I Don't Need A TV To Be Reminded

(The Wall For The 9/11 Victims)

I must really be a total asshole.  All this stuff on the television and radio about 9/11 has me bored to tears and pissed that I am missing some good television or talk radio…when I get to watch and listen.  Been real busy, yah know.

The reason I’m not watching is that I don’t need it.  Oh, there are some people who only live for themselves and need the reminder.  I don’t understand how anyone needs to be reminded of how much pride in country we had on 9/12 and a few months afterward.  I don’t understand why we don’t have it every day.

I don’t need any of this to remember.  I remember that and others almost every day.  On that morning I was home sick with the flu.  I survived, though there was no doubt I would lose my asshole by puking it up.  Anybarf,  I was watching  the Regis and Kelly morning show.  They had just called out the guest of the day when the station changed to the tower that had just been hit. 

I call my daughter, Marni, at work (Judy was in a meeting and didn't answer the call) and was talking to her when the second plane hit. I was riveted to the television and totally forgot about the puking.  I was in shock and then I was totally pissed.  I knew we had just been attacked.  It was our generation’s Pearl Harbor.  I knew we were going to be at war and I wanted to be part of it.

I had just been discharged for the second time fom a special hitch in the Navy.  I was able to go in under a reserve program where I would get credit for all my professional skills and experience.  I went in as a second class computer programmer (rate now abolished) and working in the NAS-Atlanta Intel Group (1^st EURLANT) who analyzed aerial photos for the active duty troops.  But, due to a promotion and the amount of traveling I would have to do, I was given a Good Conduct Discharge.  When I went back on the 12^th to get back in and on active duty, I was told that the requirements had changed and I was now too old.  The AF and Army said the same thing.  So I was out.

When the towers went down, I was freaking out and said out loud to no one, because I was alone, that there are people still in there.  The firemen, if no one else!  I was sitting there in tears, not from sadness (well not totally in sadness) but pissed.  I wanted someone to pay.

Now, I still do.  I remember those men and women in all three locations.  I do not know their names, nor do I know hardly any of the names of the 58,000 people on ‘The Wall.’  But I remember them, too.  And what all of them could have been.

I think of the guys who would have made great carpenters, electricians, truck drivers and construction workers.  Some would be in middle management or upper management in some company somewhere.  Others would be running their own business or in sales.  I wonder how many Oscar’s and Emmy’s would have been won if they had come home.  The ease of burdens on the families left behind or never formed.  All the contributions that could have been made to society. 

Yes! I remember them and all that could have been from the 9/11 victims, too.  What we lost in the taking of their lives.

I don’t need all this tear-jerking television stuff.  It is sad and depressing.  When I think of them, I feel a mixture of anger, pride, and respect.  No! I don’t need to watch a commercialized television show to remember.  I remember almost every day. 

Play Taps at the football games, and at race tracks.  Honor those who perished by talking about the good stuff.  The good memories!  For me, save the melancholy stuff for a cheap movies.   This total asshole doesn’t need it.

That’s all! Resume your normal daily activities.