It’s different, but it’s still America

Tennessee skies.

Amazing that it’s been 11 years.  When planes started hitting buildings that morning, I wasn’t sure that the world would still be here in 11 years.

Frankly, it all didn’t seem real.  It was a movie, a Bruce Willis blockbuster.  Exploding airplanes are often found in big-budget action pictures, right?  In fact, when I happened to flip the channel just as the second plane hit, I did believe I was seeing a movie.

And then, I stood rooted to the middle of the living room floor with the remote in my hand — speechless — for a long time.

It wasn’t a movie.

It still doesn’t seem real to me.  I think part of that is because I didn’t know anyone who lived or worked in New York and I lived in Tennessee, an agricultural and musical state that’s not particularly offensive to anyone.  (Still live here.)

So, while the actual events of 9/11 present themselves to me as some distant, horrendous nightmare that won’t entirely fade away, the results of the attacks are tangible, concrete things that offer daily reminders of man’s cruelty.  Rules have changed.  Regulations are different.  Security is heightened.  Giant fences and bulbous, reinforced steel-and-cement barriers have been installed.  Soldiers have been sent into battle, many of whom haven’t returned.  Many have returned minus limbs.  Elections have been decided as a result.

America has changed.

But guess what?  We are still here.  Bin Laden is not.

We live in tragic, interesting times, and some day, far into the future, we will be able to tell our grandchildren about these days.

It may not always be pretty, it may not always be smooth, but America will endure.  I really do believe that.