Wow! It's already been ten years! It doesn't seem like it. Kids born on that day are on the verge of becoming teenagers. Fifth graders who were at school that day are now adults. I'm sure we can all think of loved ones who were alive and well back then, but are no longer with us. I can easily remember where I was and what I was doing when I heard the news...and without a doubt, so can you. As a matter of fact, Angie and I were vacationing on the beach, but all we wanted to do for the rest of the day was sit in our hotel room, glued to the television. Even our vocabulary was altered by the horrific events of that day...we can just say "Nine Eleven" and most anybody will know what we're talking about.
All you have to do is board a commercial flight to see how our lives have been changed. I've now grown accustomed to pulling off my shoes and emptying my pockets every time I board a plane, not to mention all the regulations regarding our baggage, both checked and carry-on. If the goal of the terrorists was to change the way the live and think, while taking away some of our freedoms, then we have to admit that they achieved at least some degree of success. But I must also say that in my lifetime, I have never seen this nation's citizens, both left and right, come together like they did in the weeks and months following those attacks on our country. That unity didn't last as long as I would have liked, but I long to see it again.
It's just natural for our citizens to have differing opinions on how to best solve the problems that our nation faces. That doesn't mean that any of us are unpatriotic. Even as I'm typing these words, I'm thinking of a good friend whose political views are 180 degrees apart from mine, yet he is a great guy who has been a real friend to me, and I know he feels the same. We always enjoy each other's company....we just don't talk politics when we're together. He and I are proof that friends can be friends even while disagreeing. That's the way it's supposed to be...it was the intention of our founding fathers. I spend a lot of time in my car, and I keep my satellite radio tuned to a news channel most of the day. Some of the pundits who are interviewed have political views that are opposite of the way I believe, but I don't mind hearing them because they don't present themselves with an adversarial tone; yet there are others, from both sides of the spectrum, who resort to name-calling and hate speech so much that I don't want to hear them any more, whether I agree with them or not.
The events of September 11, 2001 were beyond terrible, and I hope we never have to experience anything even similar to that ever again. I'm sure there were some who even changed their political stripes as a result of what happened that day, although the majority of us still hold fast to the same value system we had before. It's probably best that we have differing opinions. For a bird to fly straight, it must have both a left wing and a right wing, working on opposite sides for the same purpose. We're never all going to agree, but we can work together for the betterment of our nation as a whole, disagreeing in an agreeable manner. I just hope it doesn't take another "Nine Eleven" to get us back to that point.
Preston
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