9/11

Tomorrow is the ninth anniversary of 9/11. I'm sure that for all of us, this was a life altering event. I'm not old enough to remember Pearl Harbor and the ensuing WW2, but I'm sure that those who do remember, remember it well.

The Cuban Missile Crisis was close, but the Kennedy Assassination was my first. On November 22, 1963, I was at sea on an aircraft carrier, the USS Constellation CVA-64. I remember the announcement over the 1-MC. In no time at all, we all wanted to spool up the Phantoms. We all felt, as I still feel, that Castro was behind it all.

The truth about that little event has never, to my satisfaction, been told.

But I digress.

On 9/11/2001, I get a call from a friend back in Indiana asking me if I'm up yet and do I have the TV on. The answers to that two-part question was no and no. I put on the TV and don't really belive what I'm seeing. I thought that it was a hoax. It had to be like Orson Wells, War of the Worlds, hoax. But as we all sadly know, it wasn't.

It was the second life changing event of my life.

We must remember that over 3000 innocent people were executed on that day. Ben Laden and Al Qaeda are like playground bullies at school. They aren't necessarily the toughest kids in the yard. But they are the sociopaths who continue to beat up the kids who are not able, or willing, to defend themselves. They continue, bolder and bolder, unabated to throw their weight around until one day, the big kid, who has seen finally enough ambles over and kicks the crap out of them. It is time for us to quit pussyfooting around, afraid that we're going to piss the extremists off. Piss the extremists off? What do they have to do, kill another 30,000 Americans before we wake up and face the fact that they are already very pissed off. If the Sunnis want to kill the Shiites, and vice versa, let them kill each other. They have been doing it for thousands of years.

Kids and dogs because they don't have a well developed sense of right and wrong, will weigh the consequences of their acts before eating all of the cookies or peeing on the carpet. If they think that the reprisals for their acts are lesser than the repercussions, they will go ahead with their mischief.

If we amble over and do some big-time ass kicking, I think that they will contain their bullying to their own sandbox and stay away from us.