I am somewhere between overcome and hungover, I barely know where to start. I spent yesterday lounging on the porch, hanging with a new friend Libby who now lives in the house. She took Danny’s old room, and I had to laugh and ask if there was anything found dead in the closet.
We sat outside in the lovely weather listening to a new
band addiction and chatted, sipping chai and chai banana coconut milkshakes whipped up in the blender. I am finding the America I returned to has a lot of angst among bright and talented people frustrated about finding jobs. I am serving as the purveyor of perspective to anyone who will listen.
Libby Donnell from Houston, TX was kind enough to give me a ride down to K-town to meet my friend Don Donnelly from Houston, TX, perhaps on the off chance they are somehow related. We met Don and his buddy Joe, a Taiwanese-American fellow who also served in the Navy and had been at USC for his masters. This little veggie sat amid the smoke of grilling meats of KBBQ and ate kimchi and other assorted veggies. We toasted soju and beer to Texas and to Don for his return, and chatted about all things political and military. Don is a conservative of the libertarian bent, and we agree on some while disagreeing on other things, but we respect each other’s opinion. Libby headed back, and Don, Joe and I remained for a while amid banter and soju.
Joe and I took Don down to USC to see the landscape and scenery, then over to the 901 to see the landscape and scenery. As we were walking over, Don got a text that Osama Bin Laden had been killed. We ducked into the bar and the surreality kicked in.
The
hinges of history, a term that came from one of the best articles I read post-9/11 and one I still remember to this day. As in, what seemed important on 9/10, things like Chandra Levy and Gary Condit or other assorted business, was suddenly no longer important and everything after that changes.
I was in Prague on 9/11. It was after school and I was in the dorm when the first plane had hit the World Trade Center. Not sure if it was an accident or terrorist attack, and half a world away, I continued on with my day and went to see an
Andres Serrano exhibit with Cynthia and (?) Erik (?). Serrano is surreal in his own right, the artists known for
Piss Christ, pictures of blood mixed with semen and for pictures of cadavers. I was not a fan of his work, but the exhibit sure contributed to the surreality of the day. When we returned from the exhibit, my roommate Jeff came running out and declared that America was under attack. We came in to find that both towers had collapsed, and the world we knew had been somewhat shattered. We stayed glued to the small tv set for the rest of the evening, and tried to calm down my friend Lauren who was from NYC. I made some tasteless comment to my friend Marko about Arabs, a comment I would never make today. It was ultimately a day and period etched into my life and timeline.
The days to come were also surreal. Czech children wore American flags. Everyone came up to us to express their sorrow for what had happened. A siren rung out across Europe and all stood in quiet attention. The high holiday services were absent a rabbi stuck in the US, and as we would later learn, because 9/11
was really supposed to be 9/18. I attended the amazing
Forum2K in the weeks to come and listened to the likes of Vaclav Havel, Shimon Peres and Elie Wiesel discuss the events of 9/11. And I wondered if I would indeed be studying in Morocco that Spring as everything seemed in question.
All of this came flooding back as I watched the news in the bar. The 901 filled with sorority girls in patriotic stars and stripes bunting: the generation that were children of 9/11. I wondered how old were they when 9/11 happened? Nine, maybe ten years old. We sat drinking at the bar and watched Obama’s speech, and the gathering crowds outside the White House in celebration.
We headed on to the
Spearmint Rhino, a strip club so our boy from the foxhole could see a bit of what he had been missing. Joe and I were engaged in a loud exchange on the surreality of the sorority girls in flag attire, out cheering for Bin Laden’s death. Naked girls tried to get our attention and dollars but we were engrossed in a different matter altogether. No Joe, the sorority surreality it isn’t an article worthy story, but it does make for a good blog.
I would like to say that Osama's death changes something but I am not so sure. My friend Sofia liked to say, "he's dead and I'm glad." Personally, I think that if they had such actionable intel, it would have been better to capture him and try him but that isn't my call and I am not about to start monday quarterbacking. And I will be honest, I have been a bit disturbed by all the cheering over vengeance. It strikes me as a bit barbaric to be dancing on someone's grave, even one as vile as Osama Bin Laden.
I also wish that Bin Laden's death meant we won, but I ultimately think he won. Before 9/11, there was the talk of
America the hyperpower, America the new Rome. No more. Now it's America the 21st century France. Still powerful but not in the same class it once was.
Bin Laden drew us into Afghanistan, and we are still mired in that graveyard of empires. Meanwhile, we rushed headlong into Iraq.
Osama won because we lost our "greatness," compromised our values and changed our outlook on the world to that of fear. Nietzche warned: "Be careful when chasing monsters lest you become one." We became one, and we have paid dearly in blood and treasure.
Perhaps the death of Osama Bin Laden creates some closure for the families of 9/11, and for us as a nation. One can only hope. But as President Obama walked away from the lectern, amid the cheering sorority girls in the bars and the throngs outside the White House, I had a brief hope that maybe we can finally move on. That maybe we can finally get out of Afghanistan, and finish getting out of Iraq. That maybe we can finally end this nightmare chapter and move on.
