Wednesday, September 15, 2004
9/15/01 -- FINAL
By The Erudite Redneck
Three years ago today, when I woke up -- four full days after the Sept. 11 attacks, after an adventure I could never have dreamed up -- finally in my own bed, in my own home, in my own house, one thing was still out of place:
A rental car from Kentucky will still in my driveway. My pickup truck was still 20-some-odd miles away, behind a fence at the Will Roger Airport.
Laugh, if you want – I wouldn’t blame you. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal until the very instant I used MY key, to open MY truck door, and scooted MY backside into MY seat of MY four-door red Dodge 1500.
Those were MY tunes on the radio (classic country, of course). That was MY spit cup on the dash (hadn’t quit Copenhagen yet). Hell, it was MY trash in the floorboard.
Not that I particularly liked that truck. Its wheel base, in fact, was too long and I never did get used to drivin’ it in town. I hit every curb that got close and some that didn’t. But after things being so out of control for a week, it was a major redneck comfort.
It was the second that I closed the door, put the key into the ignition and started the truck, that I realized I was really, truly, finally home.
I don’t pretend to know what all was involved in the feelings that I finally let overcome me. But only then did I feel the full weight of everything that had happened the past week come onto me with full force.
I was back in the saddle again – a timeworn and overused metaphor (or is it a simile?). Cowboys talk about men who can “sit” a horse. I “sat” my truck.
Bring on the world. BRING IT ON. MY tank was almost full. I could get away if I needed to – and I could get to, if I needed to. I was at no one’s mercy for the first time in a full week.
That’s it. That’s all. I’d been home since crossing the Kentucky-Tennessee line a few days before. I made it to the house the night before.
Sitting my truck helped me find myself in the midst of it all. Silly, maybe. Funny what you cling to in times of trouble. That dang ol’ truck was a kind of anchor that I hadn’t had for a week. I squeezed that steering wheel hard and just sat for a good while.
Then I went on with the rest of 9/15/01 and all the days that followed.
XXX
What follows is what Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said during the official Laying of the Wreath Ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery on 9/11/04. The words people say in times of trouble – and times of remembrance – are so important. I happened to see and hear these on TV last Saturday.
Hear them well:
Chaplain Kerr, Mayor Williams, the civilian leadership of the Department of Defense, the Army, the Navy, the Air Force and the Marines, Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz, and distinguished officials, families and friends that we honor today. Thank you all for being here. We think of you often. We remember your loss--our loss, the country’s loss, and the loss of loss of precious lives not lived -- colleagues from the Pentagon, passengers aboard 77 and crew members.
More than two centuries have passed since an assembly of citizens established a republic, rooted in liberty, and cemented in place by their belief in the unalienable rights of man.
The idea of government by the people was a truly audacious thought back then when our country was founded. And, in many parts of the world it is still an audacious thought today.
There have always been those who benefit by the rule by the few -- by the tyrant. Because America and freedom represent everything they preach against, they have fought our Nation since its founding in one way or another.
Free societies are in a very real sense an affront to their worldview. Free systems are the truth that points out their lies. They must know that, if given a real choice, the people they try to intimidate and rule would prefer freedom to that which the extremists offer.
Over the centuries these enemies have come in many forms -- Nazis, Fascists, Communists, fanatics, extremists of one type or another -- and they’ve killed millions trying to impose their will. In those battles, America has of course lost many lives -- those who were innocent victims of the violence and the lives, also, of those who courageously sacrificed themselves to defend our ideals.
Here, in this place, we need not look far in any direction to see tens of thousands of reminders of those sacrifices. Brave patriots occupy these hills, just as they occupy the cemeteries across the globe.
And they include the souls we gather to honor and remember today. And to their friends and families, our Nation offers our heartfelt condolences, our gratitude, and our prayers.
