Opinion: How Should We Remember 9/11? Perhaps Not In the Way We Once Did

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We’re a big country. We’re a powerful country. So, our actions and reactions tend to be big and broad.

It took us a while to get into WW I but when we did - We heard the Yanks Are Coming around the world and it made a huge difference.

We weren’t the first to join in during WW II either. Kept things separate for a while. Didn’t want to make the same mistakes we made in the last one. Mistakes cost lives.

But we entered after 12/7/1941, after Pearl Harbor was attacked and it took four years but we made a huge difference there as well. Some in history said the only difference that really mattered in the end.

But back to being a big and powerful country.

Hard for a bull to be dainty, in a china shop or otherwise. Not in its nature to do things softly. All moves are big and sweeping. We’re a lot like that. So, when the airliners crashed into the twin towers it was very hard not to react in a big way.

And we did. Entered two separate wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Started out a mission to eliminate those that caused the towers to fall. In 2003 it turned into invasions and occupations and well, no need to rehash what took place over the next two decades, there isn’t an American who is not up to speed on that subject.

Big actions create big sweeping changes, not all of them planned or needed, but they happened nonetheless.

And today, when we look at Iraq and Afghanistan and see how things ended up, how the Taliban ended up back in charge of the country again, it makes people wonder what happened.

Not that something shouldn’t have been done. Some things had to be done. Couldn’t let Bin Laden, and those connected to him not be held accountable. That would never work.

And in the end, he was. But in the end, a lot of big sweeping changes took place. Governments were removed and replaced and changed and reshuffled and then replaced again and like any entity that goes through major changes over and over again in a short period of time, things can get a little unstable.

So, today is September 11, 2023, twenty-two years after the airliners crashed into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon and elsewhere. Twenty-two years to think about what we should commemorate today.

All those that lost their lives on that day and afterward - for sure. Each and every one of them. They gave everything to keep us safe, not just us individually but as a nation.

But what about the big sweeping changes?

Should we remember the weapons of mass destruction that weren’t? How much attention should go on that? On the rhetoric, the impassioned speeches before Congress that weren’t exactly on point.

Or the instability created in areas that were already unstable.

How much of our collective remembrances should be on the mistakes made in addition to the lives lost?

It’s a tough subject to consider. Men and women stepped up to do what they thought was the right thing. There really is no fault to be found in what they did. They did it honorably.

But there were mistakes made before they took action. There were mistakes made by those who had all the information needed to make clear and rational decisions. Can we look back and check all those boxes accurately?

9/11 should be something more than a moment in history. It will always be there, no way for it to change. There will always be the images of the towers falling, of the planes crashing into them. Of people jumping.

Those collective images will never be erased.

But mistakes are not something to be scrutinized only when they are small and not of national importance.

Like when the 2009 Great Recession rolled through the world and our financial structures nearly collapsed and trillion$ were lost, we did a post-mortem of sorts on what happened. So that it couldn’t or wouldn’t happen again.

Some say we did a good job; others might say we did a lot of sweeping under the rug. Not good for national pride and resiliency to see too many mistakes being made on a national level.

The same thing could be said for COVID-19 and the ensuing years of masks and restrictions and financial losses and inflation. Mistakes made? Yes. And right actions were taken that saved lives. Both should be reviewed, right?

No doubt mistakes were made after 9/11 in addition to a lot of correct actions being taken. It’s not bad to know we could have done better, is it? And where.

So, when we take a moment today to remember all those fallen, perhaps we should reflect on how we can prevent others like them from falling in the future. Not just talk about it, but actually figure out how not to be that bull in a china shop.

How to be big and powerful and accurate in our actions. Some might offer that big government is always two steps forward and one big step back. Maybe they’re right. But maybe not.

We didn’t start out being a big bull, we got there slowly and did a lot of right things but a lot of wrong things as well. So, we know we’re capable of change.

Change is a good thing to consider. We do it all the time out here when gas prices go up to $5.69 a gallon and purified water is $1.29. And rent and mortgage payments - a lot of change is needed there as well.

So, asking the 535 men and women who run this country to think like we’re thinking and change like we’re changing right now, is not such a bad thing after all.