Never Forget (2)

September 11, 2001.

I'd been in a relationship with the (now-former) Lady Of The House for a year, and it was my first trip away from her. It was smack-dab in the middle of my two weeks, sleeping in Trois-Rivières at night and working in a field in St-Tite by day, counting the cars passing by on the highway - a lonely, boring job if there ever was one.

Every day, we'd wake up around 6 AM, get to the hotel's dining room by 6:30, leave for work around 7, come back around 7 PM.

But on that day, the news was on: a plane had accidentally crashed in one of the towers. And, half an hour later, the other plane crashed and it was now clear this was premeditated. With all the world's news cameras watching, live, showing the despair, people jumping out of windows, others suffocating in the street. Reports soon flocked in about 4 highjacked planes and everyone on TV had their opinion about what was going on, and what was going to happen.

And yet the shuttle to take us to work was there on time, and we hopped on it, confused, disoriented, some numb. It was hard to believe World War 3 may have begun and yet we were about to carry on as we would on any regular day.

On the other hand, what choice did we have? We weren't directly involved in anything, and the world around us was still happening, shit needed to get done.

But when we arrived in St-Tite, it was a strange spectacle: many of the homes there, in Québec's one true cowboy town, had American and Canadian flags in their backyards - an extremely uncommon sight in our parts - and the American flags were at half-mast, signifying a national tragedy.

And yet people were going about their business: bull-riding competitions, horse shows, selling merchandise, food, jewelry. Stepping in horse shit. It was surreal. Unreal, even.

How could the world go on now that nothing was ever going to be the same? Then again, how long did it take before we just kept doing what we'd been doing anyway, and the only thing that ever changed was that each day, we'd have more rights and freedoms taken away from us. That, and bearded, tanned fellows were getting a harder time than ever before.

But nothing else really changed.

And that's why I'm pissed off about the wall-to-wall, week-long coverage of the memorials.

''Never forget'' is something everyone should deal with on their own, in their own way, not a stupid fucking catchphrase to be repeated ad nauseam on every news channel, in every publication, on commemorative plaques and plates - and especially not t-shirts.

It's not something a political party should have the right to shove down our throats, especially if they keep blocking support for the first responders any chance they get, usually mere minutes after parading an NYPD cop or NYFD fireman in front of a camera.

Wearing a flag pin or driving a car with a flag bumper sticker doesn't actually do anything for anyone either; you're not ''more supportive'' of the victims than anyone else, and ''supporting the troops'' doesn't help in this particular case either.

Flying planes in building was a political act, not an act of war. ''Never forget'' is aimed at the innocent victims - not ''first and foremost'', but ''only'' , and the consequences of the attacks (two ten-year wars... and counting) mean very little for the friends and families of those who perished.

''Where were you/I/we on 9/11''? I answered that already. But more importantly: where are we now? And where will we be in the future? And how exactly is the world we're shaping a tribute to the departed?

We should have been busy making a better world to live in, one in which events like those from ten years ago wouldn't be a daily possibility. Instead, we used 3000 useless deaths as an excuse to kill over 150,000 more.