America’s Sense of Security Post September 11th

I’m not sure exactly when it happened… whether it was the smell of ashes and burning flesh, seeing fear in my father’s eyes for the first time, or watching the first ten years of my life go up in flames… somewhere during the turmoil of the Persian Gulf war, I lost the ability to feel safe. After the terrorist attacks two weeks ago, I could sense that millions of my fellow Americans were going through the same painful process. The events of September 11th have wrecked our sense of security, and its as important to heal those emotional wounds as it is to rebuild from the physical devastation of the attack. I’m speaking to you today as a fellow victim, and the purpose of my speech is to tell you my story and help you cope with this unpleasant feeling.

When I was three, my family moved from California to Kuwait when my dad started working for a big oil company. For eight long years, Kuwait was our home. It was gorgeous the population was incredibly diverse, and apartment complexes stood like a an oasis in the desert sands. But that all changed very fast. On August 1st, I went to sleep thinking about school starting in a few days. I woke up on August 2nd 1990 to the sound of gunfire and Iraqi military aircraft. We spent the next six weeks glued to CNN seeing everything around us turn into a living hell. It felt so unreal like it was all part of some bad movie. I remember watching people get slaughtered outside my window and all of us kids cleaning out the basement in case there were any more bombing raids. I had to watch my parents starve to make sure that my little sister and I had enough food. We finally got airlifted out of Kuwait with only one suitcase for the four of us about six weeks after it had all begun. Despite the fact that we were starving, and we had no money or friends, we were finally out of the war zone. But I never felt safe. Every time I told this story to friends, they couldnt relate to this feeling and I envied them. But things have changed now.

On September 11th, our biggest concern was getting through our first presentation in this class. But fate had other plans and we sat and we watched the destruction of the World Trade Center one airplane after another. It felt so unreal like it was part of a bad movie. This new war is changing everything. For the first time in centuries, the casualties of war arent soldiers fighting in a distant land, theyre innocent civilians in our big cities. And we could be next. I remember the hysteria when someone mentioned that UT could be a target because of Bushs daughter people started breaking down. Theres another war going on right now, and its in here. Its us versus our own paranoia and fear.

So, this brings me to the entire point of my speech. What advice can I give you with my 11 years of dealing with this issue on a daily basis? How can you get back your sense of security? You cant. Its impossible. The paranoia is going to be there every time you get on a plane, every time someone you love visits a major American city, every time you read about terrorism elsewhere in the world. Regardless of the extent, everyone was affected by this tragedy. So how do you deal with this? You have two choices you can either let the fear and paranoia conquer you or you can accept it because you certainly cant ignore it its human nature. It took me a long time to accept it because I was young and it was tough to let go. But when I did, every moment of my life became more precious. Its a lot harder to take life for granted when you know things could change at any moment.

The last thing I want to do today is dispel some of the myths some people are throwing around. They tell us that getting rid of a single man or organization is going to fix everything. And Im going to tell you right now, even if I had brought Osama Bin Ladens bloody head on a stick as a prop for my presentation and then waved it screaming God bless America it wouldnt change a damn thing. What weve lost, we can never find again because it was like our tooth fairy our sense of security was just an illusion. salesforce marketing cloud Dan Rather said that on September 11th 2001, America lost its innocence and I disagree. We lost our ignorance. But we will not lose the war.