How do you now view the world?

Following the events of September 11, 2001 America and Americans changed. That is not in dispute. But in the 10 years since that horrific day I'm curious how you have changed. I know my outlook on the world certainly moved to one of being on guard a bit more, but not to the point of paralysis. I look a little more these days when I see someone who doesn't match my ideal of what a law abiding American looks like. I'm sure to many of you that sounds racist as all get out, and perhaps it is to an extent, but one cannot always control their reactions when fear enters into the thought process. The difference between many of you and I is simple, I can admit it.

Here's something else I can admit, prior to 9/11 I didn't have any idea what Muslims believed or what Islam was based on, nor did I care. I didn't know there were different sects of Islam just like there are difference sects of Christianity, nor did I care. And since I am in an extremely honest mood today I will admit something else, I still don't care. Now don't get excited, I don't mean I want to kill anyone claiming to be Muslim, I just don't care about their internal differences. All I want to know is, "are you one of the ones I need to be concerned about?"

You have to view this from my perspective. I'm a white guy, middle to higher income, raised in the heart of California (that means I didn't grow up in liberal LA or San Francisco) so I understand more about oil, cattle and crop rotation than I do world religion. But guess what, I don't understand Black American culture either. It doesn't mean I fear Blacks as a race, nor Latinos, nor Asians, but if they look like their up to no good, sporting gang looking hand signals and tattoos, I give them a wide birth. Know who else I give a wide birth too? Whites looking anything like that as well. In fact they scare me the most because I might actually think I can communicate with them at some level of shared experience and get myself shot, shanked or beat to hell due to my own ignorance.

All of this makes me wonder how you are doing? What is your mindset?

I'm sure some of you who were adults when 9/11 happened remember our collective mindset on 9/10. We thought Terrorism happened "over there" and that our military and officials could and would keep it from ever coming here. We were The United States of America and nobody since Pearl Harbor had struck us at home. Even Pearl Harbor was way out there in the Pacific it was done by a country, not a radicalized sect of any religious group (Yes, I know the Japanese at the time considered the Emperor to be a God but the reasons for the attack were not based on religious conquest it was over oil, no kidding, look it up; we had cut off the oil to Japan because we knew they were building a war machine). I remember my thinking prior to 9/11 and it was just about that rock solid. Nobody and I mean nobody, would ever think of hitting us where we lived. It just could not happen. If I was worried about anyone back there it was the militia movements up north in Wyoming and Montana and assorted locations like that. The Timothy McVeigh's of the country were the real threat; them and abortion clinic bombers. (Sidebar: I am pro-life, but killing to stop killing in a civilized society where we live by the rule of law, it just doesn't jive with me) But even these were isolated and rare occurrences and usually (with the exception of McVeigh) targeted at specific people, not at the country as a whole.

Besides that, we were so busy treating each other like crap that we almost never gave terrorism a second thought unless we saw a bus blown up in Gaza or some Al Quada style attack on some far off African country, or maybe, and this was still rare, an attack on a US Embassy or ship. These were like those on the Cole. They were sad things that made our blood boil for about an hour, then we as a country would simply get back to our lives. A dozen dead Americans here, half a dozen there, Somalia, etc., we stomached it because it didn't hit us at home. Is that where you are again today?

I know there have to be some out there who still feel the way we all did on 9/11. The utter fear. The waiting and waiting to see what gets hit next. The worry of who did this to us and is it going to get worse before it starts to get better. I know a few folks who, while not motivated by this as much as they were at first, still store about a years food away just in case there is another attack and they are forced to fend for themselves.

I clearly remember this feeling as well. I sat on my balcony listening to the air traffic which suddenly got very heavy around Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix, where I lived at the time. Plane after plane coming in, but nothing leaving. They grounded the outbound flights early then a while later they started with the mass landings around the country. As each one landed I thought, "thank God, there's one less threat to Palo Verde". Palo Verde for those of you unfamiliar, is the nuclear plant about 45 miles west of Phoenix and upwind. On that day I just knew it would get hit. I also knew Phoenix was a target because of Luke Air Force Base, home to one of the largest F-16 squadrons around. It's also a training base for the same thing. So I just sat there waiting for the hit.... waiting.... waiting....

