Wednesday, September 11, 2013

12 years later

September 11, 2001, for people of a certain age, will never be forgotten. It was horrific. Shocking. Devastating, even if you weren't in NY or DC. I still get twitchy if I hear an airplane flying too close overhead, and I was 3,000 miles away from any of the actual physical damage, nor did I lose anyone close to me, or even known to me.
But, I feel like the commemoration of this day has gone too far, off the rails, veering towards comedy at times. A special dedicated to cadaver dogs, and what they may have dealt with during this time? Really?
I also feel that calling people that died that day 'brave' is a ridiculous and unnecessary lie. Most of the people that died that morning were at work. In offices. Does that make them brave? No. It makes them average, relatable. By calling them brave it lifts them up and ends up detaching them from the rest of us, which is wrong. They weren't fighting that day, they weren't at war, they were at work. That is the true tragedy, that they didn't sign up for combat, and by calling them brave they are being stripped of their averageness and turned into soldiers.