25 years after 9/11, we can come together again
On July 4, we celebrated the 250th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence from Great Britain with much fanfare and patriotism. Next Friday, we’ll mark a much more somber milestone — a quarter-century since the deadliest foreign attack on American soil.
Sept. 11, 2001. Many people will look back on that horrible morning and remember the pit in their stomach as they watched replays of commercial jetliners filled with innocent people being flown into New York’s World Trade Center towers. They’ll remember the gaping hole in the Pentagon where terrorists intentionally crashed another jetliner, and what could have happened had some citizen heroes not prevented the fourth hijacked plane from heading back to our nation’s capital, possibly with the White House or U.S. Capitol as the target.
We stood in shock as we watched the Twin Towers burn, then collapse, sending clouds of debris billowing through the streets of America’s largest city and burying moms and dads, sons and daughters, along with the heroic first responders in giant piles of steel and concrete.
We were paralyzed by fear as the skies became empty, and we wondered what form the next attack might take.
We were filled with sorrow as the death toll climbed to an eventual 2,977 people.
That day, which quickly became known as 9/11, was one of many defining moments in U.S. history, akin to the attack on Pearl Harbor; the assassination of President John F. Kennedy; and the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger with teacher Christa McAuliffe onboard.
But it was much more than that. As our fear and sorrow turned to rage at those who would dare attack us, our national resolve solidified into a determination to never let such a terrible thing happen again. (Blessedly, nothing to that scale has in the ensuing 25 years.)
In the immediate aftermath, we rallied as a nation to help those whose lives were shattered in an instant.
Some of us donated blood to our local blood bank. Others gave money to the American Red Cross and dozens of other relief organizations. Many — including some from Wyoming — traveled to the disaster sites to help with cleanup and recovery, without a thought about the potential immediate or long-term danger to their own health.
Still others enlisted in the military, eager to punch back at those who gave their beloved country a black eye in such an evil, cowardly way.
It was a time of sorrow, questioning and fear, to be sure. But it also was a time of national resolve and unity. The question today is whether we, as Americans, can rally now the way we did back then.
Some say we saw a glimpse of that same level of determination in March 2020. As the COVID-19 pandemic was declared a national health emergency in the U.S., people initially took the steps recommended to keep the potentially deadly coronavirus from claiming the lives of the most vulnerable among us. As we all know, however, that resolve was quickly replaced by doubts about the effectiveness of face masks, stay-at-home orders, social distancing and, eventually, vaccines. Talking heads used these disagreements to further divide us.
The cynics among us believe that Americans are too divided to ever come together in a lasting way. They point beyond the current political divisions to those involving race, gender identity, economic status and more. They say as long as we spend more time being rage-baited on social media than we do getting to know our neighbors as people, all hope is lost.
In many ways, they’re right. But some of us hold onto hope that there’s still a chance we can shut off the noise and return to a focus on the things that unite us as Americans, and, more than that, simply as human beings. We watch a rapper-turned-country music star speak from his heart on national television and wish everyone could internalize his message and live into it.
And whether we admit it or not, we know he’s right because we see it in our daily lives. Step away from the screen and head to a local Rotary, Kiwanis or Lions Club meeting. Listen to the enthusiasm for community service that exudes from its members.
Spend a Saturday at a rural fire station, watching the volunteers enjoy camaraderie as they train for situations they hope they’ll never have to encounter.
Or darken the door of one of our local faith communities and see how people there talk to one another — with love, support and encouragement.
We can’t give up hope. We have to believe that the best of our nature will overtake our worst tendencies, and we can come together again to solve the tough problems we face — unequal access to healthcare, lack of affordable housing, high debt loads and mental illness, among others.
In the meantime, we can all honor the victims of 9/11 by reigniting a spirit of service, compassion and care for one another, while resisting the temptation to flame the person we disagree with anonymously online. To do otherwise only serves to divide us further — and isn’t that what the terrorists hoped for on that bright, sunny day 25 years ago?
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