Of course, the more I sat the more I thought. Roosevelt Lake, that would wipe out a lot of drinking water in one fail swoop. Another target? Lake Mead, although not close to Phoenix, the Colorado river being hit with something nasty would take out the water supply for the whole South West I thought. And I sat there, waiting... waiting... waiting...

Is this your mentality today?

I did what most Americans did the afternoon and evening of 9/11, I contacted family to find out how they were and made sure my daughter, who lived in Texas at the time (another target I was sure, I mean come on, a port?) was safe. And I finally fell asleep to the eerie silence outside broken only occasionally by an F-16 charged with defending the airspace around our major metropolitan area.

When I woke in the morning I immediately turned on the TV. To my delight, nothing else had happened. The world had not stopped turning. No mushroom clouds were to the west, no alarms were being raised about drinking the water and the power was still on. Then I heard that same F-16 (I'm sure it wasn't the same one) fly over and instantly my mind turned to, "Who are we going to use that baby on and how much of their life are we going to rip apart for what they have done to us. All of it I hope!" It was strange how the same sound that just hours before has caused me such dread now gave me strength, a feeling of utter security, a feeling of calm.

I walked down to check the mail at my apartments because with all that had happened the day before I had forgotten. I ran into a few people doing the same, people I never would have talked to before, not because I didn't like them, but prior to the events of 9/11 we had had nothing in common. Today WE had something in common. WE were all Americans. WE had all been hit yesterday and WE were pissed about it and wanted to do something to even the score. And when I say we talked I mean we really talked.

I found my self defensive about all Americans. Black, White, Asian, Latino, Gay, Straight, man or woman; these were my brothers. I remember seeing a flag flying that day above an am/pm gas station. I'm sure it had been there every day I had lived in that area but on 9/12 I saw it with both eyes. I saw all the flags in town, every single one of them. I felt proud that we had withstood this attack and I knew we would be doing something about it shortly, as a team, as a country, as a family. And like any family, we might have treated each other like crap in the past, but as any police officer will tell you, when you show up in the middle of a domestic squabble YOU are the outsider, you are the target of all that pent up aggression.

We stood strong like that for about 6 weeks as I recall before it started to subside. What a shame it did...

Is this where you are today?

Today, 10 years later, I am in the middle of all three of these I'm sorry to say. I wish I was still in the 9/12 mentality of brotherhood and family, but I'm not. But I'm also not entirely in that 9/10 mentality of "it can't happen here" because it clearly can. On a positive note, I am only on the rarest of occasions in that 9/11 frame of mind where I am fearful for our country from outside aggression. No, today I worry, again, more about aggression from within, from the very halls of government charged with out defense. Those are the folks I want steadied in a 9/12 frame of mind the most. Brotherly love is all fine and dandy, but we need folks with serious spines in Washington making damn sure this kind of event NEVER happens again. Sad thing is I hear almost daily now about the rights of terrorist, the harm done in profiling folks and the mass inconvenience to the rest of us as we struggle with the fear that grandma is going to kill us all at the airport. Seriously, grandma? She gets checked from head to toe? Good God.

But I want that feeling and I have it some days, usually when something happens like the shooting in Ft. Hood. I remember all those feelings and can carry them around for weeks again. Then I feel horrible that this is what it took for me to feel that way again.

I think many of you are in the same place I am. It sucks to be here doesn't it? Some days you can feel the Red, White and Blue of Old Glory pulsing through your veins, and other days you still love your country, your just busy with life. You see a kid with baggy pants and think, "What the hell?" Or you see a guy with a turban on and you catch yourself holding back on getting in that line, just in case he's "one of them" and decides he wants to cash in his free card for 72 virgins at that very moment.

Don't deny it, many of you feel this way, same way you cross the street if you see more than a few minority members walking together just so you have some distance in case you have to make a life saving sprint for it. It's human nature to fear. And guess what, many of the minorities are just as scared of all of us. And like them, we don't why?

Following 9/11 we stood as "E Pluribus Unum ", Out of Many, One. It's the motto on the United States Official Seal and for a few weeks in 2001 we exemplarized (not actually a word but should be) it.

But what would I know; I'm just an Average American...