Thank You, America

It has been a year since September 11 has happen.  And in the last few days, watching all the shows on TV that are paying to tribute to those individuals we lost and listening to President Bush trying to convince us to go to war with against another country has seeped into my sleeping sub-conscience.   I was dreaming about world war 11.  Bombs are bursting everywhere and the bad guys are shooting rapid firing guns trying to kill a lot of innocent people and everywhere I am running and there is no place to hide and I wonder how the people can stand all the death, the destruction, and the cold and I was scared out of my wits and shaking and than I woke up.

I was just telling my son that September 11 is a holiday whether or not it is declared as one.  But I do not want to use the word holiday because one always thinks of holidays as fun time, time to party and play.  So for a lack of a better word let us call it an unofficial holiday, a day to mourn, and one day in the next one or two decades only a few people will really understand why it is called the red, white, and blue day.   

Sure the story will be told every year about what happened on that day, and the next generation will believe it but either it will lose the original meaning or it will fade in our memories and only the political figures will remember the importance of it as once we did on Presidents Day, Veterans Day, Memorial Day, or VJ Day.

While you think it is tragic that we trivialize that day, please forgive us, but we cannot live that day over and over. 

It is like when you were in school and wondering why you must study history.  You believed what you were told but it happened so long ago that it doesnt seem real.   And I know it will make you feel sad that as Americans we forgot what price we paid to have a free country that one could feels so safe in.  But remember my dream at the beginning of the story.  I simply cannot live though it day after day. 

I need to feel safe.  I will be cautious but I cannot worry that at anytime I could die.  I cannot live as though an airplane will fall from the sky to kill me, or a terrorist will be on my city public transit bus ready to blow me up, or any other zillion things that can happen to me that would destroy or harm me.

I will fly the American flag, and wear red, white, and blue to say to terrorists that I am not afraid because I am not afraid.  No one is likely lurking in bushes to kill me and though the danger may be real, it does not happen very often.  If it did it would not be news. And I have enough faith in my government and God to know that on the days that bad things can happen, they are on the job watching and stopping terrorist acts before I even know about it. 

This is not sticking my head in the sand thinking, it is the truth.  I do not flinch every time a stranger walks by or someone speaking another language sits next to me.

I am not ignorant not to know that something will happen again but I also cannot relieve history day after day fearing for my life.

What I do do is to thank God, and the good American people that I am living in America where I am free and safe.

I refuse to have nightmares about this unless there is a present danger here and now and in or near my home.

Thank you America for being the best and safest country in the word.

I will not bury my head but I also will not borrow trouble.  We have been through tough times before and we got through it.  We will again get through it and come out the better country and person.