Sept. 11 or 9/11, as it is known, while so important in our history, doesn’t have a name, or a slogan.
Can it be that after one year, we can’t define it, because it is so big and so terrible we can’t wrap our minds and hearts around it. Or that we’ve fallen back into deeper worries about the stock market, whether major league baseball players will strike or whether Tiger Woods will win the U. S. Open?
No doubt 9/11 is in the minds, hearts and souls of all Americans this week, as images of air liners crashing into towers, slamming into the Pentagon and crashing into the Pennsylvania ground are recalled.
Right after 9/11, we instantly became better Americans, better church-goers, better citizens and better volunteers. We did that because we wanted to do something to avenge the terrorist attack, which killed and maimed so many.
Our hearts went out to all those families who pinned photographs of the missing on walls around ground zero. We mourned and stood helplessly by as the bodies or parts of them were dug out of crevices of debris from the fallen towers.
We rallied behind our President George W. Bush, because he is our president and for a time we marveled at the bi-partisan support against terrorists, a support that seems to be unraveling.
We went through the Anthrax scare, which was more than just a scare. Someone used the U. S. Mail system to poison and to kill innocent Americans.
The bottom line in this terrorist attack represents a growing number of people who want to destroy our country, its freedoms and its way of life.
Since 9/11, we’ve routed the al-Queda in Afghanistan, we’ve seized some of their assets, we’ve strengthened our cockpit doors on airliners; we’ve strengthened our airport security systems and hunted for the elusive Osama bin Laden.
The year following 9/11 has not been pleasant. Corporate giants we trusted proved to be unworthy of our trust; Bishops and priests covered up sexual abuse, even innovative Martha Stewart is being investigated for Insider Trading.
Now, we are faced with the prospect of going to war against Iraq to root out its leader Saddam Hussein who, like the terrorists, is believed to be preparing chemical and biological weapons to strike us.
9/11 has defined each of us, some more than others, some more deeply than others. It has strengthened the security of our state and our communities.
Still this was the year when the State Legislature refused to give schools any more aid, preferring to let the local districts cut programs, cut bus service and cut special services for students. It was a year when it refused to budge on advancing a multi-modal transportation system in a badly congested Metropolitan Area. It was a year in which the Legislature and the Governor Jesse Ventura stood eyeball to eyeball, neither blinked and nothing got done.
Rather than looking back on 9/11, we can only look ahead to strengthening Democracy and preserving freedoms. One grand moment will be on Election Day when many new candidates running in reconfigured districts will be elected. 9/11 requires us to vote and pay attention to this election.
9/11 changed us, or did it? That answer lies in our hearts. -- DON HEINZMAN