It’s common to hear that the taking of life was senseless. But those who inflicted this suffering had a sinister logic. They believed that by killing thousands of our citizens that they could frighten and intimidate our country, our people -- that they could shake the trust we have in each other, and that they could weaken the glue that holds our society together.
They wanted America to retreat from the world so that they could impose their ideology of oppression and hatred. They thought they could strike us with impunity, and that we would acquiesce. That the American soldier and the American people themselves, were in the words of one of their leaders “a paper tiger.”
Those we mourn today were not the first victims in the war declared against us by the extremists, nor were they the last. All across the world, the enemy has taken innocent lives. Extremists think nothing of cutting off people’s heads to advance their cause. They have murdered citizens -- even hundreds of schoolchildren recently -- from countries across the globe. And even today they plot to strike again.
But the enemies underestimated our country. They failed to understand the character of our people. And they misread our Commander-in-Chief.
Shortly after the September 11th attacks, President Bush told a shaken nation; he said, quote, “The course of this conflict is not known, yet its outcome is certain. Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them.”
The wound that was opened three years ago will always be with us. We know that. Yet our grief has found its purpose. September 11th was a call to arms.
And once again, brave men and women from this country have deployed abroad to defend freedom. And once again, an uncertain world looks to America and her allies to lead the way.
And once again, a determined enemy faces the arsenal of a purposeful nation awakened to danger.
In 1941, shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill addressed the United States Congress in Washington D.C., warning Americans of the great struggle before them.
Churchill, of course, had warned of the Nazi advance long before it was accepted wisdom, and people properly gave his words great weight.
He said, “Sure I am that this day -- now -- we are the masters of our fate; that the task which has been set us is not above our strength; that its pangs and toils are not beyond our endurance. As long as we have faith in our cause and an unconquerable will-power, salvation will not be denied us.”
Decades later, we again resolve to remain true to the mission that has been set before us. The lives that were lost on September 11th have meaning. They live on as a testament to a country that is courageous, that is determined, to a people who are resilient despite great loss, and to a cause that continues until that mission is accomplished and beyond.
May the Lord watch over all of us and bless our great country.
END
Three years ago today, when I woke up -- four full days after the Sept. 11 attacks, after an adventure I could never have dreamed up -- finally in my own bed, in my own home, in my own house, one thing was still out of place:
A rental car from Kentucky will still in my driveway. My pickup truck was still 20-some-odd miles away, behind a fence at the Will Roger Airport.
Laugh, if you want – I wouldn’t blame you. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal until the very instant I used MY key, to open MY truck door, and scooted MY backside into MY seat of MY four-door red Dodge 1500.
Those were MY tunes on the radio (classic country, of course). That was MY spit cup on the dash (hadn’t quit Copenhagen yet). Hell, it was MY trash in the floorboard.
Not that I particularly liked that truck. Its wheel base, in fact, was too long and I never did get used to drivin’ it in town. I hit every curb that got close and some that didn’t. But after things being so out of control for a week, it was a major redneck comfort.
It was the second that I closed the door, put the key into the ignition and started the truck, that I realized I was really, truly, finally home.
I don’t pretend to know what all was involved in the feelings that I finally let overcome me. But only then did I feel the full weight of everything that had happened the past week come onto me with full force.
I was back in the saddle again – a timeworn and overused metaphor (or is it a simile?). Cowboys talk about men who can “sit” a horse. I “sat” my truck.
Bring on the world. BRING IT ON. MY tank was almost full. I could get away if I needed to – and I could get to, if I needed to. I was at no one’s mercy for the first time in a full week.
That’s it. That’s all. I’d been home since crossing the Kentucky-Tennessee line a few days before. I made it to the house the night before.
Sitting my truck helped me find myself in the midst of it all. Silly, maybe. Funny what you cling to in times of trouble. That dang ol’ truck was a kind of anchor that I hadn’t had for a week. I squeezed that steering wheel hard and just sat for a good while.
Then I went on with the rest of 9/15/01 and all the days that followed.
