Three Years

It's been three years since that day, and the emotions aren't as raw. The wound has scabbed over.

It's healed enough that I can watch a History Channel program about the Twin Towers with antiseptic curiosity.

It hasn't healed enough for me to watch the crush--the towers falling--without tears forming in my eyes. Seeing that pulls the scab off.

I am only eight generations removed from my ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War. Eight generations from people who not only fought against tyrrany and oppression, but who were the kind of people who would leave everything and everyone they knew--and every comfort they had--to travel across a vast ocean in hopes of making something for themselves.

That's what America is about: making something for yourself. Taking your God-given abilities and surviving by your wits. The generations before us did it so well that a good percentage of us can squander our God-given abilities without guilt.

On the whole, however, we are the brightest and most industrious people in the world. In two short centuries, America--this infant of a nation--became the world's superpower.

We inherited a lot from those who came before us. Courage is not small amongst the lot. We lived comfortably before 9-11-01, feeling safe from the terrorists who stalked other nations.

We were complacent, yes. Suffering from lack of fortitude, no. On 9-11, there was no lack of courage in America. We are defiant by nature. We are brave. If given the chance, we will defend the freedom we cherish above our own lives. We will do this so that the future generations will be proud of us--so that they will also be free.

We don't know what the future holds in the way of technological advances, and it is naive to assume their world will much resemble ours, but someday perhaps my great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren will study this nation's history. They will study the Revolutionary War. They will study the Civil War. They will study World Wars I and II. They will study the War on Terror.

And they will be proud of us.

After three years, complacency is creeping back on our nation. But the majority of us keep picking at that scab...we don't let the wound heal. We don't want it to heal, because if we let it heal we'll forget. If we forget, we'll lose.

Posted by Jennifer at September 11, 2004 06:00 AM

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