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September 11, 2001, changed the world, for the better and the worse.
I was a young Marine reserve on my way to my “real” job working for an armored car company and heard a plane had hit the World Trade Center. Not a big deal, but something unusual. My normalcy biases were towards a small plane trying to shoot through the New York skyline and missed a turn.
At work, everyone turned on the news and we saw a second plane hit the other tower. I knew at that moment this was an act of terrorism.
I and my partner got our truck and got out on the road. The company was exceptionally understanding and said don’t go anywhere you don’t feel you should. Disneyland Park in California was on our route and I was morbidly curious about what it looked like. For the first time in thirty years, Disneyland park closed for the day.
About halfway through the morning, I got a recall from my platoon Sgt. Go home, get your stuff and stand by for where to go. I called my gun team and gave them the same order while trying to work through the zombie-like city. No one was out, most stores were closed, and the streets were empty.
I got pulled off the truck about mid-day and halfway through the route. We went everywhere, but everywhere was closed. I went home to pack my stuff.
My girlfriend, now wife, met me at my apartment to help/ watch me pack. I think for the first time she realized what I did when I was packing desert warfare gear, extra guns and ammo, and jungle gear.
She asked where do you think you are going? My answer was simple, hopefully, to kill the people that did this to our country.
Like most disasters, it’s not the actual event that changes things, it’s the reactions to the event. I sat at home for two days waiting for my call to report. By the third day, I went back to life.
Life had changed in America, for the better. Somehow we were all Americans again and all the little things, I call them “1st world problems”, were no longer a problem. People appreciated each other and wanted to help.
Living in Southern California at the time, there wasn’t much we could do to help New York City, so people started helping each other. Asking each other how they were doing and actually meaning it and caring about the answer.
America became one. The sleeping dragon had been woken again.
In the next two years, America took over two countries in a matter of weeks. And the world paid attention.
Americans put up flags everywhere and came together. Places that started talking about American Flags being a problem were shunned and ignored.
I remember the city of Berkley California trying to make it illegal to put American Flags on the city and emergency vehicles, so the firefighters put giant flags on their trucks and police cars magically had American Flag stickers put on that no one knew how they got there and somehow couldn’t be taken off.
A news station in California said they were not going to wear American flag pins because they didn’t want to be “divisive” and we all changed the channel. Two weeks late, that channel’s reporters were all wearing pins again.
We as Americans ignored everything that wasn’t patriotic. We didn’t fight as much as we could, just everyone shunned those that didn’t want to be patriotic.
It wasn’t all great. There was violence towards Muslim people living in America, which was wrong. We had some infighting, but the world, and especially America had changed.
My wife was taking a class about American culture and the teacher said she had to throw everything out because American culture had just changed.
On this day, I want to remember the American spirit. We are all in this together and we were all ready to be there for each other.
Now we seem to be afraid of each other. If I say the wrong thing the big media will deplatform me, and just erase everything I’ve done in the last ten years on this site.
I want to get back to when we were willing and eager to help each other out and wanted to show the love we had for this country.
Death and destruction will always be around us. There is no getting away from it. We all have a final destination of death.
What we don’t always have is love.
You might wonder how I can talk about loving people on a self-defense site that talks about having to take a life.
I carry a gun because I love my family and myself.
I teach other people to carry a gun and protect themselves and their families because I love good people.
I do this for free most of the time because I want the good people to outnumber the bad people.
Stay Safe,
Ben
P.S. Help someone when you can and remember to express love and admiration to others and your country.
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