Twenty-Two Years Later
Everyone who was alive and old enough to remember paused today, and so did I. I remember standing in the car-rental business in Wiesbaden, Germany staring at the CNN feed in disbelief as the smoke billowed from the first strike. I had just transferred to First Armored Division and was working on the various steps needed to move my family from Cleveland, Ohio. Bemused, I drove over to the division headquarters, heading up to the Judge Advocate General’s office, where I watched again in disbelief as the second plane crashed into the tower. Unable to continue with my in-processing, I stood there and stared in horror as the towers slowly collapsed. I remember the clouds of office paper drifting down, twisting in the bright sunlight. Heading down to the planners’ vault, I knew that my life as a soldier would change. I could not imagine how, but I knew that nothing would be the same for me.
Looking back over the intervening twenty-two years, years filled with toil, multiple combat-deployments, promotions, other assignments, eventual retirement, grad-school, and a second career in education, I wonder? I wonder what to make of it all. If they could, I wonder what those who perished that day would make of the world we now inhabit? Did we learn anything? Did we take actions that somehow redeemed their involuntary sacrifice? In some ways we did. We did bring the perpetrators to justice. Those responsible were held accountable, but did we take actions to make such an atrocity unthinkable, or as I suspect have things remained fundamentally the same?
You see, our socioeconomic-cultural system, with its attendant inequities, generated the rifts, or chasms, that separate us from each other. Of course, those inequities do not justify the actions of those desperate men on September 11th. But those inequities, years and years in the making, help me understand the why of September 11th, and understanding the why helps me to take actions that might make such evil unthinkable. So, what systemic changes will preclude, or inhibit such dark actions?
First of all, we could work to create a culture and society in which we evaluate a person based on the content of their character, not the size of their bank account, political party affiliation, religious convictions, race, or gender. Pigeon-holing people based on such arbitrary delineations, does not truly help us understand each other, and is quite lazy as getting to know someone requires listening and listening implies work. True listening also validates the humanity and worth of the person we are attending to. The better we know people, the better we treat them.
Secondly, we should seriously address the socioeconomic inequities that plague our nation, region, and globe. Far too many people labor in modern wage slavery. We must learn to care for the millions of faceless men and women who are born into, exist, and die in grinding poverty with no hope of escape. Spreading the wealth around a bit, and it would not take much, would alleviate much of the turmoil that vexes the modern world. People ought to enjoy adequate recompense for their labors.
Thirdly, we ought to better resource education everywhere. Good quality education ought not to be the domain of only the well-heeled portions of society. We waste so much human capital by scrimping on education. When we invest in our children, we invest in our future. Well-educated people normally make better life-decisions and who knows where the cure for cancer or a needed technology to combat global warming might spring from. Spending on helping young men and women across the globe enjoy good quality education better secures our corporate future. We also should provide an easy path for those who aspire to higher education. Though it is not a panacea, a well-educated citizenry does not as easily come under the sway of despotic leaders.
These are just three areas of emphasis we might consider. Though they do not guarantee a cessation of violence, they would help ameliorate some of the pernicious inequities that help generate such atrocities. Days of remembrance and monuments are proper and necessary; however, they do not meet all the need. If we wish to remember all the slain of that day, we must redouble our efforts to address the causes of their obliteration. We best honor them by working hard to bridge the crevasses that separate and heal the wounds that fester so. That is how we remember and honor.
