Today marks the ten-year anniversary of the most tragic and shocking day in American history. On a quiet, beautiful morning ten years ago, the clear blue New York skies were diluted with a shroud of terrible and angry fire, smoke, and debris, as two commercial airliners struck the Twin Towers. A few hundred miles south, the Pentagon was breached by another doomed airplane. United Flight 93 tumbled fatally into a field in Pennsylvania.
September 11th changed the entire world but it did not change who American’s are. It simply reinvigorated, perhaps revitalized, and definitely reaffirmed what we are, and what we have been since our colonial birth. 9/11 ultimately begs the question; What is an American?
When people talk about America, trite adjectives such as Freedom and Patriotism are often thrown carelessly around. Sometimes, unbeknownst to us, we take for granted that we live in the greatest nation that has existed on this ancient planet. That is a fact. We have proven time and time again that our nations backbone is not brittle, but in fact, more hardened and sturdy than that of any other nation on this earth. Our people are the most resilient on the planet and that is because it is in our blood.
This nation was founded on the premise of personal freedom in all fractions of life. The notion of defying tyranny and having freedom of religion, expression and thought as well as a chance to delineate the course of your own life, were not new ideas but we were the first to turn the key and make it a way of life.
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| Washington Crossing the Deleware |
We founded our nation, starting with the Declaration of Independence, under the premise that no man should be deprived of “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Over 200 years later, we don’t have a perfect society, but perfection is impossible. It is the journey that defines perfection. George Washington believed so much in the idea of America that he risked everything he had, and extracted everything his ragged army had, to defeat the greatest army in the world at the time.
The brilliant minds of the founding fathers, bickered and squabbled, as our politicians do now, over what sort of document could govern “The Land of the Free.” They did not let their differences stop them however, and produced our Constitution, which, despite its little imperfections, has held this country together for generations.
Abraham Lincoln was willing to wage a war to not only exercise the rhetoric of the Declaration of Independence to its full capacity and abolish slavery, but to ensure that this nation remained unified. More American’s died in the Civil War than in any other endeavor we have partaken in. Still, it is a terrible but positive chapter in our history. We endured.
In the late 1950’s and throughout 1960’s, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and others held their ground against an undercurrent of sick and overt racism and demanded that America live up to its credence. The success of the human rights era of the United States finally helped to complete the composition of the country.
We are a country of eclectic character. We are all immigrants; A melting pot of personal and collective struggle, fight and determination. We may not all embody the exact same principles and we may not all share the same specific beliefs, but we share a bond that is stronger than the greatest stone pillars on earth. We wake up and breathe a fresher air than anywhere else in the world. That air is fresher because we created it, without any compromise.
Many countries have tired to emulate our principles, and none have yet to elicit the success we have. Many other countries despise us because, in reality, we enjoy prosperity and a degree of happiness that is impossible for them.
We enjoy the freedom to make choices and enjoy social and economic prosperity. We can drink beer, smoke cigarettes, sing and dance, laugh and cry, wherever and whenever we want. We can get an education and if we apply ourselves in the correct manner, get whatever kind of job we want. We don’t have to look over our shoulder after every decision we make. We have a beautiful country that is worth fighting for, and that is why we have greater will and an unyielding, implacable strength that cannot be matched.
Our reaction to 9/11 was just an affirmation of this. The terrorists drastically underestimated our reserve, which is forged with blood and steel. They thought that we would keel over and cry ourselves to death after the greatest attack on our nations soil. True, we were shocked and appalled, but we did the only thing we knew how to do: We got up, looked the devil straight in the eye and told him to come get some. As British philosopher Edmund Burke once said, “All that is necessary for evil to succeed, is for good men to do nothing.” Point taken. Evil did not succeed, and will never succeed in this country.
As I write from my hotel balcony in Beirut, I can’t help but think of the Stars and Stripes that define our country. They defined my father and his father before him. They define me and always will. These stripes do not fray, do not wither and will not tear. They will endure longer than time itself.
I was told here that I need to act less American or I could get into trouble; Wrong advice to tell an American. We our too proud and we have good reason to be. Being American may mean something different to every individual but there is one thing that it means for sure. It means being great.
Thomas Paine once famously wrote “ These are the times that try men’s souls: The summer solider and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it Now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph.” We are no sunshine patriots. We are American Patriots; Triumph We Have, Triumph We Will.
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