9-11...14 years later.
Looking back on my posts, it's been a year since I last posted to LJ.
It would have been so easy to let it go, to put it behind me and get on with my life. I did my part, I served my country, made sacrifices. Better men would tell me to forgive.
I won't do that. In the end, the underlying issue that changed people's lives fourteen years ago was never resolved. The war never ended. The idea never went away. The enemy despite losses, despite defeats, never felt DEFEATED. So where does that leave us? Have we...never having lost a battle, been defeated psychologically? Fourteen years ago, the idea of an Islamo-fascist Caliphate spawning immediately after 9-11 would have the nation up in arms and a governing body climbing over each other for the opportunity to declare war. Now it's...meh. Turn a sizable chunk of the Middle East into a murderous hellhole...no worries. Televise the savage butchery of bound men and women to make a political statement? No problem, we'll just tell folks it's for mature audiences.
Maybe we didn't lose...we just lost interest. And that's worse.
So I won't forgive. I won't put it past me. But I also won't spout off infantile rhetoric. Mine is a slow, deliberate anger that is patient. I won't see the end of this war, but my sons and daughter will. And if they don't then their sons and daughters will carry on.
It would have been so easy to let it go, to put it behind me and get on with my life. I did my part, I served my country, made sacrifices. Better men would tell me to forgive.
I won't do that. In the end, the underlying issue that changed people's lives fourteen years ago was never resolved. The war never ended. The idea never went away. The enemy despite losses, despite defeats, never felt DEFEATED. So where does that leave us? Have we...never having lost a battle, been defeated psychologically? Fourteen years ago, the idea of an Islamo-fascist Caliphate spawning immediately after 9-11 would have the nation up in arms and a governing body climbing over each other for the opportunity to declare war. Now it's...meh. Turn a sizable chunk of the Middle East into a murderous hellhole...no worries. Televise the savage butchery of bound men and women to make a political statement? No problem, we'll just tell folks it's for mature audiences.
Maybe we didn't lose...we just lost interest. And that's worse.
So I won't forgive. I won't put it past me. But I also won't spout off infantile rhetoric. Mine is a slow, deliberate anger that is patient. I won't see the end of this war, but my sons and daughter will. And if they don't then their sons and daughters will carry on.