What Were You Doing?
I rose from bed this morning and flipped on the radio to catch the news while shaving. A voice reminded me of today’s date. Most of us old enough remember where we were when JFK was assassinated. Same holds true for September 11th.
My mind immediately drifted back to that morning eight years ago. I was shaving then, as today, when a radio news commentator broke into the programming to inform listeners that a plane had crashed into the World Trade center. I went quickly to the television and flipped on the set. The network bounced from commentator to commentator getting various perspectives and witness accounts. Speculation was rampant as to what kind of plane had caused the disaster. As I watched the burning horror LIVE and pondered how an airliner could be flying that low over the city, the silhouette of another airliner flashed from the right of the screen and plunged into the south tower of the Trade Center. Flames and smoke billowed from the fracture, provoking the instant realization that this was no accident. The United States of America was under attack and at war.
I sat before the television as news filtered in of two more attacks with our own airlines the weapons of mass destruction, the lives of the innocents on board and in the buildings instantly snuffed as collateral damage as in any war. The pentagon within our own capitol brazenly assaulted and defiled. A plane plunging into the fields of Pennsylvania.
Throughout that day the stories unfolded of tragic last phone calls to loved ones and heroic acts by victims and responders to the emergencies. Tears rolled down my cheeks as the magnificent assault by passengers gradually was revealed, the last words being, “Let’s Roll!” Their charge into battle saved our nation’s capitol.
This morning, the radio broadcast commentaries from memorial services to the dead of that tragedy. We forget the same organizations that committed those acts have not been defeated, and still proclaim us their enemy. We are still at war, like it or not. My ears listened in the present but the images in the brain were of those horrors eight years ago.
I toweled off remnants of shaving creme and dressed. Filled with a burning desire to make a statement, I carried a ladder to the front porch and mounted my stars spangled banner on the eaves of the house. It was a glorious morning today, daybreak just busting forth. Glancing up and down the block no other flags could be seen. That’s OK. My own meager remnant, slightly tattered, slightly faded, is gallantly holding forth the notion that this is the land of the free and the home of the brave.
A well-worn symbol of our freedom, God’s magnificent gift to each of us.
