People were often asked that very same question, as time goes by.
When President Kennedy got shot in Dallas, the US was a nation in shock and with shared grief. Thanks to the medium of Television, CBS News in particular, with Cronkite, barely had the time to put on his sports coat for Breaking News (formal dress was for the Evening News – That’s the way it was).
I remember walking with my classmate Pierre, a Franco-Vietnamese, on our way to class. We’re at the same age, and we found security in numbers. That walk was one of the most memorable ones, since we discussed the event that November 22 day. Wow! They just did the Ngo’s brothers not too long ago (on November 2). Barely three weeks after, it’s the US President (little did we know, 5 years later, it turned so ominous and symmetrical on both sides of the world, both pairs of Presidential brothers : VN-US ended up dead).
Similarly symmetrical 20 years ago was what happened with the Twin Towers. One after the other went down. Deliberate acts of terrorism. Without a doubt (at first, even Katie Couric of NBC thought it was a commuter plane). I remember where I was on that day: Where was I then? I was in Southern California, watching it unfold on TV (analog TV with cable hook-up). My extended family was in N. Virginia, near the Pentagon. We had arrived in the US safely after some haywire experience at seas ( the last day of Saigon). Then to be apart to free each other up for the uphill, upward mobility climb. Only to be worried about each other once again. Their safety, my Mom’s, in particular.
I saw people jumping out of the then-incinerated-chimney-like towers (smokes get in their eyes and by extension mine). I felt like I had experienced a George Floyd’s choke hold. Up until then, I have watched planes bombing the Independent Palace of Saigon, I have watched helicopter’s blades flying uncontrollably toward us on May 30, 1975, and I have watched Nuclear Reactor on the verge of melt-down (Three-Mile Island live coverage as a TV intern on my senior year). But to join millions others with eyes glued to the set, hard to breathe and knowing deep down, our near-term future would forever change, was something hard to describe.
My 9-yr-old daughter at the time did not comprehend the implications. To her, and I suspect, many of her generation, it was something happened somewhere else, on TV, not unlike a Japanese-made King Kong movie. Or worse, Pearl Harbor had been more serious since it involved more suicides and planes. That day, the only plane in the sky was Air Force One, traveling from Florida to Louisiana (per Satellite imagery). The rest was grounded, thousands of them. I dare you to book on line travel this coming Saturday. It’s scary just the thought of it. We also learned 2 F-16’s were off in search of the UA-93 (on course to become guided missile to down the White House/Capitol Hill) to “Take it out” per Bush-Cheney relay order. The conscious decision to match the terrorists’ suicide with one’s own on United Airlines 93 that day thwarted and a-symmetricalized the plotters’ plan.
It’s Tom Wolfe who put it best: “that day, New York’s two front teeth were knocked off”.
As they say, knocked down, but not knocked out. Go ahead, and count. America would rise up again, and again. Like a sequel to Rocky. To Balboa’s line “cut me” (so I can see the left hook). The Eagle’s eyes. See through and see well. If not, it’s the phoenix that shall rise. This is a 400-year old nation that has lured the best to join, or if not, the bravest, the most resilient and tenacious. The most inventive! So one-off that it has become the envy of the entire world, of other religious fanatics and nation-states albeit much older since their foundings. I must admit, out of their genes pool popped up an OBL, a strategist and evil-spirited salesman (who could recruit). But.
America will stand up again and again. It might be a bit naive – listening to the relics and embers of French colonialists (my Dad had friends who were in Emperor Bao Dai entourage in Paris in the hope of some grand return); or sacrificing Mr Powell at the UN per Blair, as he asserted that there sure were WMD – raison d’etre for another jab at Iraq. BUT, make no mistakes. America has been and will be back. Yesterday, I posted Mt Rushmore – in the rough- prior to having US Presidents’ faces emerged out of it.
Give America some time (to carve out and to reveal what’s meant to be: a Republic unlike any other, of-by-and for the People of all castes, races, geo-location of origins, sexual orientations, aspirations and tolerance levels for risks and rewards). It just so happened that while the worst was seen that day in NYC and DC ( including another Wheaton alumnus – House Speaker-turned-singer, who was once a wrestling coach rapist); the best unfolded at the same time in Shanksville, PA. What are we waiting for: “Let’s Roll” (shouted Todd Beamer, of Wheaton, my alma mater). He who is no fool to lose that which he cannot keep, to gain that which he cannot lose.
I remember the history and horror; and I promised myself, I would live on to tell to my kids: ” Do become your best”, and if needed, to sacrifice for the many. Fool is me!
Thang Nguyen 555 