The Bliss of Innocence

She didn't know.

And she was only mildly interested.

I don't know how we got on the subject, but I'm sure it was spurred by the 10th anniversary.

So we talked a bit about Flight 93. 

I tried to not let my emotions overtake my discussion of explaining to her the facts of flight 93.

OK, she's young, but not young enough not to remember 9/11.  She was around 16 or so at the time.  How could she not have any facts at all about the first soldiers of 9/11.  Those brave passengers that were drafted into the war but were also our very first volunteers in that war we didn't know yet was being waged against us.  Have there ever been drafted and yet volunteer soldiers before in our great nation?  

They did not choose to be soldiers, but they did choose to volunteer to fight, to prove that Americans will not stand idly by when called to serve.

And she didn't know about them.  I wonder if she knows who Mark Bingham was?  I know she has some best friends who are gay, as do I, but does she know that a strong gay soccer player was a hero who gave his life fighting in our war against our enemy?    Did she know that he called his mom, left a voice mail where he identified himself as not only Mark, but Mark Bingham as if she didn't know his last name.  Did she know that this guy, that people claim the TEA party hate (we do NOT), was one of the very first volunteer soldiers on the war against terror.

Did she not listen to ANY news, regardless of whether I consider them liberal mainstream or whether I  believe they at least attempt to report the news somewhat unbiasedly?

Maybe because the majority of her life has been spent under this new insecurity that I did not know until I was 42 years old.  Maybe she's just a kid that just is not interested in the news, politics or anything outside of her world.  I don't remember being so disinterested in things in my mid-20's but maybe I was. 

Did  I spend my mid-20's not caring about anything outside of what would affect me that day?

I do know that when I was eligible to vote at 18, I did not.  I remember the rhetoric of how Reagan was a war monger.  I remember hearing only bits and pieces of how he was going to start a war with the USSR.  Thankfully, since I was completely ignorant on what's important, I did not vote in the first election when I was eligible.

Four years later I apparently knew bettter.  I'd have to google who actually ran against Reagan in his second election.  I do know that I voted for Reagan when he ran four years later.  I voted for Bush four years after that and I was sickened by Clinton's election eight years later.

Little did I know that I would long for the days of Bill Clinton.

George Bush was not my first choice for a Republican candidate after that.  I really thought Bob Dole was a great hero and would be our next President. 

Little did I know that just a few days after 9/11 President Bush would give me the comfort that America might endure.

Yes I believe we are safer today than we were ten years ago on the last day of my naivety.   But make no mistake, I believe we are just a breath away from losing our freedoms.  When we have citizens of this great country cheering when an American flag is burned but telling us we are not free to fly those flags for fear of offending someone.  That we are not allowed to say a prayer even though that right is granted to me by the First Amendment.

Today we still have people who hate our freedoms and sadly, not all of them are some crazed Islamic extremist.  Too many of them have grown up right here, under the very freedom that was bought for them by the blood of our soldiers.

So we've protected America and we've protected our youth.  But that protection has apparently evolved into dangerously insulating our youth.  We've insultated them in just ten short years by having them not even knowing the basic facts of 9/11.  Flight 93 meant nothing to this sweet little girl.  I explained to her why all the passengers of the other flights cooperated with the hijackers.  She didn't understand that up until that day, the playbook was go along with the hijackers and you would likely be safe.  She didn't know that the hijackers used box cutters and didn't understand why those would have been effective until just even a little information into Flight 93 allowed those heroes to know differently.

I wish I could envy her innocence.  I really do.  But that would put me in the passenger seat of a flight bound for the World Trade Center.  I would rather choose to be a passenger on flight 93 and know that those SOB's did not determine my fate, but I would choose my method of death.  Make no mistake Cindy Sheehan-types there is no longer a flight-full of passengers that would have chosen a fate other than those on 93 given the proper information.

I believe those people of every gender, religion, race, and sexual preference are true heroes, but I also maintain every group of Americans bound on such a flight, given the situation and the knowledge they had at the time would do the same. 

"As long as there is not an airplane crashing into this building, you're having a good day."

Let's Roll.