9-11 The ultimate hate crime.

 I have been on the planet for quite some time now and needless to say there are moments both joyous and mortifying that will be with me until the God of my understanding decides my number is up and holds me accountable for how I have conducted myself in this life. Fortunately it is not today. And one of the moments that will still be crystalized in my vision as I review the parts of my life that are behind me was the Tuesday morning of September 11th of 2001. I get up very early for work as I am addicted to the quiet and peacefulness of the early morning and if there is a spiritual moment in any day for me it is the quiet solitude of being up just before the day breaks and the sun shines on the landscape.

I had my smoke and powered down my first cup of coffee as I was looking at the surf coming in as I was living across the street from the beach at that time. I went home shaved and prepared for another day of the mundane rituals that go with the working life of the ordinary man. I do not listen to the radio nor do I turn on the morning news because a man taught me a long time ago that it disturbs the voice within. I have always considered him to be a very wise man. And since 1985 I have continued that practice. So I ambled on to my mundane job that is part of the routine of my mundane life. I still have the same job by the way. And these days I am grateful for the mundane routine that is my life. I arrive into work and walk into the office and immediately my inner radar is starting to go to work. Something is wrong ! Something is very wrong ! I look at the people with whom I have worked for the past few  years there faces all have the same dumbfounded and confused and fearful look. My brain is already starting to shuffle through all the scenarios of what has transpired. Who got fired ? Who is getting fired ? Are they going to fire me ? I walk up to my boss at the time Rob. I say, Dude what is up here ? Rob turns to me and says , You mean you haven't heard ? Heard what Rob ? All of a sudden I hear the report on the radio in his office. It is 7AM Pacific time. And America is under attack !

Now I know what has everyone on edge and as I listen to the news reports and look at my fellow workers and associates none of us are saying a word and none of us have to. The look in the eyes of those with whom I toil with daily are all asking the same question, Could this really be happening ? By the time I had gotten to work Flight 11 and Flight 175 had crashed into both towers. Flight 77 had hit the Pentagon as I was making my commute to work. By the time I had gotten to work and started looking around Flight 93 had just gone down in the Pennsylvania farmland overtaken by a bunch of heroes whom sadly I will never get to meet. And the most horrific thing of all a friend of mines Mom was on the flight that hit the south tower. I was not to find out about this till Saturday of that surreal week. All of us are working through the day , but no one is really working though. We are all preoccupied with our own little set of thoughts. I get home and my neighbors are all wearing the same look on their faces that I see at my office. I have no doubt that I am wearing the same expression. I proceed to my television and turn on the cable news channels that are all showing the same horrific footage and I find myself repulsed and mesmerized at the same time. This was to be my life for the next couple of days maybe even a week. And even the beauty of a San Diego beach cannot divert my attention from the horror movie that is real life being played out in front of me. I can remember all of this like it was yesterday. And in some ways it still feels like it.

There were no memories from 9-11 that I would like to keep in a time capsule. I would like to forget that day if it were at all possible. But part of me feels responsible for keeping that memory alive. If I can take away one thing that was somewhat of a positive from the experience of those days nine years ago it was this. On the days after 9-11 when the Initial shock that we collectively felt as a nation subsided something very special happened. For at least a week there were no Democrats and no Republicans , there were no classes of people, there were no ethnicity's to be found. From what I observed 3000 miles away and from watching the news there were only Americans and that was it. I cannot recall a time in my 50 years of existence that we were more united. And as a citizen I had never felt prouder of us collectively , we were truly one. Nine years later it amazes me how far down the scale we have gone. It astonishes me how so many have forgotten a time not so far back and that some whom we shall call mainstream media and quite a few of our own citizenry now treat 9-11 like it was just a car accident ! It repulses me. And then when I say that an Imam should have the sensitivity and courtesy to move a mosque a little farther away from a site that is the Pearl Harbor and the Kennedy Assassination of my generation you call me a hater and an Islamophobe . Right Newsweek ? The Munich Olympics, the USS Cole, two embassies attacked , the Iran hostage situation of 1979, a dutch filmmaker gets killed for making a less then nice film about Islam, a Dutch cartoonist has to hide with his Grandson in a panic room so he does not get killed by an Islamist extremists. And I am the crazy because I do not want a Mosque at the ground of one of the darkest moments in American history ? I laugh at you when you say its I who is not tolerant. What short memories you have ! You see I believe that respect is a two way street. You want my respect ? You show me some ! What goes around comes around. And one more final thought I have always maintained that 9-11 was significant in more then one way. As I look around I also believe that this world we live in started spinning at an out of control pace since that day and one good look at any news service I believe supports my assertion. I just want all of you especially the ones that seem to have forgotten to remember 9-11 and I want you to really hone in on how you felt that day. Because 9-11 was the ultimate hate crime ! And it seems that somehow you have erased this incident from your mind !