Vantage Point

The deliberate attack on the United States, via crashing planes into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a Pennsylvania field, impacted my life in ways that continue. Don DeLillo's essay "In the Ruins of the Future" is interesting; however, I do not share his conclusion the attacks were based on Technology vs. Theology (DeLillo). His vantage point is based on his understanding just a few months after the attack. I do not criticize his views; I just have a different understanding, based on my own experiences and observations, now many years after the fact. It is the same event, just different vantage points.

My interpretation of the world began in the early sixties. There was turmoil in America at that time, just as there is now. I witnessed the British Invasion of Rock and Roll, watched Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, and Father Knows Best. Women were strong and engaged in the workplace, but not with the fervor of today. As I was growing up, I had a fairly large circle of friends. I can name at least ten families within a four block radius that I was close enough to that their mom and dad knew my name, where I lived, and where my dad worked. None of them were divorced. None of them were single parents. Living with "significant others" was frownd upon. It was a different time.

As a grade school kid I pulled a wagon to the grocery store and got groceries for my mom. Sometimes I would go to the corner bar and buy penny-candy or cigarettes for the neighbor. I never heard of anyone being abducted, or molested. We left our car keys in the ignition and didn't lock the front door, until sometime in the seventies. I don't remember any specific event causing us to start locking the door. Don't get the idea this was Mayberry. My high school had over two thousand students and my graduating class nearly seven hundred.

Fast forward to my adulthood, I joined the Army and traveled to many places, often by commercial aircraft. I carried knives, nail clippers, drinking water and other liquids, like shampoo, in my carry-on bag, and in my luggage, because it was frugal and expedient. My friends, or family members, would go to the airport gate and wait on me to board the plane. I also did regular physical training and carried my gym-bag with me from station to station in the gym, as I worked out. I always had a sports drink, gloves, a small towel, some specialty equipment etc. It was just normal life.

My vantage point for the 9/11 attack was one of a forty-one year old paratrooper who had enjoyed personal freedom in America-- that I believe is totally incomprehensible to the younger generations. We now have a monstrous industry built around security and a “Safety and Security” mentality seemingly pervades every area of life. The Army post where I was stationed was known as the "Home of the Airborne and Special Operations." Special units were, and still are, stationed there; before 9/11, there was no fence and no gates around the installation. Civilians drove through post like it was another part of town. All of that changed. Now, all military installations are enclosed with sophisticated, multi-layer, security, with fences, sensors, manned access gates, and a proper ID is required for entry. Do you have any idea the billions of dollars that costs?

The Department of Homeland Security was created, staffed and funded and now has an FY15 budget of over $38 billion dollars. Laws allowing the US Government to spy on its own citizens were established. Off shore prisons (one of which costs $400 million a year to operate) were built and staffed to conduct intelligence gathering and house "terrorists." US citizenship no longer guarantees due process. The American psyche has swallowed the notion that security is more important than liberty.

From my vantage point, Osama bin Laden succeeded in accomplishing much of what he and Ayman al Zawahiri set out to do. This nation is far from the nation I grew up in. I don't believe Osama bin Laden was very concerned about American technology. What he hated was our freedom, in particular our freedom to choose our leaders, our religion, and our individual priorities in life-- and most of all, that we had the audacity to project that idea of freedom outside of our borders.

In many ways he won. We now dutifully give up liberty for security as we arrive at the airport at least an hour before wheels up, to stand in a line that would fill a football field, take off our shoes, empty all our wears in bins for all the world to see, (And God forbid you have water!) walk through the x-ray machine, receive your pat down, and then get called out of line for special attention. Oh, and don't take your gym-bag into the gym. Actually, I wonder if they are even called gym-bags anymore. America may still be the home of the brave, but not of the free.