XXX
What follows is what Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said during the official Laying of the Wreath Ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery on 9/11/04. The words people say in times of trouble – and times of remembrance – are so important. I happened to see and hear these on TV last Saturday.
Hear them well:
Chaplain Kerr, Mayor Williams, the civilian leadership of the Department of Defense, the Army, the Navy, the Air Force and the Marines, Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz, and distinguished officials, families and friends that we honor today. Thank you all for being here. We think of you often. We remember your loss--our loss, the country’s loss, and the loss of loss of precious lives not lived -- colleagues from the Pentagon, passengers aboard 77 and crew members.
More than two centuries have passed since an assembly of citizens established a republic, rooted in liberty, and cemented in place by their belief in the unalienable rights of man.
The idea of government by the people was a truly audacious thought back then when our country was founded. And, in many parts of the world it is still an audacious thought today.
There have always been those who benefit by the rule by the few -- by the tyrant. Because America and freedom represent everything they preach against, they have fought our Nation since its founding in one way or another.
Free societies are in a very real sense an affront to their worldview. Free systems are the truth that points out their lies. They must know that, if given a real choice, the people they try to intimidate and rule would prefer freedom to that which the extremists offer.
Over the centuries these enemies have come in many forms -- Nazis, Fascists, Communists, fanatics, extremists of one type or another -- and they’ve killed millions trying to impose their will. In those battles, America has of course lost many lives -- those who were innocent victims of the violence and the lives, also, of those who courageously sacrificed themselves to defend our ideals.
Here, in this place, we need not look far in any direction to see tens of thousands of reminders of those sacrifices. Brave patriots occupy these hills, just as they occupy the cemeteries across the globe.
And they include the souls we gather to honor and remember today. And to their friends and families, our Nation offers our heartfelt condolences, our gratitude, and our prayers.
It’s common to hear that the taking of life was senseless. But those who inflicted this suffering had a sinister logic. They believed that by killing thousands of our citizens that they could frighten and intimidate our country, our people -- that they could shake the trust we have in each other, and that they could weaken the glue that holds our society together.
They wanted America to retreat from the world so that they could impose their ideology of oppression and hatred. They thought they could strike us with impunity, and that we would acquiesce. That the American soldier and the American people themselves, were in the words of one of their leaders “a paper tiger.”
Those we mourn today were not the first victims in the war declared against us by the extremists, nor were they the last. All across the world, the enemy has taken innocent lives. Extremists think nothing of cutting off people’s heads to advance their cause. They have murdered citizens -- even hundreds of schoolchildren recently -- from countries across the globe. And even today they plot to strike again.
But the enemies underestimated our country. They failed to understand the character of our people. And they misread our Commander-in-Chief.
Shortly after the September 11th attacks, President Bush told a shaken nation; he said, quote, “The course of this conflict is not known, yet its outcome is certain. Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them.”
The wound that was opened three years ago will always be with us. We know that. Yet our grief has found its purpose. September 11th was a call to arms.
And once again, brave men and women from this country have deployed abroad to defend freedom. And once again, an uncertain world looks to America and her allies to lead the way.
And once again, a determined enemy faces the arsenal of a purposeful nation awakened to danger.
In 1941, shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill addressed the United States Congress in Washington D.C., warning Americans of the great struggle before them.
Churchill, of course, had warned of the Nazi advance long before it was accepted wisdom, and people properly gave his words great weight.
He said, “Sure I am that this day -- now -- we are the masters of our fate; that the task which has been set us is not above our strength; that its pangs and toils are not beyond our endurance. As long as we have faith in our cause and an unconquerable will-power, salvation will not be denied us.”
Decades later, we again resolve to remain true to the mission that has been set before us. The lives that were lost on September 11th have meaning. They live on as a testament to a country that is courageous, that is determined, to a people who are resilient despite great loss, and to a cause that continues until that mission is accomplished and beyond.
May the Lord watch over all of us and bless our great country.
END
