Calling 9-1-1

9-1-1 It used to be just a phone number for emergencies. Now, it has a whole new meaning. Even ten years later, it still shudders my nerves when I hear something related to 911 or 9/11. I and my family are very far removed from the horrendous happenings in New York, so I know no one there; I'm not even sure I know someone involved second hand - someone who had family for personal friends there. A selfish part of me wants to say 'get over it and move on', but those words never make it out. I'll never say them, not ever. This whole world was totally rocked by this one senseless act; we will never get over it. We won't even get over it when everyone responsible has been properly punished for the crime, not even when it has become ancient history. Look at Pearl Harbor. I don't know the numbers and I'm not going to look them up, but the attack on Pearl Harbor had much the same affect around the world. Sure, there was a war going on and we were taking a back seat at the time, but the senseless loss of life was much the same, and it had the same affect then as the 9/11 attack did ten years ago. It brought us, fully enraged, into the war.

Now, ten years later, maybe some of the rage has worn off. The enemy, the terrorists, are far harder to find. They don't wear the uniform of the enemy. They are hard to see. They lie to get away in order to blow themselves up in the company of some other innocents in a market square or in a hotel lobby. They get their children to do things no child should be thinking of. And it is all in the name of their God or their Prophet. Maybe I'm getting this all wrong, but how can any religion, any teacher of said religion, teach that it is the greatest heavenly task to kill people who don't believe the same things? Many say it's not the religion that teaches this. I'll have to take their word for it. I've never read the Koran. I've never read the Bible either, and yet so many crimes have been committed for that too. That's why I'm scarcely a Christian. I guess that makes me an atheist.

I do know that some peoples think differently than I do, and I don't mean they have different ideas, I mean their brains operate differently. Have you ever read a book written by a Chinese person? Very complicated, and not such an easy train of logic to follow. I can only think that these terrorists think differently too. It just boggles me though. Surely, no matter where you are or how you grew up, wrong is still wrong. Killing innocent people is wrong. How can it be otherwise?

They say we aren't innocent though, but I can't see the crime. That America is predominantly Christian can't be the crime, surely. Ah me, I totally fail to grasp it all, and I can only say, 'we will never forget' and I, for one, will never forgive.