On hallowed ground-Dave Barry gets serious

Miami Herald ^ | Sat, Sep. 07, 2002 | Dave Barry

[Lizard_King]

I found this a moving account. I hope it brings some of you some comfort in this most trying of anniversaries.

[What Is Ain't]

Very touching. Good find.

[ABG(anybody but Gore)]

Dave "I never knew you had it in you" Barry bump.

[dcwusmc]

Very nice!

[cyncooper]

Beautifully written.

[SES1066]

To my mind this reflects the multi-factede attack that 09/11 was on the United States: our everyday work and economic world, The WTC Towers; our military strength, the Pentagon, and out country at large, this Pennsylvania field. I think that this could be the Nation's monument to this attack.

The New Yorkers will jealously guard their pre-emptive right in NYC and it is their right since they suffered the most there. The Pentagon has been repaired and restored to its duty with a commentmerative stone as it continues its duty of defending us.

Let a National Memorial be built in the open air of this site where the FIRST DEFENDERS resisted this attack. Honor flight 93 but include all of the others so that this becomes a NATIONAL MEMORIAL to our gallent fallen.

[SES1066]

Please ignore the previous I need coffee!

To my mind this reflects the multi-faceted attack that 09/11 was on the United States: our everyday work and economic world, The WTC Towers; our military strength, the Pentagon, and our country at large, this Pennsylvania field. I think that this could be the Nation's monument to this attack.

The New Yorkers will jealously guard their pre-emptive right in NYC and it is their right since they suffered the most there. The Pentagon has been repaired and restored to its duty with a commentmerative stone as it continues its duty of defending us.

Let a National Memorial be built in the open air of this site where the FIRST DEFENDERS resisted this attack. Honor flight 93 but include all of the others so that this becomes a NATIONAL MEMORIAL to our gallent fallen.

[facedown]

Bump

[EllaMinnow]

The article is wonderful, and so is your reply.

[lodwick]

Excellent - thank you. bttt

[TroutStalker]

Thanks for posting this.

[Lizard_King]

Dave's original 9/11 post was quite good as well.

After the attack
By DAVE BARRY
Miami Herald

This column was originally posted on Sept. 13, 2001.

No humor column today. I don't want to write it, and you don't want to read it.

No words of wisdom, either. I wish I were wise enough to say something that would help make sense of this horror, something that would help ease the unimaginable pain of the victims' loved ones, but I'm not that wise. I'm barely capable of thinking. Like many others, I've spent the hours since Tuesday morning staring at the television screen, sometimes crying, sometimes furious, but mostly just stunned.

What I can't get out of my mind is the fact that they used our own planes. I grew up in the Cold War, when we always pictured the threat as coming in the form of missiles - sleek, efficient death machines, unmanned, hurtling over the North Pole from far away. But what came, instead, were our own commercial airliners, big friendly flying buses coming from Newark and Boston with innocent people on board. Red, white and blue planes, with "United" and "American" written on the side. The planes you've flown in and I've flown in. That's what they used to attack us. They were able to do it in part because our airport security is pathetic. But mainly they were able to do it because we are an open and trusting society that simply is not set up to cope with evil men, right here among us, who want to kill as many Americans as they can. That's what's so hard to comprehend: They want us to die just for being Americans. They don't care which Americans die: military Americans, civilian Americans, young Americans, old Americans. Baby Americans. They don't care. To them, we're all mortal enemies. The truth is that most Americans, until Tuesday, were only dimly aware of their existence, and posed no threat to them. But that doesn't matter to them; all that matters is that we're Americans. And so they used our own planes to kill us.

And then their supporters celebrated in the streets.

I'm not naive about my country. My country is definitely not always right; my country has at times been terribly wrong. But I know this about Americans: We don't set out to kill innocent people. We don't cheer when innocent people die.

A DECENT PEOPLE

The people who did this to us are monsters; the people who cheered them have hate-sickened minds. One reason they can cheer is that they know we would never do to them what their heroes did to us, even though we could, a thousand times worse. They know that when we hunt down the monsters, we will try hard not to harm the innocent. Those are the handcuffs we willingly wear, because for all our flaws, we are a decent people.

And now we are a traumatized people. The TV commentators keep saying that the attacks have awakened a "sleeping giant." And I guess we do look like a giant, to the rest of the world. But when I look around, I don't see a giant: I see millions of individuals - the resilient and caring citizens of New York and Washington; the incredibly brave firefighters, police officers and rescue workers risking their lives in the dust and flames; the politicians standing on the steps of the Capitol and singing an off-key rendition of "God Bless America" that, corny as it was, had me weeping; the reporters and photographers who have not slept, and will not sleep, as long as there is news to report; the people in my community, and communities across America, lining up to give blood, wishing they could do more.

A GOOD COUNTRY

No, I don't see a giant. What I see is Americans. We may have the power of a giant, but we also have the heart of a good and generous people, and we will get through this. We will grieve for our dead, and tend to our wounded, and repair the damage, and tighten our security, and put our planes back in the air. Eventually most of us, the ones lucky enough not to have lost somebody, will resume our lives. Some day, our country will track down the rest of the monsters behind this, and make them pay, and I suppose that will make most of us feel a little better. But revenge and hatred won't be why we'll go on. We'll go on because we know this is a good country, a country worth keeping.

Those who would destroy it only make us see more clearly how precious it is.

[VOA]

bump

[dirtboy]

Dave Barry, when he gets serious, writes with the best of them. A ping to all my friends. May all realize that what we share is far greater than what divides us on lesser days...

[okie01]

Thanks for the ping.

I'd never seen that side of Dave Barry.

It was well worth it...

[gridlock]

I've always enjoyed Dave Barry, but I like him much more now.

[dirtboy]

Another ping list for a fine article. It's been a tough few weeks on FR - let's take a moment to remember what unites us instead of dwelling upon what divides us...

[Steve0113]

I'd never seen that side of Dave Barry.

It's been there all along. Though his humorous writing is superb, I sometimes wish he'd do more serious writing. He has good sense and a good heart.

[Steve0113]

It's been a tough few weeks on FR - let's take a moment to remember what unites us instead of dwelling upon what divides us.

I'll second that. We have to work together.

[dirtboy]

It's been there all along. Though his humorous writing is superb, I sometimes wish he'd do more serious writing. He has good sense and a good heart.

Agreed. He wrote an extremly poingant story several years ago about how his kid survived getting hit by a car on his bike because he wore a helmet. Was a far better testimonial for that safety feature than millions of safety Nazis demanding laws to require such.