The Right Track

This past week was a big one in America. We finally captured and disposed of, on 5/1/11, a man responsible for the 9/11/01 terror attacks (and so much more); the grotesque mind behind the plan. For us, this was the end of a very long battle, though we are not naive. We know the struggle will continue. It is not over. It is never over. As long as evil exists, it is never over. And evil will always exist. History teaches us this plainly.

Tonight, the President spoke on "60 Minutes;" his only interview given on the event this past week. It was an emotional week. First, the announcement late Sunday night, May 1, which came as a shock to all. Then, more details about what happened, talk about photos; then, the visit to Ground Zero.  And, oh, the sweet girls at Ground Zero, who were just babies on 9/11, who were giddy at meeting the President of the United States. What have their past 10 years been like? They've grown up in a world where terror on American soil is a reality. I was reminded of my own child. She is that very age. It feels like a lifetime....those 10 years... I remember, only a few days after 9/11/01 celebrating her 4th birthday, trying to maintain a sense of normalcy in a world that felt very foreign to me. But, that's what you do for children in times of chaos, try to maintain normalcy.

Tonight, I just needed to hear my President, our President, speak to us about this. It came out of the blue:  Justice. We've waited so long for this moment, so long that many of us were not even sure it would ever happen. It was certainly not foremost in our minds any longer; for most of us. Was it even what we were hoping for any longer?  The previous President famously said, only 6 months after 9/11, "I don't think about him that much, to be honest..." And, honestly, maybe neither have we. Why? Because it's just easier to go on with your lives than to live in fear? Perhaps.

What I fear is that we also stopped thinking about those who - for our sake - were daily giving their lives in this battle. Had we forgotten even our very own? Is war so commonplace to us after so long? Yes. I think so. Sadly, yes. Were that we would "study war" no more....

But battles are not just fought on battlefields.  It seems to be the way of a democracy. And so, the contentious talk - yes, the ever present battle of American discord -  last week continued about, for one thing: photos. Should the administration release the death photos of a mad man or not? (My vote was "not.") But, later, a very good point was made (which reminded me that the battles of democracy are sometimes worth it) and it was this: The problem with this war, the problem with just about everything since 9/11, is that we were told to "go on with our lives" almost as if nothing had happened.  That was how we would fight this new enemy, terrorism. We would ignore it. Tall order in the immediate days and months following 9/11. But in the days, weeks, months, years that followed many would indeed "go on with their lives"... maybe even to the point of forgetting there was a war. Where were the photos then? Did we, in fact, need reminders?

Yet sadly, many others could never "go on with their lives," of course. They were busy worrying about loved ones serving in the military, maybe called up on a first, second or third deployment to a very real war zone; or loved ones, who were not in fact, soldiers, yet might be called up to war in a much-talked-about reinstated draft; or loved ones being deployed from the National Guard, to a service neither they nor their families had ever imagined when they first enlisted; all worrying about the same thing - the hellish war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq and how it would touch each of their lives. Some, past the dread, were attending funerals. Now they would grieve in their reality. Others were grieving personal  losses from 9/11, itself; burying children and adults, alike. Many others, soldiers, were struggling with new lives, far from "normal," affected by the tragedy and wounding of war. They might never return to the battlefield, but it would live on in their minds and lives.

Then, there were the rest of us. Yes, we were affected by war. But, it was much easier for us to "go on living our lives"... Where were, after all, the reminders of this seemingly invisible war? Without them, time heals much. We were the privileged few.

Part of the psychology of fighting this war was (and is) to keep us far removed from the reality of war. Whether it was  (and is) to keep us from crumbling emotionally to the terrorists (in which case, they win), or to keep us from protesting a seemingly unjust war (in which case, administrations lose).  Never mind the reason, it's beside the point. The result was the same: No photos. No marking of the cost. No caskets. No mourners. No mention of the names, except on a few brave airwaves... Some would share their stories, as journalists. But, they knew too, that we soon tired of it. We have very little appetite for war. Except when election time drew near. Then, we would count the cost; often in the middle of a heated argument; one that continues to this day.

In our defense, certainly, we've had our distractions, domestically speaking....  But, as the President reminded us tonight, it is his job to multi-task. And so, we find, apparently, unawares to us, he has indeed been doing just that. And perhaps, so should we.

And yet, clearly we have not. We've seen so few photos of war during what has clearly been a devastating 10 years of war.  Not only devastating for us as Americans, but for many peoples of the world where war has been at their front door, where photos were not required. Reality was good enough. Yet here, on our soil, where reality depends on your location and perhaps, the company you keep, it is a war, invisible as it may be, that has defined a new generation of Americans, filled with those who have gone on with their lives and those who could not. How are they affected? Have they shared tragedy collectively as a nation as Americans have in wars past? Or is their sharing something only based on personal, not collective experience? If so, then how has that affected us here at home? A nation, for whom, we have not all shared in the reality of a very real war. What is the cost of an unseen war? How will we learn to avoid the past, unite against it, if we don't really know it well to begin with? Maybe we should study war more than we think.

