Flags are everywhere and it makes me mad....

Well, so I didn't have time yesterday to finish explaining about how horrible the motel was or what that experience was like... but how dare I bitch about that... Today is September 11th. I made a conscious decision to wear all black today. There are flags dotting the streets here in downtown Fort Worth, and I feel like we were luck, as crappy as it was, to be able to breathe fresh air this weekend and look forward to going home to our kids. We weren't stuck on a hijacked plane. We were breathing smoke inside an inferno, and we weren't free-falling down the side of a building. All we had to deal with were a couple of bugs. How ungrateful we didn't even realize we were being.

Today, six years ago, I was laying on my couch in Stephenville. I was probably hung-over. I didn't have anything "real" to worry about that day, other than the fact that I had skipped yet another Animal Science class. Then...

I think I turned on my TV to watch the Today show. The first plane had already hit, and they were saying it was a bomb. I just laid there for the next two days glued to the TV. I hated my degree plan and pretty much life at the time, so it seemed like a good idea. I couldn't process why someone would want to do this, and I think I became a little jaded in a way after that. You want to believe that everyone is born inherently good, and those that become murderers just go wrong somewhere along the way. These terrorists or murderers seemed like they had been "bred" in a way to do this. Actually, I think that was the intention, if I remember correctly. Since then, I think that we as a country have forgotten. Tell someone that they have forgotten 9/11 and watch them bristle. When it was all happening, you couldn't have convinced anyone that someday it wouldn't be in the forefront of everyone's mind.. always... but it happens. People move on and graduate... get married... have kids... or in our case have kids and then plan a wedding... change jobs... change their perspective... and naturally wounds heal. The problem is.. we are still sending boys who have graduated out to fight for what happened to their nation when they were 12. Some of those boys won't get the chance that we have had... to graduate... to get married... to have kids... and if they do... their kids will grow up not really understanding all of it.

I guess I was just struck this morning by the fact that our streets are lined with beautiful flags today, and patriotism is running rampant. But, what about tomorrow? Will those flags fly tomorrow? I just asked an open question at work about what a couple of people thought about it, and one answer was that they would be stolen if they were left out. Another answer was that they would start ripping and fall out of the holders... blah blah.... I just am bothered by the fact that we are only remembering because it is the "right" thing to do, but not because we just ... do. Make any sense? So, I made the decision to wear black today. No, I don't think I should wear black and carry a flag around everyday. Nor do I think that we should talk about it all the time or have tributes weekly or something crazy like that... I DO think that we need to make sure that we don't ever forget ...

More later...