This is an essay I wrote after the tragedy of September 11th.  I think that this is the best way for my article to make a comeback.  I'll try to start updating more often again once I get back into the flow of things.  Enjoy.

    Everything is different now.  On September 11th everything changed for every American citizen.  Some of our older generation has been through this change before.  On December 7, 1941 Japanese airplanes surprise attacked our naval base on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii and President Roosevelt told us that it would be a day that would live in infamy.  He was right.  And until five days ago that was the only day an enemy force had attacked the United States on our own soil.  However, now we have two dates that will forever be linked in the history of the United States – December 7, 1941 and September 11, 2001.  On September 11th, which was five days ago, 19 terrorists, who most likely are connected with one of Osama Bin Laden’s many terrorist cells, hijacked four commercial aircrafts.  Two of the aircrafts crashed into New York’s World Trade Center Towers crashing them to the ground and killing thousands of people, one aircraft crashed into the Pentagon in Washington D.C. killing over 100, and the fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania before it could reach its intended target.  It was one of the worst days in American history.
    On that fateful day last week, I was sitting at my computer scanning documents for my company and listening to a local radio station when they interrupted the broadcast to say that an airplane had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City.  Now I was thinking of course that since it was a commercial aircraft that it just lost its engines and it was a horrible accident.  Then, a few minutes later they interrupted again to say a second plane had crashed into the World Trade Center and they knew for a fact that at least the first plane had been hijacked and they suspected the second plane had been also.  I was in shock.  How could this happen?  Then, word came across that another plane had crashed into the Pentagon in Washington, shortly followed by the announcement that a car bomb had blown up outside the state department (later proving to be false).  I was dumbfounded.  I couldn’t help but say to myself, “Who the hell would dare try and start a war with US.”  Nobody could possibly be that stupid.  I was speechless and after I told my fellow employees, we all went to the back room to turn on the television so we could see the horror.  Then the first tower collapsed and it was said that up to 50,000 people could have been working in the towers on any given day.  At this point, all that I could think of was God please tell me that they don’t have any more planes and for the first time ever I feared for my life.  Who knew how many planes these people hijacked and who knew what targets they had in mind.  I, like so many other people in this country, live close to what could be considered a possible target in the Kennedy Space Center in Florida (although at that time, I’m pretty sure that if I lived next to a cell phone tower I would’ve been scared) and I honestly thought soon my life along with that of everybody I cared for could soon be over.  However, in a flash all selfish thoughts of my own life came to a screeching halt.  Peter Jennings came on the radio and barely managed to say, “Tower two of the World Trade Center has now collapsed also.”  Then there was silence on the air for a while because it seemed that Peter Jennings and the rest of the news crew was doing the same thing as the rest of the country at that point, just sat there in silent disbelief.  Now let me say this, there have been very few times in my life that I have agreed with Peter Jennings, he is a liberal Democrat – me a conservative Republican, but at that moment I felt a connection with him I will probably never feel again, because neither of us was affiliated with any political party at that moment, we didn’t disagree on gun control or tax cuts or even who the president of the United States should be, we were both United States citizens who had been attacked for no reason (in our minds) and were desperately feeling the losses of our fellow citizens.  I imagine the rest of the country was feeling this exact same feeling.  At that moment Tuesday for the first time in a very long time, no person in this country was from a different state, no person was of a different race, no person was of a different religion, and no person was even of a different political party, we were just united together as one nation; holding hands and weeping together.
