On 9/11/2001 we lost many Americans due to a heinous terrorist attack. Today the mastermind behind this and other attacks on innocent civilians is dead. Americans are rejoicing but we must expect retribution.
I grieve for the families who lost loved ones that horrific day. I was overseas on the last day of a 70th birthday celebration when neighbors banged on the door yelling “CNN!!! CNN!!!” It was late afternoon there and, still numb, I walked to the photo shop to pick up my trip photos and bought photo books as well. It was a good time to remember family and our vacation and I also knew the next few days would be spent glued to CNN to find out what the heck was going on back home.
All that time, all I wanted to do was go home. I went to the airline office every day, as well as the Consulate (now there are barricades around the Consulate with dozens of armed guards and no citizen of the US is given entry or even allowed to get near it).
There were church services I attended with expats, and I held hands with over 500 people on the main square to hear solemn bells rung to mourn the dead in a country most participants had never visited. People were helping us, the US of A, mourn our loss.
After a week I returned to the US and the Customs agent said “Welcome Home.” In the following days life changed for me as it had all Americans. We talked to one another, lent a hand to strangers, I hear that even NYC residents became helpful souls for a while. And I met my husband and we’ve been together since two weeks after 9/11 and married now for over eight years.
I’ve a lot of problems with our government treating every American citizen like a terrorist at airports and now even hotels. They went way overboard in labeling taxpayers the enemy (well, to the IRS we’ve always been the enemy but we’ll cut them some slack in this particular instance). Now instead of “Welcome Home” I get naked scanned, patted down, wanded, then swiped for bomb residue. I carry a purse and laptop and get searched every time, an older woman with nothing to hide. My husband carries on BBQ or raw meat with tons of US labels designating dry ice and raw meat and he never gets stopped.
What will happen with Al Quaeda and other radical groups? How about the middle east as a whole? Personally, I wish we could have brought Bin Laden to trial, quickly and in an international tribunal, like Nuremburg. Alas, that is not to be. If I’m to be smart about this, we need the rest of his band of criminals but need to find the money, his family money that has bankrolled this entire scheme. There are several thousand families who could use a piece of that to pay the bills and move on. Let’s hope we can remember those we’ve lost and move on now that the mastermind is dead. Dee
Cooking with Dee 