What it means to be an American in a post 9/11 world

What it means to be an American in a post 9/11 world
mailto:dtrinko@limanews.com- 09.11.2007

I’m not a true American like I was on Sept. 11, 2001, as it turns out.
You probably aren’t either, depending on who’s labeling you.
As we mark the anniversary of the deadly terrorist hijackings that put airplanes into the World Trade Center, Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field, this idea of “true American” seems to be on trial. Different juries offer differing verdicts.
One side argues you can’t be a true American if you’re not supporting our troops. Whatever the endeavor, we must support our troops’ continuing missions.
Another side argues you can’t be a true American unless you put the needs of families ahead of all others. If you love America, you want American soldiers to come home.
Both sides tend to throw ridiculous labels at one another, saying you’re a gun-toting conservative or give-peace-a-chance liberal.
More than anything else, they like to say they’re a true American, and anyone who disagrees is un-American or, worse yet, anti-American.
It’s this unwillingness to even listen to another side that makes me question if anyone’s a true American anymore. It seems so un-American to adopt a “my way or the highway” attitude toward anything.
You’re not entitled to your opinion the same way you were before the towers fell. You can’t disagree with the government like you did before the plane plunged into the Pentagon walls. You’re not supposed to show your dissent like you could before those heroic passengers guided that fourth plane away from its extremist mission and into the field.
I think I’m still just as much of a true American as I was on Sept. 11, 2001. I still love God, my mom and apple pie, just the same as I ever did.
You probably feel the same way. More than likely, we all do.
But that’s just not the message we seem to hear nowadays.
We’ve become less open to hearing opposing viewpoints. We’ve become more intolerant to those who think differently than we do. We’ve begun lobbing people into groups, saying their opinions don’t count if they don’t have some arbitrary opinion in common with ours.
I heard that recently from a caller who obviously disagreed with an editorial decision we’d made. He asked me if I’d served in the military. When I told him no, he blew up into a tirade about being a fat, happy liberal sitting in my comfy chair, making decisions that ruined people’s lives.
Truth be told, my chair’s not that comfortable. And most of the rest of his characterizations were off the mark too. They lacked some nuance we would’ve demanded before the terrorist attacks.
On this, the sixth anniversary of those attacks, I’ll stop for a moment of silence this morning to think about what happened, just like I have every year since it happened. I’ll think of the wasted lives who committed no crime that day, people whose only sins were to live in America and go to work that day.
I’ll pray for them and their families. I’ll also implore God to help this country remember that our differences bind us just as much as our similarities. Our disagreements are our strength. Our dialogue is our power.
That’s what makes each of us a true American.