September 11th Ten Years Later--Love Is Our Revenge
 

I was loading up the computer in my cubicle on the 3rd floor of the Rock Island County Courthouse. I inserted my CD of songs I compiled to listen throughout the course of the day as I worked at my computer station. It was a beautiful sunny day in September. I remember the skies being as blue as they get. I remember listening to a song by a newer group, Rascal Flatts. The song Praying For Daylight was playing on my computer when our boss ran into her office in a frantic state and turned on her T.V. I remember her shouting very loudly, “A plane just hit the World Trade Center.” All of us, except those who waited the front counter, gathered in her office. We watched the news as reporters discussed how this could possibly have happened. There was a person from the Transportation Security Administration saying this was extremely unusual given the conditions in the air that day—mild temps, blue skies. Speculation arose this may be one of two situations—something that happened to both the pilot and co-pilot (like a simultaneous heart attack) which was highly unlikely. Before he could finish with his second theory the news anchor abruptly cut him off “Oh my God, another plan has just hit the other tower of the World Trade Center. It appears in all likelihood that America is under attack.” Our world changed instantly the moment that second plane hit the WTC tower. America had changed forever.

We continued watching the news coverage and all the experts talking about the number of people typically working in the WTC on a typical weekday—some 50,000 is what I remember them saying. The talk turned to the integrity of the steel structure—what would be the future of these towers? How long would it take to repair damage of this magnitude to the buildings? Could business go on in other floors when the repairs could take months or years to complete? My immediate thoughts were “who did this?” I, like just about everyone else, knew exactly who did this—Osama bin Laden. Eventually, we had our answers. Officials were confirming this was the work of bin Laden and his al Qaeda network. We would learn all to well about this new group of terrorists from here on out.

As the news coverage continued, talk centered around the integrity of the structures and the adjacent structures that were not hit by the planes. Then the unthinkable started happening. People began jumping to their death to escape the intense heat within their buildings. I’ve seen movies that crept me out even though I realized they were fictional. This was real, and the emotions of watching people leap to their death, to escape the heat that too would lead to their death if they stayed put, was, and still is indescribable. I believe they never knew they hit the ground—God wrapped them in the safety of his kingdom before they hit ground. But the images are still fresh in my mind ten years later.

From here, this was more than just political or current event news that normally would captivate my attention in front of a television set. This was something, for the moment, I could not watch. I returned to my cubicle, shut off my music, and turned on the radio stations simulcast of the local television. I heard how the Pentagon building had just had an explosion, then it was confirmed it was another jetliner. I thought, “My God, we are in Germany and Japan, yet we cannot defend the military command and defense center for the United States of America?” I remember talking to one of the girls who was another political junkie like me. We both were dumbfounded how this could happen. I remember thinking why couldn’t our military react to blow that plane out of the sky before it hit another ground target—The Pentagon! Reports of several other planes being hijacked were given. Holy Crap—when will this end was my exact thoughts.

I returned to the television set when I heard reports that the one tower likely would not sustain the weight and temperature of the fuel. I watched the first tower fall—then the second. I prayed most of the people were able to get out before this happened. I did not do any “court work” the rest of the day. I don’t think we had more than 2 or 3 people or cases go before the judges the rest of the day. Life in our office stopped and centered near the television in our bosses office. That day, being Americans—together in fellowship, was more important than carrying on work that could be done tomorrow. It's hard to say exactly how life in America would have changed differently had those buildings not fall down. I'm convinced the attacks on the buildings would have had a military response even if the buildings had not collapsed. But it was the buildings collapsing that cemented in our minds the answer to the question, Where were you when the world stopped turning? This is why that day is cemented in the minds of every American living and cognitively aware that day in September, 2001.

The day seemed to drag on. More than anything I wanted to return home to my wife and children. My kids were in third, second, and first grade and my wife a teacher. I wondered how they covered it in school to protect these kids from a lot of the feelings adults were having. I remember my drive home. The temperature was perfect and the skies still a clear blue. I saw HUGE contrails of at least 3 airplanes in the sky as I headed North on 38th Street. I knew the Administration had grounded all air travel earlier in the day. I immediately knew these were the contrails of Air Force One and the fighter escort jets heading back from Nebraska to Washington, D.C.

I arrived home and my wife and I talked about what had happened that day. We both knew this was our Pearl Harbor. The nation was at war. I needed to go to Walmart to pick up something to make for dinner. I don’t recall what I picked up to make but I do know it was something to grill out. In Walmart, I looked around and wondered if the events of that morning were bigger than just the morning. I wondered if there was more to come. I wondered if any of the Muslim customers knew about this before hand—if they knew something that I didn’t. It was a sense of paranoia that I learned later many others experienced. They say it is only natural.

At home I grilled out. I remember cooking on a grill that drastically needed replaced. As I was cooking out I remember talking to my mom on the cell phone. We talked about how things wouldn’t be the same. We both agreed we were heading to war. We talked about gas prices and the long lines at the gas station. One of our local chains raised the price from$1.70 a gallon to $4.00 a gallon that day. Later, they would be accused of price gouging. This likely was more of a panic move than an attempt to make a killer profit off a bad situation.

What did I learn from that day? I learned President George W. Bush was not the same as Bill Clinton. He wasn’t just going to deliver lip service and cruise missiles at aspirin factories to demonstrate America’s military might and capability. I learned we would go get the evil responsible for this. I learned al Qaeda attacked our economic, national, and person freedoms. I learned the downfall of America’s strength, economic and political, was the ultimate goal of terror and al Qaeda. I have stepped back and look at the world with bigger eyes into which light enters, and the stories of the moment are but a brush stroke in a mast mural of human history, with God as the central theme, and His power and purpose shaping every component of a great, intricate, and divine composition. As a nation of people, we allow the faith in God to burn more brightly. We counter the darkness of a people by loving better and standing on principle of personal goodness and charity with more consistency.  We diminish the darkness not by a paler shade of black, but with the brightest shades of light. The blood of those who died ten years ago is sacred, a token of reawakening in the eternal clash between good and evil. We will not defile the blood or the memory of the innocent with hate. The horrors of September 11, 2001 broke our hearts. Those hearts receptive to the light and direction of God have been enlarged and a wave of Godly power has engulfed a generation that ten years ago had become complacent and materialistic.

We are no safer now than we were ten years ago, and we are now fighting the powers-that-be in our own government as we hang on to our liberty and the inviolable American Dream. But we will win with love, with the light of God to guide us. And we will never, never forget the price that was paid on 9/11/2001 to awaken us from a national stupor into the nightmare of reality of our own survival. Our greatest act of revenge has been to love. The Islamic Terrorists who attacked, and still attack us, desire Americans to fall into the pit of hatred in which they are trapped, and in which they will die. So long as we love God, country, and mankind, we have won. We cannot lose. Love is our revenge.