In the wake of the terrorist attacks, after the trade towers had collapsed and the information slowly developed, it became clear that the initial attack wave was over. No more hijacked planes remained in the sky. The US military forces were on high alert and the impact of the events began to settle in for me.
I grew up in Maryland, in suburban areas just outside the line of the District of Columbia. I had an active childhood, travelling all over the city in various capacities, as part of my life. When I was eleven years old, my family withdrew me from public school, and I entered an unaccredited private school, where I spent half the day as a student and worked the other half as a teacher's aide and student tutor/supervisor, in lieu of tuition. In effect, I paid my own education there, for two years, by working for it. This led me to experience a very different adolescence from a typical American preteen. I took public transportation to school. First a local bus, then the subway into the city, right into downtown, then connecting to another bus out to Georgetown on the west side of DC, just across the river from Arlington, Virginia. This is the school where I met the friend I mentioned in the last article, who phoned me from Texas to alert me to the disaster. More than twenty years ago, now, we met in school and formed lifelong bonds. What drew us together the most was, of all things, video games.
After school, a sizable group of kids, ranging in ages from eight to sixteen, would walk down Wisconsin Avenue to M street, to a small video arcade called Station Break. Just a few blocks down from there is the Francis Scott Key memorial bridge across the Potomac river. I would only occasionally have extra money to spend, so mostly I watched while others played. Most of the kids would leave after playing a game or two, or within twenty minutes or so. My friend was very skilled at the games, though, and he could play on and on on some of the machines, and I stayed to watch and talk, after everyone else had left. One day, I decided to spend my bus money (for the first bus only, not the part I would need for the subway and last bus) on games, knowing I would then have to walk more than a mile to reach the nearest subway station. My friend walked with me, even though he still had money enough to catch a bus. We talked, laughed, joked, and this became a daily routine after school. My parents were OK with this choice, as long as I came home by a reasonable hour. Later on, I also figured out how to squeeze more cash out of my available funds. If I waited until the end of "rush hour" to board the subway, I would get a lower rate. So that became the routine, as well, at least on most days, and things got to where if I ran out of money before it was time to go, my friend would graciously pay for me to continue to play, rather than leave me standing around. Eventually, we found a better arcade located closer to the subway stations and switched our patronage to there, doing the mile-long walk portion of our routine first, then playing. I always had the option, of course, to choose to go home after school. I could ride the bus, and take the subway during peak hours at the inflated price. I did still choose to do so on occasion -- often either due to severe weather or because my friend was absent from school and it wasn't the same without his company -- although even then, I did still go alone to the arcades a few times. We got to be pretty good at the games. Well, OK. VERY good. We set a few records over the years, between us. World records. Some of that arose from the determination to play through to the end of the rush hour on a limited budget.
As a result of these activities, I became very familiar with downtown Washington, particularly the areas in Georgetown and downtown that I walked through so many times. Other in-city activities -- religious, social, business and school related -- led me to many parts of the city, mostly the more active parts, where all the monuments and government and office buildings are. I rode the entire subway system as transportation, and was comfortable taking buses or the subway almost anywhere. One such place was the Pentagon. One line of the subway (at that time, now it's two) stopped at the Pentagon. I know that many many people who work there (probably mostly in support capacities, such as janitors, electricians, clerks, etc) ride to work at the Pentagon via public transportation. Yet many thousands upon thousands more, who commute in to the district from Virginia, pass by the Pentagon building twice daily, once coming in, once going out. The pentagon lies on the Virginia side of the river, and is one of only three structures on that side that is still considered to be on Washington, DC soil. The rest of the city's original territory on that side was given back to the state of Virginia long ago. (The other two facilities are Arlinton National Cemetary, which sits on the former site of General Rober E Lee's Arlington estate, and the Reagan National Airport). The number of bus routes back then that terminated at the Pentagon subway station was staggering. The Metrorail subway lines at the time did not yet extend far into Virginia or Maryland. Twenty years ago, the buses had to connect to the nearest subway stations, and for dozens of routes, that meant coming right up to the river. I imagine this has since changed, but there must surely still be many buses who terminate there, originating in Arlington or further out in parts of Fairfax county, Virginia. I remember one semi-nervous ride for me, the first time I bussed home from a distant part of Virginia. I had to ride one of those routes all the way in to the Pentagon coming from the outermost "zone" of the bus route (and paying what I thought was an exorbitant fare at the time, to do so). It was a long ride, and I marvelled at the end just HOW CLOSE to the Pentagon building that this bus drove. It drove almost two thirds of the way around the huge building, at that, and I will never forget my first sight of this building. It is unlike any other on the planet.
In later years, I made a bit of a tourist outing to the Pentagon subway station. I got off there and visited the shops just outside the subway station, in the Pentagon itself. Clearly, this was not a secure area, nor anywhere near anything secure, and there was some security points off in certain directions, but I was struck by just how open and NORMAL this place was. Workers came and went as they did at any other subway station, and there wasn't all that much to distinguish the place from several other parts of the city, at least not at first glance.