Somehow, there is something to be reconciled there.

So, I needed, really needed, to hear my President, our President, speak on this occasion. We have been fighting a war, but many of us have been absent. This was a war in which current and previous administrations required nothing of the citizenry. As opposed to past American war efforts, there were no war bonds, no rubber drives, no metal drives, no defense drills, no tightening of our belts (quite the opposite!), no shared sacrifice... Just life as we know it. Or, based on some sort of cruel lottery system, were blessed to know it. Sure, the occasional terror alert, a foiled plot here and there to remind us, we are not free of the enemy, would cause us to pause, maybe even pray. But, for the most part, for many, no real skin in the game.

So,  I personally needed to be reminded as to why this event this week was important, why it was a milestone in our collective history, felt perhaps a bit more keenly by some than others. And, why I should feel relief, even joy, perhaps. And, of course, sorrow. Not for the acts of the week, but for those sacrifices given across 10 years. I needed to "witness" and mark this man dying for all of that. I needed to shed a tear for all who went before him for the cause of good, not evil. I needed to witness a wreath laid, not for a mad man, but for so many innocents and brave heroes and soldiers. I needed to remember that while I was living my life, so many others were not. And, for that, this man died. Justice was rendered. It was long overdue. I would remember.

And, now, we need to move forward.

What is also long overdue is a unity in this country about just who is the enemy. The enemy is not our neighbor, nor ourselves. We are Americans. There is more that unites us in our disparity than divides us. What happened this week was that an enemy, a true enemy of everything we stand for, a man whose ideas are foreign to the American heart, a man bent on pure evil and hate, was disabled, never to terrorize us or any others again. Now, will we stop tearing ourselves apart over our differences? We are on the same team, Americans. We have so much work to be about doing...

I hope we can be about doing that work.

Lastly, tonight, as I listened to the President, I realized that I also really needed to hear my President explain what it felt like to order this mission. Why it was important.  Why he chose this mission. He owed that to the American people, the one country where we can demand explanations. Perhaps, given past events, we owed it to the world. Sure, it went well. But, what if it had not? He and a handful of others, alone contemplated that possibility. I needed to contemplate it too, and then bow my head in thanks.  In this explanation,  I needed to know that indeed, like many before him, my President was not only a patriot, but, he was human. And, he was good. I needed to know he cared. I needed to know we did this for the right reasons. I needed to know he thought about it, he weighed the cost. And, that he made good decisions, because they were good, not because they were politically expedient. I needed to hear these words spoken plainly and intelligently. No fancy grandstanding, no evasions. Just truth. What we need most is just truth.

What I learned, as I have always suspected, is that this President, our President, the Commander in Chief of the United States of America and its Armed Forces, is vastly underestimated in this country. He is a man of great intelligence, great focus, and great courage. In that order. He is able to critically think about an issue, get around all sides of it, to calculate the costs and the benefit. Then, make a decision. He is able to speak intelligently and yet, plainly, about it. I take comfort in this. Knowing I do not need to know all things that my Commander in Chief does, I am comforted that when they are done, he can be so candid about why we have done it.  No double speak. No evasiveness.  Just lay it out there. That is America at its best.

And, in all of this, I think our President, this President, has won us more respect as a nation  - around the world and in this country - than we realized we had lost.

And, so, for the first time in 10 years, I feel as if we are on the right track. I feel as if, no matter what happens next (and I hope we see troops coming home in as much as that is possible), that what will be done will be the right thing, for the right reasons, if this man has anything to do with it. As Lincoln said, "I pray we are on God's side, not that God is on our side." Today, I feel we are indeed on the side of Good: God's side. Being on God's side takes only one thing: men of good will to step up to it. And, so tonight, I can sleep, not just because I do not feel the direct effects of a long drawn out war on those I love, but because I can trust that for those who do, they have a leader who not only cares, but who can deliver, who has his eye on the ball, and who quite possibly can lead us out of the storm.

All of us.

We are in a hell of a storm in this country. And, we're not out by a long shot. We have never been more divided. Can the ridding of more evil show us that we are more united than we realize? Time will tell. Question is, can we let someone lead us? Can we trust their intentions are good? Can we trust that they meet muster? Can we trust that they care deeply? Can we engage in ways that work towards a solution instead of creating new problems? Can we extend the hand of compromise and fellowship and a shared sense of humanity? Can we open the door and let the grown-ups into the room, at last? Can we say we are one America and this is our President?

I think we can. I hope I'm not alone.

For the complete 60 Minutes Interview with the President:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504803_162-20060530-10391709.html?tag=strip



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