Twin optics

For me, some images just stick….In long-term memory; there was childhood flooding, night thief, day bully, monk-burning and later, nuclear-power-plant melt-down. But two events never elude me, amnesia withstanding: the last scene from the Saigon river the day I fled Vietnam and 9/11 Twin Towers collapse.

I have spent the whole year (pandemic-bound) to do justice to the former (see Fleeing, my other blog). This summer, I want to mourn (with a two-decade interval) the latter.

It has not been easy for the US of A and myself; certainly for those whose loved ones died in America’s longest war (which officially and ceremonially ended today).The pipers who attended firefighters’ funerals the days after 9/11 said it was like Groundhog Day, over and over again: Amazing Grace and America America…over and over and over…the 9/11 loop, known knowns.

Those two bookend optics and accompanied sounds have competed for the real estate of my head, stereo….ly.

On the one side, it’s the choppers (PTSD right there). The other, OMG…the second tower got hit…deliberately, it must be.

For those who survived an aftermath of a catastrophe, he/she understands that, at times, one feels one doesn’t deserve it (the privilege to breathe and go on unscathed). It’s called survivor’s guilt.

To the extent that one identified with 9/11 victims, one bonded with them – in a silent promise of avenge and justice to be sought and served – Monte Cristo style. Poetic style.

We did. We fought. We rode (those horses with the Northern Alliance). We bled ….again and again.

Kids needed school? No problem ( The “Transporter” can always go off-script, to buy an OJ for his “cargo” despite having promised to be on time, and never looked at what’s inside the trunk etc…yet in a slip of humanity, violating his own professional rules).

While at it, we should have trained young Afghan girls with guns and self-defense, so they can be far along in self-determination, as is their sovereign country.

9/11 imprints and under-currents are still with us: from foreign policies to foreign currencies, succession of presidency and premiership have conducted joint campaigns, Trans-Atlantic, in the conduct and interests of war.

It’s as if we were there to avenge the once failed Soviet excursion in the late 80’s (enemy of my enemy is my friend?) – after all, Afghanistan has been known as Imperialist burial ground, even for the British ( I remember it was called Soviet’s Vietnam back in the 80’s).

For now, I am just glad to have spot Todd Beamer bio on Wiki, to know he graduated from the same school, working for Oracle (a decade more junior but internalised the same ethos: when push comes to shove, one needs to lose that which he cannot keep, to gain that which he cannot lose), boarding United 93 from Newark to SF, only to find himself hatching a plot to rush the four terrorists on their fourth plane of terror.

“Let’s roll” were Todd’s last words.

Let’s take down those who seek to destroy us, our way of life, and other innocent people.

It’s not a matter of right or wrong, truth or falsehood.

It is the thing to do under the circumstances, by nature/survival instincts and by reflex.

Rush them. Take over…Enough Evil in one day (a precursor to that 2015 train to Paris).

I hope in Todd’s shoes, I can act the same way, with selflessness and bravery.

On that flight before it went down, both sides prayed to their god. On that day, the whole world prayed to God.

Mono-Theistic God and Pantheistic Gods, Allah and Buddha, Mary and Jesus.. Then the chanting (sadly, opposite emotions on opposite side of the world – supposedly Global World, flat world) and sermonising, prayers and pipe band (firefighters’ funerals), again and again….

Just like Groundhog Day.

Just like today.

Never forget.

Never again.

That’s what I heard, for a decade and a half, from 1975 to the 90s. Never again, NAM.

Then memories, however painful and pedagogical, receded into the collective far corner.

Then we knee-jerk back to taking up arms, to. outsourcing the logistics and the hunt…first for OBL, then mission-creep, then nation-building.

When I heard stop police-funding, I thought it meant stop the funding for world-policing.

Just zoom out. What’s your territory, area of responsibilities and domain? God’s whole Earth?

Global and civil society? or just Western trans-Atlantic alliance? Trans-Pacific? or Israel and the Middle East?

The US and by extension, us all, needs to take a measure e.g. how tall, how heavy (a burden) and how far our arms can reach.

It’s been hunky dory right after the WWII mop-up. But like anything else, the adrenaline level subsides. Can’t get steroidized and pumped up for every conflict that presents itself…(for there always will be one)…Haiti, Syria and S America etc…

I did not know PTA (Parent Teacher Association) was a prelude for Veteran Affairs ( Army funerals and service benefits of our enlisted graduates). I did not say goodbye to a war, only to be in between a rock and a hard place, albeit with plenty of identification and empathy for my second home.

9/11 has been a time stamp on our nation’s history. It is our inheritance as much as it is our insistence to never forget.

Indelible in my mind: Hotel Majestic on the Saigon River and those no-longer-there Twin Towers. Twin optics.