Good to see smiling faces on 9/11

BY JOE B. COATES

This past week the nation remembered the worst terrorist attacks in history that occurred on September 11, 2001, when radical Islamic militants acted upon their plan to kill Americans on our own soil and destroy as much property as possible.

The Smithsonian Channel on cable/satellite has shown a series of programs about that day through the eyes of the different people directly involved with managing the horrible event – emergency and rescue personnel, air traffic controllers, commanders at Northeast Air Defense, Secret Service to then-President George W. Bush and even some of the newspaper, TV and radio reporters who covered the attacks and their aftermath.  Many of those that lost family and friends in the attacks are featured on these shows, as well, along with President Bush and his family.

I want my children to know what we felt like that day, so I tend to watch such programs in their presence, hoping they will ask questions to which I may or may not know the answer.  They need to know what America is up against and what they will be facing when they are in control of the country.

You remember, don’t you?  We were scared.  The horror portrayed in the videos looped on our TVs and splashed across news websites, and the tones of the voices of the ‘breaking news’ radio personalities scraped our souls like someone running their fingernails across a chalkboard.  We were frightened, sad, angry, in shock and in disbelief of ‘how could we let this happen?’ The looks in our eyes revealed the emotions, and I remember it all too well.

That’s why seeing the faces of smiling children and adults at local Patriot Day parades is so important and helpful to our nation, for we are still recovering and healing from 9/11/01.  Thirteen years is not a very long time to pass.  We’ve been at war with those that ensured the plan to kill Americans in America would work, whether they thought it up, fostered it, recruited the key players, funded it or were otherwise involved with bringing that terrible act on that absolutely gorgeous day.   Most likely, this war will continue on into the next decade.
Unfortunately, our children will be the ones that have to carry it on.