Coping with "the Tragedy"
October 2001

There are just some things you have to write about. I was going to write on a very different topic, but because of the events that have transpired in New York City, I felt that I had to voice the personal opinion that so many of my acquaintances were looking for from me.

My condolences go out to everyone affected by the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon. Despite the thousands feared missing, I feel that there is still hope we will find many more alive in the rubble, it's just a matter of time. Whoever conspired this attack, whether it was Osama Bin Laden or some yahoo in our own country, is a very sick person.

From now on I'm going to be careful for what I wish for; for months I have been thinking 'we need a war to give us unity as a country, like we had during World War II.' This opinion stemmed from my apathetic surroundings of college and from people telling me how apathetic my generation is. Everything is easier said than done, this is the perfect example; we've unified ourselves as a nation, but only at the cost of thousands of lives. Shouldn't have had to come to that, but it did, besides it is easy to say we need a war, but before a war can start, there needs to be an attack.

This attack has opened our eyes to many things. First, we have become comfortable with our way of life as "a strong world power," but when it came down to it we couldn't support that. Of course NOW we are demonstrating that very much; plus you know we're a world power, when the whole world mourns for us. But why did it have to take the destruction of valuable structures to wake us up. It also showed us that we have become relaxed on security; to allow FOUR planes to be hijacked seems a bit careless on our part. Also, how did we not see this coming, supporters of Bin Laden were telling us that he was planning something unprecedented, and yet we did not listen or seem to investigate these threats.

We are all going to see that in the coming years, this will change the way the United States handles certain issues. I think this is the "Titanic" of our time, which I will explain in more detail further down.

We all cope in different ways, for some it might be easier. I feel I'm coping well, even though I have no god to turn to. Even if I had a god, I would be very angry at him, because he would have been able to prevent this from happening. I mean I'm not talking about thunderbolts or something, but he could have prevented it through people. I would like a theistic, preferably a minister of some sort, person explain to me how god works into all this. In theory at least, he had to of been watching, if anything. My question is WHY?

While I don't wear my emotions on my sleeve, I am feeling the same pain everyone else is feeling. I get saddened when the news has people showing missing loved ones and explaining stories phones they had before the attack of how good the person was. I get saddened because, not only for the people themselves, but I think how easily it could be any of us looking for a loved one or we could be the one missing.

Since I have no god to run to, the best way I cope with everything is by talking about it or writing it down. And I feel that we have lost a great deal of human warmth, kindness, and resource. The people missing or dead will be sorely missed by everyone. While I did not know any of the 4,000+ people who died in this tragedy, I am mad, because that is 4,000+ less people that I will get to meet in my lifetime.

For the sake of the nation, I have tried to go back to my life as normal as one can expect it to be after terrorist attacks. And while I give the front of nothing happened, I know exactly what happened and it is still very fresh in my mind. In fact, when things cool down, I'm going to give blood and hope to donate some money to the recovery effort.

There are probably lots of people still living in America wondering what the big deal was; these people may just be ignorant or may not know what America stands for. Now we don't all have to be overly patriotic or anything, but there are a few things we should realize that that the thing we're suppose to stand for has been threatened, our Freedom has been compromised. The one reason why so many people of different races, religions and creeds want to come here has been taken and shook. Of course in the past weeks, we have shown the world we will not be shook. I think George W. Bush said it better when he said, I'm paraphrasing, that we are a peace sleeping nation, but we can be very vicious when provoked.

As nation, even though our forces are on an international hunt of the perpetrators of this most heinous attack against us, we need to show the terrorist that we will not stop our way of life to live in fear of them. Three of the most symbolic structures of our country have been destroyed; the World Trade Towers (symbols of our strong economic government) and the military side of the pentagon (of course a symbol of security). What we need to do now is pick up the piece of our broken symbols and rebuild them stronger than ever, especially to show the terrorist of the world that we will not be deterred from our mission of promoting world peace and freedom for all.

The other night I was out with my friend Javier and he asked what my nationality was, I told him I was Black, White and Latino, and he came back with "wow, you are America, you're made up of the three majorities of the country." After that comment everything seemed to fall into place for me, months ago my friend Anjan� gave me an American flag and said it represented me. At that point I didn't understand and for some reason or another was kind of put off, but I though back to that moment and I then had more respect for the flag than I had in the past. Plus I think being born on the Fourth of July is just icing on the cake.

So that raises my next question, when do we get back to American normalcy? That question can lead into so many directions, for example if normalcy means forgetting the tragedy, then we haven't learned anything. If normalcy mean we forever mourn this tragedy, then we not only impede the American system, but we also end up doing what the terrorist wanted us to do, alter our way of life. To me I think normalcy first needs to be reevaluated; I mean it's true what everyone has said, we have been forever changed, right now there is no normalcy, this very well could be event that reignites the American Spirit. This will be the "Titanic" of our time in the sense that we will now reevaluate our whole way of living, in all aspects; also this is a time to start thinking globally. I don't think it occurred to anyone how much we mean to the world, until we all saw pictures of people in almost every country and bowing their head in respect to us and the people who had died in the tragedy.

All I have to say is that if we end up making a movie of this whole tragedy then we really haven't learned anything at all. And if Hollywood must absolutely make a movie of it, I don't think we want a "Titanic" piece of crap or a "Pearl Harbor" sappy love story; I think they should make a tasteful movie, like many of the films dealing with events from "World War II." In other words, remember the tragedy without the crappy, sappy love story tied to it, the main focus is to remember the event and how it changed the lives of Americans.

~William Batey, III
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