Knowing now just how close this area of the Pentagon is to where that third jet crashed into the building... it makes me feel eerie, to say the least. I cannot tell you how many times I passed by the Pentagon on I395, the major artery between the downtown center and suburban Virginia. The famous "14th Street Bridge", which was struck by a plane back in 1981 (the same year I was bussing across the city to attend school in Georgetown) leads monumental amounts of automobile traffic in and out of the capitol every day, crossing the Potomac river, passing the Pentagon. All those folks can see the hole in the building from that highway, I am sure. I can only imagine what is going through their minds as they see that. I live now in a rural area of Pennsylvania, where my mother originates from and where I was born, but I grew up in DC, I came of age on its streets, and it will always be "home" to me, just as much as wherever I may hang my hat. MY city was struck here yesterday, given a black eye. My fellow citizens were killed. And for what? FOR WHAT? I can only imagine how New Yorkers feel today, with THEIR city taking a much more devastating blow, and suffering loss of life beyond what could have been imagined just two days ago. My father has direct business ties to NYC, and we know people who work in downtown Manhatten. We don't know people who worked in the trade center towers, but we know people who know people who worked and died there. And by the grace of god and the determination of brave passengers on that fourth and final flight, that plane was brought down almost on top of me out here in the middle of nowhere, in rural Pennsylvania. For me to hold connections to all three sites of this attack, it is... mind boggling. The very LAST thing I would ever have imagined is that a terrorist attack on our nation would land on us here in Somerset County! I find my anger is burning hotter with each passing hour. My willingness to respond, to see my nation come together and respond to this, is growing. I am gathering a sense that this will become the definining hour not only of this year, or this decade, but of this century. A line was crossed here, the likes of which has previously marked the beginning of the end for particular types of tyrrany: the imperialism of England over its colonies; the existence of slavery in the United States; the march of the Third Reich and the tyrrany of the Empire of Japan. Declaring war on the United States, not just with words but with violent attack on our soil, that is serious business. Can there even be a matter more grave for this world as a whole?
This attack will have impact on every single person on this planet. I predict that the negative impacts will be moderated, perhaps even quickly. This will provide a rallying cry and a reason for the forces of freedom and civilization to band together and make an effective stand. Terror and tyranny, the forces of destruction and anarchy, may strike at us and inflict wounds, but they have less than zero hope of toppling us. They have achieved nothing more than to strengthen our resolve. They have risen from being viewed as annoyance, as fringe or extremist adversaries, to the status of ENEMY. They will not find that as much to their liking as they imagine.
A miscalculation has taken place here. This is not Vietnam.
In Vietnam, we tried to help an ally stave off invasion from an enemy, but it was essentially a civil war in which we intervened. China was backing one side, America the other. We were constrained in what we were willing to do, because there were lines we dared not cross. We were not willing to put the world at serious risk of a third worldwide war. We were not willing to attack China, to end their support for North Vietnam. We put our troops on the ground, trained the South Vietnamese to fight for their freedom, and eventually we fought on their behalf. What drove us out was effectively the terrorism of the North Vietnamese, who pulled stunts of cruelty, trickery and inhumanity as to dwarf what took place even yesterday. They used their own women and children as booby traps, and other tactics that horrified us. They were willing to sacrifice their blood by the dozens upon dozens just to kill ONE of us, and it worked. The US lost just over fifty thousand troops, while the Vietnamese lost almost three MILLION. And the cost to us, it was too high. Not even killing them at fifty to one was worth it to us. Their spirit and determination held up, and eventually ours waned. This is the only war that America ever lost, but we lost not because we were defeated, but because the cost to us rose beyond what we were willing to pay, and we withdrew. There was a great wounding of the American psyche through that, but our enemies should NOT fail to understand WHY we were not willing to pay the necessary price there to earn victory.
There is a monumental difference between a Vietnamese civil war in which we ideologically support one of the sides, and a direct act of war against the United States. Vietnam's objective was to get us to leave their soil. That is quite a different matter than if they had chosen to attack us on our soil. Whether they had any capacity at all to carry their violence to our shores is questionable at best. If they could have done it, would they have? I'm not sure they would. It would NOT have been in their interest to do so. There exists a line that has only rarely been crossed, and each time it has, it has spelled the imminent doom of those who dared the affront. You do not attack the United States of America on its home soil. The well of our determination, the depth of our force of will, when unleashed through a state of war, is terrible to behold.
That we have not only never sought to invade and control other nations, but in fact have made determined and generous efforts to rebuild the broken nations we have been forced -- FORCED -- to subdue, tells the true tale of the United States, its people, and its nature. We are not perfect, and in fact our own history has many dark hours and stains of shame. Our ideals were ahead of their time. Yet the birth of our nation arose from a desire for freedom, for civilization, for peace. That we committed crimes against the red peoples and the black peoples, that we exerted our own form of tyrrany, those of us in the USA who are educated and civilized people, we understand the darkness of these things our forefathers did. But human beings are not perfect, and who can deny that the American spirit, our desire for peace, freedom, and dignity, has been gradually self-correcting over time. The progress is sometimes slow, sometimes too slow even for me and other Americans, but it is there, and it has become the great hope for all of humanity. We are making progress, and we will continue to shine, to advance, to build and to grow.