    After receiving a call from my girlfriend about the tragedy, I instantly called my father, who works at Kennedy Space Center, to see what was going on there, but I couldn’t get a hold of him.  Then, I tried to reflect on what just happened, but I just kept thinking over and over, “What the hell just happened and how did it happen?”  As the day went on, the details of everything started rolling in and words like Osama Bin Laden and terrorist cells started ringing in my ears.  A fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania and I wondered if maybe some courageous Americans had gained back control of the plane from the terrorists averting it from its intended target (it turned out they did, becoming the true heroes of this tragedy).  I wanted to see my president’s face more than I ever had wanted to in my life.  Some sign that we would get past this, start to pick up the pieces, and then strike back at the bastards that did this.  Then the president appeared on television to speak to the nation at 8:30 that night and his words calmed me down so much.  I believed every word he said was true and I could tell that he was completely torn up about the tragedy.  However, the thing that calmed me the most was not that he promised the terrorists and any people harboring them would pay for this attack, but that he was going to talk with his advisors and make sure everything is in place first before acting.  That night I watched the news and watched firefighters pull body parts out of the rubble at the World Trade Center and don’t know how they did it.  They are truly extraordinary Americans working around the clock, risking injury, and searching through the remains of people’s fathers, mothers, and children and praying the whole time that somehow out of this tragedy will come a bright spot.  Somewhere when they move a certain beam they will find some more people alive, because that’s what’s supposed to happen in this country - our heroes come through.  Unfortunately, this time there was absolutely nothing our heroes could do.  So after five people were rescued the day after, not a single person has been found alive since and there are still well over 5,000 people unaccounted for.  Then, later that night I watched one of the thousands of montages that have come out of this tragedy (God forbid the tragedy not make for good television) and it was the first thing that made me cry since hearing about the second tower crashing down.  It was a montage of people in foreign countries holding ceremonies in our honor across the world showing that not everyone feels that extreme hatred toward us.  It was set to the song God Bless the USA and it made me all at once proud to be an American, terribly sad that this tragedy happened, and yet also proud that these other countries loved us so much they were mourning our losses also.  I cried, and cried, and cried, and now whenever I see any of those montages it brings a tear to my eye, because they always show what being a true American is all about.  They make you love your country for how it’s acting now, and should have always been acting.  Selfishness is nowhere to be found and regardless of how many times you see footage of the attack, I guarantee that you will hold you’re your loved ones a little closer and not take life for granted near as much as you used to, because life in this country is just too damned great to be taken from us by terrorists.
    Back in 1941 circumstances were completely different when Pearl Harbor was bombed.  First of all, the attack although a surprise was somewhat expected because it was completely inevitable that the United States was going to get pulled into World War II; it was just a matter of when.  Second of all, we knew whom the enemy was and what we had to do.  It was a war against fascism, against Nazism; it was a war to keep certain people from taking over the entire world.  We knew that we had to help stop that from happening because they were bad people and we were good people and good should always triumph over evil.  The people we fought against in World War II did not hate the United States, they just saw us as an obstacle to accomplishing their goals.  So because everyone knew that this enemy had to be stopped, men volunteered in the thousands to join the military and help stop these evil people.
    Now we flash forward 25 years to 1966.  America had changed completely.  No longer was there an enemy that everyone knew had to be stopped.  No one understood the theory behind the Vietnam War and in hindsight; it was a really stupid theory anyway.  The theory behind the war in Vietnam was that if we let Vietnam fall to communism then other countries would soon follow suit and also fall to communism and soon the whole world would be communist.  This is known as the domino theory, which was made famous by President Eisenhower.  Well, trying to convince the American people that thousands of young men should go to war and possible die over something that might happen did not work out real well.  Millions of Americans opposed the Vietnam War.  Why should we have our own people killed for something that might happen, and even if it does, it’s going to happen thousands of miles away from us anyway, so who cares?  Vietnam was not seen as democracy vs. communism, it was not Russia vs. United States, it was simply American soldiers dying for nothing.  None of this sat well with America, and the government learned a very valuable lesson: You cannot fight or win a war without the support of the citizens of your country.  Since that time the government has been very careful about what it does, sure we bombed Libya in the 80’s and we went to war with Iraq in 1991, those were bad people who deserved a couple of missiles dropped on them, but more importantly, there was no need to reinstitute the draft of non-military citizens for these conflicts.  Americans feel that as long as our military can handle the situation on their own, who cares what they do, that’s why they signed up to be in the military.  But, can you imagine if in the Gulf War President Bush had reinstituted the draft and called on everyday citizens to fight in that war.  It would have never happened because the people would have never stood behind it.  It would have been Vietnam all over again.  I mean really who cares if Iraq takes over Kuwait and why is it any of our business?  But since our military could handle on their own and since Saddam Hussein was a mean guy we stood behind it.
