Lessons from 9/11

There are some dates that are etched into our collective memory. Those are dates you remember exactly where you were and what you were doing when some event happened.

For those of my generation it was November 22, 1963, the day that President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Tex. For my parents, it was December 6, 1941, when the American fleet was attacked at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

For many people today, the date remembered forever is September 11, 2001. It may seem like yesterday, but that attack against the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington DC happened 21 years ago. Twenty-one years ago Sunday, to be exact.

Americans watched their TVs in horror as hijacked airplanes flew into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon killing 2,911 people. Untold numbers of others were injured, including first responders who suffered, and continue to suffer, from chronic health issues.

This tragedy, like others before it, brought Americans together.

“This is a day when all Americans from every walk of life unite in our resolve for justice and peace,” President George W. Bush told the nation that night. “America has stood down enemies before, and we will do so this time. None of us will forget this day. Yet, we go forward to defend freedom and all that is good and just in our world.”

On September 12, Republicans, Democrats, rich, poor, native born, naturalized, Black, White, Hispanic, Native Americans were all one – all Americans.

We joined together to support our country and were joined by allies and friends throughout the world.

There were events this weekend throughout the country to remember 9/11. One of those events was here in Dodge County as the Kasson-Mantorville American Legion remembered those first responders of 9/11, as well as service members from conflicts before, and those who served on the front lines during the COVID pandemic, with a Field of Flags in the field adjacent to the Dodge County Government Center in Mantorville.

The names were read as the flags, their flags, were planted in the ground. At the conclusion of the program, it really was a field of flags, the red, white, and blue waving proudly in the breeze.

But 21 years after 9/11, the world is different, the United States is different. Looking at the flags and remembering the unity that the events of that day brought it was hard not to think about what we have lost.

Polls today show that Americans are more divided than ever, more than we were in the days of Vietnam War. The country is polarized like never before about, well everything. Abortion, immigration, gun control, racial equality, economic injustice, COVID-19, the January 6 attack on the U.S. capitol.

Of course, things were not perfect in 2001 anymore than they were perfect in 1963, or 1941 or any other year in American history.

But have we ever been this far apart and yes, as violent, as we are today?

If there is one thing we can do this 21^st anniversary of that horrible day, it is to take time to reflect. Not only reflect on that day and how we and the world responded but also reflect on all that has happened since then. And reflect on how we got to the place we are now.

The answer isn’t that we all agree on every issue. That will never happen, nor should it.

But how can we once again look at everyone, even those we disagree with as our fellow Americans.

Abraham Lincoln famously said during the Civil War “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” As eloquent as Lincoln’s speech was, the idea was not his, it came from the book of Matthew.

But whether you take the quote from the Bible or from Lincoln it means that success comes from sticking together and anything else is to invite disaster.

And that, in 2022, is something we need to learn.