Today is the 22nd anniversary of the brutal attack on our country by religious fanatics.
Like many of you I will always remember where I was when I heard/saw the attack on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City.
I was working at the Hampton Inn in Lionville, PA. It was a Monday morning and my first day on my new job as a sales associate. I was waiting for "Linda" (the sales associate) to begin training me to be her backup.
I was seated at a desk in the back office, by the computer terminal waiting for Linda. To my left up in the corner of the back office (behind the front desk and in front of the manager's office) was a small screen TV. The same kind of TV that was in the breakfast room out in the main room on the other side of the front desk. One of the TV morning shows was on, I think "ABC This Morning."
Cathy, the breakfast hostess came to the back office and said "A plane just crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers." My first thought was "How stupid. Some hot dog crashed his small plane into the World Trade Center."
Linda switched the channel on the back office TV to show the coverage. I remember being frustrated because now my sales associate training would be delayed while Linda and others watched the TV coverage of the crash. I looked at the coverage for a few minutes and was fascinated by the smoke coming out of the World Trade Center building. Then I went back to my computer terminal and did some practice sets on my new sales associate job until Linda could sit next to me and show me what she did in her job.
Then, in what seemed like only a few minutes later, I heard a gasp from the breakfast room and Cathy shouted "A plane just hit the other building!" I knew then that the first plane wasn't an accident. My stomach sank.
I stopped my practice set and glued my eyes to the TV in the upper corner of the back offie. Every body was gathered around outside the manager's office watching the TV coverage now as well as the hotel guests in the breakfast room were watching the coverage in the breakfast room.
As I was watching the TV reporters giving their reports I could hear "plopping sounds" behind them. Someone asked what were those sounds. The reporter hesitated before she said "Those are people jumping from the towers and hitting the ground behind her. Some of them are hitting the canopies."
I was sickened and angry at the same time. "How could this be happening?" These people did nothing wrong that day but go to work and then they were faced with a decision to either die of smoke inhalation or burn to death of jump to their death. That some would try to save themselves by aiming for the canopies stunned me.
All of us in the office continued to watch the TV coverage for the next hour or so, trying to figure out what happened. Then we heard the news of the plane crash in Shanksville, PA and the Pentagon.
My sales associate training was cancelled for the day and I left the hotel early.
Every one was stunned.
Now, twenty-two years later we know what happened. Religious extremists were responsible for the mass murders of 2,977 innocent people.
And for what? To impose their retribution on those who don't adhere to their religious views?
Of course today we have another mortal threat to our democracy with religious extremists. Yes, I am talking about The Enemy Within.
Cult followers who follow a known con man who was put into power by Christian Evangelicals.
Yes, Muslim extremists were responsible for 9/11. Now we have an even greater threat by the Republican Party and Christian Evangelicals in this country. A much greater threat than some ragged assed Muslim extremists from Saudi Arabia.