    However, this war is going to be different.  This is going to be the first time in American history that the people we are fighting against truly hate us.  They have a hatred burning so deep inside of them, that it would make children in the Middle East dance in the streets and hold up the victory sign when they found out that we had been bombed.  There are reasons for this hatred that to us seem trivial, but to them seem to make all the difference.  One reason is that we support a Jewish state in Israel.  Muslims have fought for hundreds of years to keep that from happening, but we don’t understand why they hate us.  Another reason is that we set foot on holy land in the Middle East that outsiders are never supposed to set foot on during the Gulf War.  Yet, we still can’t see why they hate us.   In every other war, there was not real hatred.  In the Revolutionary War, Britain was essentially fighting against its own people, so there was not hate there, same with the Civil War.  In World War I nobody really hated anybody they were actually fighting against, they just got dragged into the war because of a whole bunch of stupid alliances.  In World War II neither Hitler (Germany) nor Hirohito (Japan) hated the U.S., they just saw them as an obstacle to their ultimate goal of taking over the world.  We definitely didn’t hate North Korea or North Vietnam when we went to war against them to stop communism from spreading, hell we knew nothing about them until we got there.  This country is not used to dealing in warfare when the other side truly hates you.  People that hate you are willing to do anything to obtain their objectives, which includes committing suicide for a greater cause.  The people in Osama Bin Laden’s terrorist cells have declared a jihad (holy war) on the United States.  Now that sounds simple and not very threatening, but let me explain something to you, these are not people that play games when it comes to a holy war.  In the Islamic religion, one of the only ways to get to the top rungs of heaven is to die in battle during a jihad.  These people are willing to sacrifice everything including their lives.  This is a type of warfare that Americans are not familiar with.  This is a kind of hatred that has wars continuously being fought in the Middle East for the last hundreds of years.  We have to ask ourselves in this country if we are truly prepared for this type of warfare.  This is not the type of war that can be won by dropping a couple hundred missiles on Afghanistan and blowing up some strategic targets.  Once we formally declare war against these people, they are going to fight until death, and blowing up an oil refinery is not going to stop them from doing that.  We will have to send thousands of American soldiers into that country, hunt down Osama Bin Laden and all his associates, and kill them.  There will be no other way to win this war.  Thousands of American lives will be sacrificed to accomplish the greater goal of ending terrorism (other than the thousands that have already died) and we have to be prepared to do it, because we are not a country accustomed to living in fear and we will not stand for it.  There are some great sacrifices that will have to be made in order for us to accomplish this goal.  Now chances are that neither one of these things will happen, but they might.  We just might have to hold another military draft in this country, and although I know that the American public is pissed off right now, helping fight the war is a completely different story.  However, as a draft eligible man who doesn’t particularly like fighting, I can tell you this, I would have no problem helping my country fight in this war for the greater good.  Another interesting sacrifice would be if the government was forced to bring back rationing of food and other products.  We are now a country of expecting to get everything we want, could you imagine going to the gas station and being told that you had already used your monthly supply of gas and you still had two weeks to go?  I don’t know how well this country could hold up nowadays on rationing.  I mean I seriously could see people saying, “Yeah, go fight the war, go kick some ass, U-S-A, U-S-A, hey wait what do you mean you need the metal from my golf clubs to help fight the war, forget this I’m moving to Canada!”   Now obviously this is exaggerated, but something along those lines could very well happen.
