Grateful American: A Journey from Self to Service(56)
Over the next few days, we started seeing little American flags on cars all over the city. I pulled into a gas station and bought one for our car. We soon installed a larger American flag on the outside of our house. Everywhere we went, a feeling of support for the United States abounded. Fear mixed with love. We worried about America, about what had just happened, about what might come next. Yet a larger movement had begun to brew. Patriotism was ramping up, making a huge comeback. We felt that we were all in this together. We strove to come together as individuals within the same country and support one another during this senseless tragedy. We would not let this tragedy ruin us.
But the days still felt dark. Images of 9/11 kept replaying through my mind. I saw the Towers exploding and falling. I saw men, women, and children covered in dust, running through the streets of New York City. I saw firefighters running up the steps of the Twin Towers—the same steps that people inside the building had just run down to escape death. I saw people jump from the towers, their bodies falling out of the sky. I pictured the pilots killed with box cutters. I saw smoke rising from the Pentagon, and saw the huge, gaping gash in the building after being hit by a plane. I saw one lone American flag stuck on a hay bale in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, marking the site where Flight 93 crashed. I saw people frantically poring over missing person posters in New York City. I saw first responders sifting through the massive mountain of twisted steel and concrete at Ground Zero, searching for bodies and any signs of life. The images replayed and replayed in my mind. They wouldn’t leave.
The attacks occurred on Tuesday. The following Friday morning, President Bush flew to New York and toured the still-smoking Ground Zero. As he stood on top of a pile of rubble with retired firefighter Bob Beckwith, the president put his arm around Beckwith in solidarity. Using a bullhorn, President Bush began his now-iconic speech by calling out to searchers: “America is on bended knee, in prayer for the people whose lives were lost here, for the workers who work here, for the families who mourn.”
A searcher called from the back of the crowd, “I can’t hear you!”
Instantly the president called back, “I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you! And the people—and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!”
A raw nerve had been touched, and the rescue workers at Ground Zero began to chant, “USA! USA! USA! USA! USA!”
President Bush called for a National Day of Prayer and Remembrance for that same Friday. In the afternoon, I took my family to our church in Malibu. Mourners packed the church. We couldn’t find a place to sit, so we stood with others along a side wall. People looked stunned, and quietness settled on the church. Father Bill, our priest, began his message by saying simply, “This has been a tough week.” Then he paused. I don’t remember anything else specifically that Father Bill said that day—my mind churned so much—but I know he talked about service and volunteerism, about supporting each other through times of need, and about how service to others can be a great healer. At the end of his message, we all sang “God Bless America.” Tears rolled down my face as I tried to choke out the words, but I couldn’t get them out. My crying became too much. I gave up and just let the tears flow.
My heart broke for the families who’d lost loved ones on 9/11, and I ached for the enormous waste and destruction of lives and human potential. I was highly concerned for our nation, for the future, for my own children. That same Friday night, impromptu candlelight vigils cropped up across the country. In Malibu, a vigil formed on a street corner not far from our house. After we returned from church, Moira and I and the children headed out the door for the vigil, but before we’d reached the sidewalk, I said, “Wait,” ran back to the house, and lifted our American flag from its holder. I carried the flag with us to the vigil.
On the street corner, faces looked somber, but strangely triumphant in unity too. One voice began to sing “My Country, ’Tis of Thee,” and we all joined in. When that finished, someone began “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and we sang with all our might. When the national anthem finished, I raised the American flag over my head. As if on some unseen cue, everybody turned toward the flag and recited the Pledge of Allegiance.
The memory of Father Bill’s message mingled with the sorrow, passion, and patriotism I felt at the vigil. As we walked home that evening, I wondered what I could possibly do to support my country during this terrible time.
In October 2001, our troops began to deploy to Afghanistan in response to the attacks of September 11. Osama bin Laden, the leader of the terrorist organization Al Qaeda, had planned the attacks and trained the perpetrators. The son of a billionaire, bin Laden had been born in Saudi Arabia, but the plot to attack America had been hatched in Afghanistan. Bin Laden and Al Qaeda were harbored and supported there by the Taliban, who controlled the country.
Our troops soon started taking their first casualties. Each name on the nightly news I held close. Our servicemen and -women fought the terrorists on our behalf, and our servicemen and -women were now getting wounded and killed. I felt a terrible sadness for them and their families.
I wrestled with many issues. Anger, anguish, and despair flooded my mind. So many innocent people had been killed on 9/11. Nineteen radical Islamic terrorists had trained to kill Americans at flight schools within our own country. The terrorists had been taught how to fly our airplanes by my fellow citizens, unaware at the time that the men they trained were plotting to use the airplanes as weapons. I didn’t want our country to be at war. I didn’t want our servicemen and -women to have to be deployed. But I knew we had to respond.