Today is the 8th anniversary of the planes hitting the Twin Towers in New York City, and I’m still mad and upset about it. The last time I wrote about it was in 2007 on my business blog because this one didn’t exist yet. Last year, I just avoided the day pretty much, but decided I wanted to write on it again this year.

Though I’ve been advertising some 9/11/01 things over the past couple of days (not yesterday, though), I have to admit something. I’ve not watched a single 9/11/01 related program in all these years. I tried watching one in 2007 and 2008, but I just still am not ready.

I have to explain something here. I’ve only watched Roots once in my entire life. I was mad the entire week that movie was on back in the 70′s. Of all things, it was the one week when even school bullies decided I wasn’t the person to mess with. I didn’t talk to anyone during the entire week; I was mad every single day. I saw Amistad on a fluke, and I was mad at white people the entire next day. I take this kind of thing to heart; that’s why I refuse to even entertain the idea of watching Ghosts Of Mississippi or Rosewood; it’s also a good reason I don’t have any weapons.

I’ve also only watched one movie that would be considered a war movie in my entire life. That would be Pearl Harbor. My dad was in both the Korean War and Vietnam. Some military kids will watch these movies because they want to know what their parents might have gone through. For me, if Dad wouldn’t talk about it, I don’t want to know. I did try to watch Saving Private Ryan once, and only made it 4 minutes into the movie before I realized I just couldn’t deal with it. Sometimes, the sensibilities run deep.

Yeah, I’m still mad about what happened on that day. And I’m mad about what’s happening now. I’m mad that so many people think 9/11 was the result of something President Bush did. He wasn’t my favorite president, I’d have to say, but that’s just ridiculous. There’s no way I would ever believe the President or Vice President of the United States, or any senator or congressman or woman or military officer would have allowed that kind of thing to occur. I’m not even entertaining that thought. It was horrific, and I guess being only 5 hours away and wanting to go, but knowing they’d never let me into the city, had always bothered me. What would I have done anyway?

I’m also mad that we’ve never gotten either Osama Bin Laden or Omar Mullah. I’m mad that Al Queda, no matter how it’s spelled, has gotten away with what they continue to get away with. I’m mad that we went to Iraq when we should have fixed Afghanistan instead, even though I’m not upset that Saddam Hussein or his sons are gone; the first President Bush should have taken him out back in ’91. We didn’t need to be in Iraq; now we’re working hard to get out, but think about how much money we’ve spent in Iraq that we could certainly use now. With the extra troops, we could have cleaned up Afghanistan and already had those troops back here also.

I’m also mad that both Egypt and Saudi Arabia basically got a pass on all of this, but Pakistan was roughhoused. Yeah, we all know that many of the Afghan criminals escaped into Pakistan, and some of them may still be there, but every person on those flights were either from Egypt or Saudi Arabia. And I’m still mad because those people cheered, as did the Palestinians. It’s the only three days I ever hated those people and wished we had sent the planes over and wiped them out; now I’m just still mad. And the price of oil isn’t helping my mood any.

So, we head into another 9/11/01 ceremony day, none of which I’ve ever attended. I was lucky; I don’t know a single person who was killed on that day. But the scary thing is that I’d bee on top of the Towers 2 or 3 times, and always wanted to go back. In a random moment, I, and many other people I know, could have been up there on that day. Now we have terror alerts of all sorts of colors, and we still can’t protect our borders, and Iran and North Korea almost have nukes. That’s all a result of 9/11/01 also.

I’m not ready to let it go. But, in a few days, I will let it abate, and then deal with it again next year.