As I sat in silent worship
this morning at the Sarasota Friends Meeting (Quaker) my thoughts were, as were
those of many millions of Americans, on the 9/11 attacks that occurred fifteen years
ago today. We all remember where we were
when we first heard of the attacks. I
was on my way to Springfield, IL from my home in the Madison, WI area, to visit
Lincoln’s hometown. Knowing my son,
David, had an appointment for a job interview, I called him at 9 AM (Central
time) to make sure he was awake and he told me of the attacks. I was heartsick at the news and cancelled my
trip, returning home for three straight days of TV watching.
True, the 9/11 attacks were
a most profound matter of national concern and outrage—the Pearl Harbor of my
generation—but when one considers it in the context of American historical
events, it pales in comparison.
Millions of Africans were
either kidnapped or born into slavery.
When one considers what many of them went through in terms of beatings,
killings, having their families split up, and generally treated as little more
than work horses, 9/11 doesn’t even hold a candle. Even after slavery was outlawed forever by
the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the ex-slaves’ treatment
was not much better than it had been before.
The Jim Crow laws in the South and the birth and rise of the Ku Klux
Klan caused the wrongful imprisonment,
murders, and lynchings of untold numbers
of ex-slaves and their descendants.
The displacement of Native
Americans—mainly Cherokee, Seminole, Muskogee, Choctaw, and Chickasaw--from
their ancestral homelands in the Southeast to reservations in present-day
Oklahoma was simply a wrongful eviction facilitated by the Indian Removal Act
of 1830. The law was declared unconstitutional
by the U.S. Supreme Court, to which President Andrew Jackson responded, “They
made their ruling. Now let them enforce
it”. The Cherokee were the last to be
removed from Georgia to Oklahoma and, of the 16,543 that began the trek, somewhere
between 2000 and 6000 of them perished along the way, giving rise to the term, “Trail
of Tears”.
The illegal and
unnecessary wars in Vietnam and Iraq (in particular), as well as the invasion
of Afghanistan were American Tragedies. I
am a Vietnam vet who was there during the Tet Offensive of 1968. My path toward pacifism started during a
rocket attack one night. We were being
showered with rockets and mortars. As I
was running for cover, I spied a dog running hell bent for election not knowing
what was going on or why. I immediately identified with the poor guy, feeling sorrow and compassion for him and his totality of angst. Having
attended and graduated from a small college—N.C. Wesleyan—I, like many others
of my generation, lost friends--three of whom were college buddies. In fact, a fourth student, whom I did not
know, was also killed. The Vietnam War
was an American Tragedy of epic proportions, yet we tend to forget with the
passage of time.
While it’s understandable
that the foul tastes left in the mouths of Americans could justify an invasion
of Afghanistan in order to topple the rule of the Taliban and hoped-for capture
of Osama bin Laden, there was absolutely no justification for the invasion of
Iraq. Saddam had not harbored the 9/11
terrorists nor did he have any WMDs that were used as a lie and excuse for
invasion. The loss of life, both to
civilians and soldiers is regrettable. But
even more so is the inadequate and even denied medical care given to American
G.I.s who were wounded—either physically or emotionally—during the course of
the war. It is a tragic situation that
many volunteered for what they felt was their patriotic duty when America
needed them, but where was America when these poor souls needed it?
There are many other
American Tragedies that could be cited and explained away—Pearl Harbor; the JFK
and Lincoln assassinations; the Indian Wars; and the like—but my purpose here
is to remind folks that tragedies occur and that those in the past should not
be forgotten. They should be remembered
for what they were and serve as reminders that we can always be better as we
progress on this journey called life.
