MORE “11TH” ON THE 13TH. It was on this day in 2005 that additional materials concerned with the events of September 11, 2001 were published.
Much of the information was, of course, known, and widely so, but it had not yet been suitably codified and properly positioned in the complex sequence of events which took place on that day - now “a long time ago” to many people today.
I was surprised yesterday, while talking with a young man ready for college next fall just after we had both heard a TV bulletin let us know that Home Defense authorities had officially lowered our national alert from “Orange” to a less threatening “Yellow”.
The young man's response was negative.
“That;s all so much super-foolishness,!” he commented.”I used to believe all that stuff they hand out. They said we would have more like the planes flying into the high buildings in New York, and I believed them but it hasn't happened that way at all. I kept wondering when and where it would happen again, but I didn't and I think they just made up a lot of that stuff....”
The young man's viewpoint - expressed in stumbling words and parroted phrases troubled me all day.
What did we really retain from our experiences of 9-11-01? Are we aware of the dangers which lied ahead? Or, have we hear the “Cry wolf!” type warnings too often?
I find adults who feel the same way and this is really disturbing. Far too many people have filed the 9-11 towers scenes away along with their memories of the film showing the burning of the “Hindenburg” at Lakehurst, New Jersey many years ago. Both actually happened but they are difficult to accept.
What is your current feeling about home defense alerts? Have we overdone any of it to the point where the very people who need to know and seeing it all as a foolish undertaking?
I know one young man who thinks: “They keep saying something bad is going to happen. It never does. I don't think they know what they are talking about.”
Check it out at your own level.
A.L.M. August 13, 2005 [c372 wds]
