September 11th 21 Years On
Every year I dedicate myself to keeping the flame of remembrance alive for those who lost their lives in the Islamofascist attacks on our nation on September 11th, 2001. For those of us who lived through that day, the images, the sounds, and for those who had boots on the ground – both civilian and first responder alike, the smells are forever etched into our memories for all eternity.
I remember exactly where I was and what I was thinking as I saw the smoke billowing out of Tower Two of the World Trade Center on that day. It was a surreal moment, a moment of the unthinkable. As a former professional firefighter and paramedic, my immediate thoughts were centered on the tasks the first responders had before them in trying to both save lives and battle the fire.
Then I watched live as the second plane hit Tower One and I knew we were under some kind of attack. Everyone did. It was obvious.
As the mainstream media jettisoned their political agendas to actually do the job of reporting the news, the chaos was palpable, even from hundreds of miles away and from around the world. Everybody with access to any kind of live media was glued to any information coming out of New York City. But information – at least for the moment, was a commodity.
The world watched as first responders – firefighters, police officers, paramedics – and even civilians ran towards the danger to help save lives. The now paralyzingly real pictures of New York City firefighters entering the towers and climbing up to their almost certain deaths, as people raced down to safety, illustrated courage that today seems almost non-existent in our woke, snowflake culture.
There were no preferred pronouns or contrived gender identities, and there wasn’t any political divide – no Republicans, no Democrats, and especially no fascists. There was no divide. At that moment and for months afterward, we were all Americans. We were all in it together. We were brutally reminded that our political differences were irrelevant to those in other parts of the world; to people who hated us enough to kill us; to slaughter us by the thousands, and then celebrate it.
To them, we were Americans with no hyphens, no political party designations. It didn’t matter the color of our skin or our genders; our religions or our social status. We were Americans and we were the targets.
As I watched the first tower collapse and then the second, my heart sank. My immediate thought was that thousands of people – and a lot of my brothers of the badge – had just instantly been murdered. Gone in the blink of an eye, with many – if not all – destroyed without a trace; nothing for their families to even bury.
As New York City reeled, the same horrors were playing out in Washington, DC, at the Pentagon. And in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, terror ended abruptly as United 93 slammed into the ground disintegrating everyone on board.
For days, weeks, and even months, the nation came together as one. We helped and comforted our neighbors. Volunteers – both first responders and not – converged on New York City to help on “the pile” at Ground Zero. And our nation’s sons and daughters went to war.
For those days, weeks and months, we were Americans, all of us. We were brothers and sisters. We realized that all the people of the world – but for those that chant about killing up weekly in the Islamic World – sought to come to our aid; to help. As one European leader exclaimed, “We are all Americans today.”
On that day, in those fateful seconds, New York City firefighters and people who worked in the Twin Towers and the Pentagon – who I considered my friends – perished at the hands of hateful, totalitarians hell-bent on forcing the world to their will. And on that day, the entirety of the American compliment said “No.”
That’s quite a contrast to where we are today as a nation.
Today, those who lust for power and riches have succeeded in dividing us as a people. The Fifth Column from within and the globalists from without, see the American people as a dividable commodity to manipulate for their opportunistic goals, almost always centered on power and wealth.
The mainstream media has ceased to be a viable avenue for gathering truthful information and, instead, has taken its seat at the table of the Lords, elites one and all, now content with manipulating information to force people to think a certain way, to act a certain way, to accept absurdities, and to turn on one another.
The elites have divided us by gender, race, religion, and financial class, and have even gone so far as to create new ways to divide our already divided nation even further through their poisonous identity-centered politics. They have politicized every aspect of our lives, from government to sports to art to entertainment; there isn’t any aspect of our lives that hasn’t been politicized to affect a divide.
Divida et Impera – divide and conquer. That’s what Julius Caesar said. And like Rome, the United States is burning in our divide. Many say we are headed for a second US Civil War. I put it to you that are already in the midst of it; the battlefield being societal, the battles raging for our hearts and minds; for our freedom to think and act as individuals.
Where is the brotherhood we engaged in after the attacks of September 11th, 2001? Where is the compassion we had for our neighbors; the concern we had for each others’ well-being? Where is the unity? Where is the heart of America? Is it still beating? Do we still have one?
Twenty-One years on from that pivotal day, I know where I was, how I felt, and how I reacted when the world stopped turning. I haven’t forgotten what brotherhood and true, honest Americanism is and means. I am not ashamed of my country, even with its scars. It is still the best last chance for freedom in the world and I won’t – ever – apologize for it.
Maybe those who seek to divide us wouldn’t be so indignant and narcissistic if they would have dug on the pile at Ground Zero, breathed the death thrust upon us by those who truly hate us, and realized just how damn lucky they are to live in a country that can put our differences aside to help one another; to live in a country where we all have more in common than we do in difference.
Maybe the dividers should be exposed, shunned, and discarded. We certainly did that in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. And that means it can be done.
Today, as we remember those who perished on September 11, 2001 – and especially those who ran towards the danger to selflessly help their fellow Americans – regardless of the divisible demographics the dividers have foisted upon us, we all – all of us – need to remember that we have more in common than we do in difference. We are all Americans and we need to start acting like it...before it’s too late.
Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.