Like most Americans who were alive on the day, I'll never forget September 11. 2001. I have relived and recounted my experience teaching at a school less than 2 miles from the Pentagon on that day more times than I can remember. New York City bore the brunt of those attacks, for sure, but here in the DMV we were reeling, too. But so was the nation, I think. At least in my memory we were all collectively numb with grief.
In retrospect, I guess life went on more or less as usual in parts of the country that weren't directly impacted by the attacks and their aftermath, but a lot changed for most of us in the United States that day. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, enhanced security in airports and other high profile public places, a shared feeling of uneasiness, wasn't every American affected somehow?
The general consensus was that we would do what it took to make sure everyone was safe, and since then, there haven't been any major attacks by foreign entities on US soil. And the event was so pivotal, that nineteen years later, even in the midst of an economy-crushing pandemic, politicians, journalists, and citizens acknowledged the losses of that day with speeches, 90 second retrospectives and interviews, minutes of silence and shining beams of light to honor the dead.
Unquestionably, September 11, 2001 was a terrible day, but right now, more people than were killed in those attacks die every 3 days of Covid-19 in the US. Yesterday, Canada recorded a day without any deaths from the virus. Americans continue to be divided about what should and should not be properly required of us in order to defeat this latest attack, and we are on target to lose way more than 100 times the lives that were lost 19 years ago.
Why?
Indeed; why?
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