On the way to school today I saw flags lined up and remarked that I needed to put the flag out when I got home. I had taken it down a few days before when some large storms were rolling in and forgot to put it back up. You asked me why I was worried about it, and I told you that today was September 11th, the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Suddenly you remembered what your principal said about it, and that was why you were going to be singing American songs this week. For the first time in my life, I stopped talking and stayed generally silent about an American history topic.
I literally started my study of American history at age four when your great-grandpa got me interested in the Civil War and President Lincoln. My study never stopped, and I even have my degree in history. You ask a lot of questions, even about tough things, but I still have always provided an answer. At five years old you asked who the guy on TV was while I was watching the History Channel. I gave you the five-year-old level rundown of Hitler and the war in Europe and later that day when your mom got home you proudly told her that “We monkey stomped the Nazis!”. There was some explaining to do after that.
This summer while you worked your way through a library book about the Air Force, we had lengthy discussions about the air war in the Pacific, the blast radius of a nuclear bomb, how the Strategic Air Command played a role in the concept of mutually assured destruction and the evils of communism. Your mom wasn’t too pleased about that one either.
Looking back through history there are days that have and will become engrained in our collective memories as a people and individuals. Though there are some good ones, like the first moon landing, most unfortunately are not as pleasant. I have two of those in my thirty-five years. 9/11/01 is the most vivid. I was running fire alarm wire to the elevator in the mill at College of the Ozarks. I was crouched next to the open elevator door feeding wire to a co-worker when there were murmurs among the old people who filtered through campus on their tour busses about a car bomb going off in New York City. Those were the earliest reports and they turned out to be wrong of course. One of the cashiers in the mill turned on a radio and people bought their homemade jelly and pancake mix in near silence as they tried to piece together and process what was happening.
It was a surreal morning and an even stranger day as events continued to transpire. People filtered to work and classes in a haze really and spent the rest of the time huddled around the big screen TVs in the dorm lounges. I was watching live with a couple dozen other people as the second tower collapsed. That moment was as surreal as it gets. One thing that sticks out vividly after the tower was down was the news person saying that the best estimates were up to 10,000 dead. Fortunately, they were off by 7,000 but even the real number is astronomical.
I had to look up the date on the other day, since I was only twelve at the time; April 19, 1995, the day of the Oklahoma City Bombing. I got out of school early that day, and I was in your grandpa’s red Dodge Dakota. We were listening to the radio on the way to the bank before we went home. I think the reason I remember that moment so vividly was because your grandpa said that it was the first attack on the American homeland since 1941, and nothing like it since the War of 1812 in the lower forty-eight states. It seemed insane to me that something like that could happen.
As it turned out, it wasn’t a foreign power that blew up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, but a fellow American. Though I remember a scant few details from the time, in the coming days and weeks I remember the news and my parents talking about the rescue workers having to clear out the daycare and how hard it was going to be for them. I guess in a lot of ways it means that I had a pretty good and relatively sheltered life. That moment was when I can honestly say that I fully understood the concept of evil. Someone senselessly blew up a building where babies and toddlers played; kids your brother’s age. All of the horrible things I had read or learned about, slavery, the holocaust, they were still abstract to me, but at that moment, I think I started to “get it”.
I pray that during your life, the days burned into your memory are good ones. The moment you meet your future husband. Your engagement, marriage and the birth of your kids. Graduation, your first adult job and possibly the day you take the Oath of Office to become President. Maybe that last one is a little far- fetched, but you have that special combination of intellect, drive, love of country, and desire to have your finger on the button that could get your there.
I can hope all I want that the good days will be the only ones you remember so vividly, but surely, that is not to be. At some point you too will “get it”. Unless during your life “the old order of things” passes away, that will come to pass. Evil is too much a part of the fallen human condition. It’s too engrained in us, and even “good” people sometimes do bad things. I’m sure some people will say it’s macabre to have been so blunt with you over the years when you ask about these terrible things, but I truly believe that shielding you from the truth will not benefit you in the least. If I do you the disservice of pretending that the world is a happy place full of people who wish to do good things, by the time you discover for yourself that evil truly exists, it could be too late.
I want you and your brother to be on your guard, not just for yourselves, but for others. You’ve got it in you too. I knew from the time you were four and laid the smackdown on kid in daycare for taking your friend Claire’s Elmo doll. Although I was so proud of you for sticking up for the little guy, that incident gives me pause. How messed up is this world where a little four-year-old girl inherently knows its wrong to take a toy from someone, but gown adults can’t figure out that you shouldn’t fly planes into buildings or blow up a daycare? But that is the nature of evil, to twist everything and make evil look like good.
There’s a funny thing about evil though. It has the surprising tendency to bring out the good in people. We’re definitely not a perfect country, but when tragedy strikes and the wolves are at the door, we come together with generosity, courage, and if necessary ferocity unmatched in the world. The actions of the first responders who went into the burning towers that day are still remembered as demonstrating the pure essence of courage. Just as remarkable were average citizens who charged the cockpit on Flight 93 who, like so many others have done, scarified themselves to stand up to tyranny.
After 9/11 the outpouring of support, not just from this country but from free people all over the world, was awe inspiring. Though I have never once in my life have been mistaken for an optimist (just ask your mother), the way everyone in this country came together after 9/11 truly made me think that all of the stupid strife and bickering was over for America. I was wrong. Humans have memories that are too short. In some ways, maybe that’s good as it allows us to forgive and move on, but like most things, there is a downside. We forget what brought us together in the face of tragedy and we lose our diligence as we believe the oft repeated lies of “it cannot happen here” and “never again”.
As I look at the clock, I see that you’ll be home from school soon. Maybe your teacher will have talked about some of this today and you’ll have questions so we’ll talk, or maybe you’ll just do your homework and then go take care of your guinea pigs. Maybe that would be for the best. You’re only seven after all. As I think about it, it’s truly horrific that I was only five years older than you when I fully understood the nature of our reality: the unending struggle of good and evil.
If we talk in a few minutes, I’ll be sure to give you the seven-year-old version. When you’re old enough to understand, I’ll be sure to show you this. My prayer is that when I do, it is because you’re mature and that September 11th again rolled around making you ask why flags line the streets. Hopefully it won’t be because something terrible has happened and for the first time in your life, the evil that is rooted in the hearts of men force you to finally “get it”.
Copyright – Robert Crouse 2018
