America United 9/11
By Paul J. Gerstenberger
Media worldwide will talk today about all of the bad that happened on September 11, 2001 but Good News Daily will instead deliver perhaps the most important lesson we learned and should remember from that day. That lesson was delivered on the very next day, September 12, 2001. Something happened that day that has not happened since perhaps WWII, 60+ years ago… America came together.
No Democrats or Republicans, no black or white, no Jewish or Gentile, no Catholics or Protestants, no men or women, no rich or poor, no illegal or legal immigrants, no crips or bloods. In fact, no partisan feelings or prejudice of any kind was apparent, anywhere, on that day and for the weeks and months that followed. It was a time when all of America came together like the United Colors of Benetton mixed on one palate. It brought me to tears to see the streets across America lined with flags that were proudly displayed from everyone’s home and office, from bridges and buildings and towers and cars. My wife, a Filipino American legal immigrant, sat with tears rolling down her cheeks and said with muffled words that “This was the America she had always dreamt of.”
To see people who only the day before had thought that their brand of partisan prejudice was all that mattered, this day holding hands and talking and helping each other with a new vitality not seen before anywhere. You see, the people who sought to do us harm in fact, on 9/11, instead united us wholly for the first time in more than half a century. What they sought to divide only galvanized an entire Nation into realizing that we were all, in fact, one. That we were all, in fact, Americans. That the petty things we had been fighting about only minutes before did not matter in the least anymore, and that we had become through this crisis…united. Those misguided people seeking to weaken us had actually made us much, much stronger.
This was the America I had dreamt of since I was a boy. The America that is strong and proud and good. This was the America sung about in our National Anthem. This was the America that I loved, the America that makes you stand up and want to shout at the top of your lungs that you are the luckiest person on earth becauce you are part of the greatest Nation on earth. A Country that truly is proud of ourselves and of our accomplishments. A country that has been the world leader since the beginning. A country that people from virtually every other nation try to immigrate to. A Country that since its inception has helped more people outside its borders than much of the world combined. A country that has never backed away when others call out for help. In fact, in our short history, whenever anyone calls out for help we are the first to get there with food, supplies, medicine and hope. This is the America I am proud to call My Country.
Today I hope that we remember 9/11 and what it did for us as a Nation. What it was that we learned about ourselves and about our Great Country that many of us had forgotten until that day. I hope we remember that on that day it did not matter whether you were Republican or Democrat, Christian or Hindu, Black or White. What mattered was that you were lucky enough to be a proud American together with all of the other proud Americans. That we were in fact completely united, perhaps for the first time in our history, and that we were a good, strong, proud people who could weather any storm and come out even stronger. I would like to ask you to remember this day as one of our greatest moments together as a nation and remember the pride, the solidarity and….. The Flags.
