It's hard to believe it's been 25 years since the towers fell.
It's even harder to wrap one's brain around the fact that there are people of voting age today who were not yet born when this happened. Some of these young people barely remember the attacks on our consulate in Benghazi. But there's one thing we do remember from that day, and it's the anger that we all felt. And that's all right; it's not wrong to feel anger, even rage, at the people who do things like this.
25 years ago Friday, it was the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, along with a fourth flight taken back from the terrorists by heroes and crashed in a field.
14 years ago today, it was the attack on Benghazi, when our people there were left twisting in the breeze by a Secretary of State who couldn't decide to do the right thing.
One year ago on Thursday, it was the political assassination of Charlie Kirk.
It's not just all right to feel anger over these things. If we're not feeling some rage after these events, there would be something wrong.
I remember the Trade Center attack all too well. For most of us Boomers, even if we'd never been to New York, which at that time I hadn't, the World Trade Center was still the dominating feature of what was one of the world's great cities. It was the great, proud American achievement, a major center of world trade and finance, a proud testament to everything America could be. That is, of course, why the terrorists targeted it.
When I heard about the first plane hitting the first tower, I was in my truck, driving to my job in a small Denver-area medical manufacturer, listening to the morning drive-time show on the great Denver 850KOA, the 50,000-watt blowtorch of the Rockies. At first there was some doubt; was this an accident, something that had gone horribly wrong? I doubted that, but when I arrived, turned off my truck, gathered up my stuff, and went inside, I found my co-workers in the office manager's office, watching a computer monitor. The company's president looked up at me as I walked in and said, "There's been another one." They shut down the company for the day an hour later, when it became clear nobody was going to get any work done.
What did I feel that day? Sorrow, shock, yes, but mostly, rage. Rage against the primitive savages who perpetrated this horror.
When I heard about the attack on the Benghazi compound, which went on for several days, I was dumbfounded that the United States government could just leave those people in that isolated outpost, without reinforcements, without rescue. A United States ambassador was killed. An American consulate and a CIA compound were breached, again, by savages. Our government, under President Obama, tried to foist this off as a reaction to an American-made video, not a carefully planned and executed attack by the same kind of goblins, on the same day as the Trade Center attack.
What did I feel after that shameful episode? Sorrow, yes, for the fallen heroes. Shock, again, yes. But mostly, rage. Rage, again, against the savages who attacked our people.
Then, one year ago, on the day I write this. I was watching live when Charlie Kirk was assassinated. I remember the shock at seeing it happen live, as Charlie was doing nothing more than engaging people in conversation - that's what he did, and some vicious little misfit shot him for it. I remember the shock; I remember the speculations that flew fast as summer lightning over the next few minutes: that Charlie was alive but in critical condition, that he was being treated in the hospital. Sadly, I knew then that those rumors weren't true. I'm not a medical professional, but I was educated in biology, and I knew all too well in that horrible red moment what that arterial spray we all saw so clearly and so horribly meant: That Charlie was gone.
What did I feel after that horrible, selfish, hateful attack? Sorrow for Charlie's family and friends, all the people that knew him. Shock that such a blatant act of political terrorism took place on our soil. But mostly, rage. Rage that someone would attack an American political activist who did nothing more than engage people in conversation.
There's a place for anger. There's a place for rage. But it must be focused. It must be directed. It must work for, not against us. And, yes, at times, we should embrace our rage and direct it at those who deserve it: The people who perpetrated these horrors and those who would try to do worse.
We must never forget those we lost. On this day of all days, we should take some time to remember them, to remember how all of these events touched all of our lives and left us sorrowful, in shock, and angry. But then, we need to get back to work. As Americans, we need to focus the anger and rage these events engender. And we must aim it, first and foremost, at our ballots in November. Let it burn. Let it burn brightly, a beacon, a blazing pyre, that sends the message to people like the terrorists that destroyed the Trade Center, like the terrorists that attacked the compounds in Benghazi, like the goblin who shot Charlie: We will never forget; we will take our country back from the weak-kneed appeasers, the fellow travelers and the useful idiots, and we will send this message to those who would try to attack us: Sooner or later, one way or another, America will come for you.