    This is going to be different.  My generation is a generation that never really understood what the cold war was about.  I mean by the time I was old enough to know what was going on in the world, the Berlin Wall had fallen and the U.S.S.R. had fallen to pieces.  War to my generation was the Gulf War, which was neat because you could watch the missiles hit their targets on TV like it was a video game.  There was no real threat of losing the war or even of that many people getting killed, it was just kind of neat to kick the butt of somebody that we knew we would defeat and to be able to watch it from the comfort of our couches.  My generation has always lived as the only world superpower and never really thought that there was any other country that would stand a chance in a war against us.  We are better than everyone else in the world.  No one would dare attack us for fear of retaliation from the greatest country in the world.  And we were right . . . until five days ago.  Five days ago we all realized just how vulnerable we are and no matter what happens in the coming months, no matter if we kill every terrorist that is currently alive, we will never have the same feeling of security we all felt before September 11, 2001.  No one will ever set foot on an airplane again without their minds drifting back to that fateful day in September.  Imagine the fear in every passenger’s mind when a Middle Eastern gentleman gets on the plane next to him or her.  This is not to say that the American people should fear every single person from the Middle East, but they probably will even if it’s only for a split second.  This is just human nature, it’s not that people are bad for thinking such things; it’s just the way that human beings are built.  Now don’t get me wrong, just fearing someone for a split second and seeking them out to vandalize their homes and possessions are two completely different things.  I think it is ridiculous that some ignorant people in this country can’t distinguish between terrorists that happen to be of Arab descent and patriotic Americans who are of Arab descent.  It is asinine to assume just because some people of Arab descent are terrorists that hate America, then all people of Arab descent hate America.  This is not the only change that will take place in American culture.  The American people should brace themselves for having to give up a few civil liberties that they now take for granted.  One of which will be that people will probably no longer be able to walk their loved ones to their gates at the airport anymore.  No one except passengers will be allowed past the security checkpoint.  When you attempt to buy a gun or a knife or any type of weapon, you might have to go through a thorough background check.  People might even have some of their First Amendment rights taken away from them if they speak out against the government or speak for terrorist groups.  It is going to be a different world and we will no longer take as much for granted.  It was assumed that we went to work to earn money so we could provide for the people we love and then buy toys with the rest of it.  Well, that is an assumption that only happens in this country.  Almost every other country in the world would be very grateful if they could just provide enough food for their family.  We are a very greedy people as a whole and it is very sad, however what is sadder is that it takes a horrific tragedy like this for the greed to melt away and the patriotism to shine through.  How many times in the past fifty years do you think blood banks had to turn people away because they couldn’t take any more blood?  None, because that’s my blood, why should I waste it on you.  How many people would have given a second thought to a story about a murder in New York City on a normal day?  Very few, most people would be thinking, hell that happens in New York all the time.  But, when terrorists crash a plane there and murder people we are outraged that they would attack us.  There is a very subtle change between people thinking that something has happened to New York and people thinking that something has happened to the United States.  We are not all New Yorkers, but dammit we are all United States citizens and nobody does that to us.  This is called patriotism, and it is the first time in my entire lifetime that I have seen every person filled with it.  I mean stores can’t keep flags in without people buying them.  Once again though, the sad thing about this bout of patriotism is that it took something like this for people to realize just how great this country is.  We live in the greatest country on the planet, but people take that for granted because they think it was their god given right to have freedom, due process of law, and all the toys you can possibly play with.  Hopefully, people will no longer take this for granted and will realize just how lucky they are to have the freedom of choice to work wherever they want and use their money however they choose.  We know for at least awhile that people will not take their lives for granted, not while they are at work (like the people in the World Trade Center and Pentagon were), nor while they are on vacation (especially if they fly to their destination).
    You know, a little over three years was the last time that I was compelled to write like this and I laugh at what made me do it now.  It was on September 8, 1998, and for all of you out there that are not baseball fans, that was the day that Mark McGwire broke Roger Maris’ homerun record in baseball.  That seems so damn trivial right now.  I was moved by the simple fact that a man had hit a ball over a fence 62 times.  And you know what as I sit here typing this, I realize that as much as I try to trivialize that moment, it still ranks as one of the greatest moments of my life.  It was important to me at that time and it still is, because that’s the way things are supposed to be in this country; nobody worried about boarding a plane, or the country being attacked, or possibly losing American lives in a long war.  Hell the greatest fear in this country was probably that the stock market might go down 100 points.  This country is supposed to be about all the greatness that life brings us and allows us to marvel and even cry when we are caught up in the magic of a man breaking a homerun record.  And until September 11, 2001, that’s what this country was about.  But unfortunately moments like that won’t happen for a long time because things are different now.  Oh, how things are different.