9/11 and all that other stuff

To anyone who wants to roll themselves up in the flag and moan about 9/11 please stop reading this right now, because I am going to offend you.  I am going to say right here and now that I am not ready to memorialize that date.  Far  from it.  I would like to forget that date.  I would like to rub it out of  my mind as if it never happened. I cannot imagine what it would have been like to have been in the WTC or the Pentagon or on any of the hijacked planes on that day. Nor can I imagine what it would have been like to be a first responder.  Nor can I imagine what it would have been like to have lost a loved one on that day.  Furthermore, I do not want to know.  I do not ever want to experience anything remotely similar to what any of those folks experienced.  I would like to hope that nothing like that ever happens again to anybody anywhere, but I know that it will, because that is the nature of things.  Terrorism against against just plain folks existed for years and years before we Americans were introduced to it up close and personal.  Before 9/11 it was always something that happened to "those people", you know, those poor unfortunates who live in those poorly run countries "over there", thank God, not to US. But 9/11 put an end to that, didn't it?  Yep, that nasty shit can happen right here under our noses, to Americans, just like you and me.  We are not special. We can no longer feel secure in our daily lives.  We can no longer feel that it can't happen here.  To me, that was the lesson of 9/11, and I wish I could forget it.