Daniel’s Pilgrimage

As everyone and their brother is reflecting on 9/11 I figured I should as well. Five years ago today I was working as a security guard for a stint because my computer consulting business was not going very well. My shift started at 5am, so I was at work when everything went nuts. I got to see a little of the tv coverage from where I was, but mostly I just got to deal with the employees of the place freaking out. It didn’t help that most of them were getting their news from the radio and it was horribly off. I had people telling me that bombs went off all over DC and that there were also terror attacks in LA and Chicago. Stupid radio. Not to mention that later they said that the missing plane could target a school and you had this rush of crying parents running out of there to get their children from the school. It was a hugely stressful day. After work I skipped a prayer vigil that my church was doing and eat a large pizza, drank a six pack of beer and went to bed.

That was five years ago. And while time heals many wounds I can’t help but feel like little has been accomplished since then. It’s still hugely unpopular to want to talk about non-military ways that we can end this terrorism. I don’t know of anyone advocating that we figure out what perceived wrongs motivate people to attack us and to right those wrongs. We the US have exploited the middle east for oil for years, we did fund wars over there and then completely bail on people once it accomplished enough of what we wanted. I can’t help but feel that us apologizing for our wrongs and making efforts to right them would do a lot to diffuse the situation over there. Because, despite what the media says, the people attacking us are not animals, they are just angry, desperate people who are looking for something worth dying for.