Six years, and the horrifying images are still seared in our brains.
Planes crashing into buildings.
Nearly 3,000 lives lost. More than 400 firefighters and police officers dead because they run toward danger, not away from it.
The Sept. 11 tragedy will stick with us as long as we live. Despite that, we all try to move on.
We work. We shop. We live our lives as if it never happened.
Business as usual.
That?s an incredible injustice ? to ourselves and to the memory of those who died.
Maybe the numbers of the dead are so mind-numbingly large that we can?t cope. It took years in Iraq to pass the total that occurred in a few hours in the U.S.
Maybe it?s the lack of a tangible villain to strike. We spent years delivering justice when Pearl Harbor was attacked without warning. The justice for Sept. 11 is elusive. Maybe it was the video ? personalizing a horror in a way that only actual survivors of Pearl Harbor experienced.
Or maybe it was too personal.
Too many of us know someone who died that day. The attack on the Pentagon took just 184 lives, but two of those were MBA classmates of mine ? Scott Lamana and Eric Cranford. They died trying to make us safe. But how many of you know their names? How many are truly remembering the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and Flight 93 today?
Not many. And that has to change.
The Sept. 10 issue of Time magazine makes “The Case for National Service.” According to the article, “volunteers are helping bind America together.”
It?s a story of heroes ? an appropriate one to recall Sept. 11. Time called for new national programs. But it?s been six years since we all shared in a national tragedy. We shouldn?t have to wait for government to tell us how to feel, how to remember nearly 2,200 days later.
We know.
Left or right. Democrat or Republican.
We know.
Because that which unites us remains more powerful than all that seeks to divide. No one asked the victims of Sept. 11 which political party they supported or how much money they made. No one can separate us in our common grief.
In that spirit, I offer a small solution. Forget the big ideas for one day. Deliver the one thing each of us can control ? the solution in our own lives.
Just for today, live life as you should. Live life in a way that pays homage to those who died. Make them proud.
Smile in traffic. Help someone carry heavy groceries. Give money to charity. Call a friend. Be nice, especially when you don?t want to be that way. Every kind act is another way of saying thank you.
I?m not expecting miracles. Just once, we can be the people we are truly capable of being. Maybe it will even get to be a habit.
That would be a fitting memorial.
Dan Gainor is The Boone Pickens Free Market Fellow at the Media Research Center?s Business & Media Institute, a career journalist and media commentator. He can be reached at [email protected].