To understand the United States, you must know about and understand our civil war. That is the event that defines our nation. That is the moment that we chose, for all time, to clean up our own act and chisel into our hearts and our heritage a force of spirit that cannot -- CANNOT -- be broken. We have made war upon our very own brothers, not out of greed, nor malice, nor hatred, but solely out of disagreement on matters of national policy. (I cannot even type that line without breaking into tears.) We butchered fully ten percent of our own population over political disagreements. The men who fought on both sides did so out of a firm belief in the rightness of their causes. On the one side, the freedom from tyrrany of control by the majority over a minority, the freedom of the states to decide their own fates in the face of disagreement from our nation as a whole. The other side, the winning side, fought to preserve our very survival. From this tragedy was born what we are today. Then, we called ourselves the united States. The states who are. We were many. Many states, joined as states. After, and forevermore, we call ourselves the United States. The nation that is. We are one. We... are... one.
No tragedy that any external enemy can visit on us can ever, EVER compare to the tragedies we have inflicted on ourselves. You do not scare us. You do not push us. You... do... not... attack... us.
I do not mean this as arrogance, nor as insult, nor as any sort of disrespect to other peoples in this world. The United States is the strongest nation on this planet because we are unique. We are not built from an ethnic or religious history. We are not a nationality, not a race. We are a collection of fools, of pioneers who forged into unknown and untamed (and sadly, not unoccupied) lands. We are the misfits of the world, the malcontents, the people who were not satisfied with the status quo. We are the peacelovers and peacemakers, the ones who abandoned the old ways and old histories, the traditions, loyalties, and ties to all that we had been, to build a new nation, a free society. To throw off the shackles of what was, and to find the possibilities of what can be. We are who we are because we have treasured freedom, nurtured within ourselves and our families and communities the very flower of the human soul. We are a nation of all colors, all races, all origins, allied to one another, brother and sister to one another, BY CHOICE. After our civil war, where we wrote across our lands, in the blood of our own people, the determination never again to allow our disagreements to divide us as a nation... after that we opened our doors wide, and welcomed any and all who wanted to come to our shores and join us, to be free, to bring their dreams and talents and add their value to our own. For to us, people are valuable. We hold the value of human life in the highest possible regard, but not just life to exist, but life as a force of spirit, the life of freedom, of civilized society, of peace. Our bonds, they are stronger than you can know or understand. We ask only that you leave us in peace, and leave our friends and allies in peace. If you suffer calamities, we will help as much as we can. Our universities are open to your students. Our food-making capacity feeds large parts of the world. Our way of life is peaceful and honorable. We love our children, our neighbors, and all the peoples of the world. We have among us some who are ignorant, hateful, stupid, incompetent, but so does every nation. We believe that people of good conscience and peaceful nature are brothers, no matter their beliefs, appearance, or ideologies. This attack against us... it is an attack on you, too.
The time has come now for this world to unite, for civilized peoples of all walks and origins to come together in common bond to stand against all of those who seek to corrupt, destroy, or control us.
This attack will have impact on every single person on this planet. I predict that the negative impacts will be moderated, perhaps even quickly. This will provide a rallying cry and a reason for the forces of freedom and civilization to band together and make an effective stand. Terror and tyranny, the forces of destruction and anarchy, may strike at us and inflict wounds, but they have less than zero hope of toppling us. They have achieved nothing more than to strengthen our resolve. They have risen from being viewed as annoyance, as fringe or extremist adversaries, to the status of ENEMY. They will not find that as much to their liking as they imagine.
A miscalculation has taken place here. The people who have attacked the United States, they DO NOT know us, do not understand us. Their views of us are twisted, distorted, and mistaken. We shall respond -- not with hatred, nor out of any fear of them, but rather with grim and implacable determination. We may have underestimated them for a time, but they surely have underestimated us.
As we embark on the difficult tasks that now lie ahead of us, I as an American citizen, offer my support to all my brothers and sisters, and invite peaceloving and civilized people from all over the world, regardless of what you may otherwise agree or disagree with my country on, to stand with us now. Join the coming new coalition. A new century lies before us. The twentieth century saw an end to great powers and nations who would inflict their will on others. NATO, and at its heart the United States, has won the conventional wars and established peace. We have calmed the fears of other great nations, such as China and Russia, that we would make war upon them to destroy their ways of life. There will not be another world war. But there is still much left for humanity to do. And this is the century in which we will do it. I predict that a hundred years from today, this will be a united world. Perfect? No. Peaceful and orderly, yes. The hatred and faceless cowardice of this sort of assault upon civilization, its days are numbered now. There are countless remaining disagreements yet to be resolved, and there will always be more. But in the United States, we paid a most terrible price for choosing to settle our internal disagreements through violence, and we have grown beyond that sort of choice, for all time. It is my hope, my dream, and my firm belief, that the world as a whole will one day reach this same state. And the events of September 11, 2001, may well mark the turning point in that struggle, for all of humanity.
- Sirian
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