Twenty-two years in a post 9/11 world
We owe one another our best efforts for inclusion, safety, justice, and peace. Nothing more important is called of us, and nothing less will do.
It’s eerie to notice that the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington D.C. occurred 22 years ago. Whole lifetimes have taken place. And our nation is certainly on a trajectory heavily influenced by that day.
Recently I spoke with a veteran of the Gulf War of 1991, who was still in the military when the U.S. engaged in war in Afghanistan and Iraq following the 9/11 attacks. Fairly highly placed in command at the time of the start of the Iraq war, he shook his head ruefully as he recalled what he saw as a huge tactical and moral error on the part of his country. And yet he’d wanted to be deployed to the combat zone, to try (he said) to make some sense of it, especially for those who were on the front lines. His requests were declined.
This gentleman married a Spanish woman he met while stationed in Madrid. They have been many places around the world, together and separately. Both say unhesitatingly that they love this country, the United States. Both criticize its ongoing struggle to live up to its promise, in much the same way they challenged their now-adult children to do and be their best.
Sitting next to him at a breakfast hosted by mutual friends over the Labor Day weekend, hearing him tell stories of his travels, share his assessment of our democracy, and talk about his devotion to his family, I could not help but think of all the folks who choose military service as part of their pathway. Of all who returned scarred and weary from the fighting post-9/11. And of all who did not return.
We live in a post-9/11 world, one where the geopolitical lines shifted irrevocably that day. And yet the persistence of what we owe one another - of what we owe those veterans, the teachers we thought about last week, the health care workers who are facing high numbers of Covid patients again, the children heading back to school - the persistence of what we owe our human family is equally striking.
We owe one another our best efforts for inclusion, safety, justice, and peace. Nothing more important is called of us, and nothing less will do.
Be safe and well.