9/11 a National Holiday? It's Not Necessary

For years there have been calls from everyone from politicians to the everyman to make September 11th a national holiday in the United States. I get it. September 11, 2001 was one of the darkest days in our nation’s history. The attacks on that day took the lives of thousands of innocents – many of whom died in horrible ways. The attacks also provided an opportunity for true heroes to step forward in efforts to assist the victims, and in the case of Flight 93 – a chance to (we think) stand up, face our attackers and to foil their plans.

The argument for making 9/11 a national holiday is fairly simple. We should never forget. But do we need a national holiday to remember 9/11/2001? The answer, quite frankly, is no. The horror and heroism of that day are well documented. No one is going to forget 9/11/01.

In reading (often sensationalized) news vignettes and Facebook posts in recent days, it has saddened me to see that there is a huge part of 9/11 that is being completely ignored – that of the messy aftermath represented by our government’s response to the attacks and victims of the attacks that still suffer today.

There are many things to be proud of when we think of 9/11. The country came together (as long as you weren’t an Arab-American, mind you) in a way never-before-seen in my lifetime. Instead of fear, a collective nationalism arose across the land. However, that groundswell of nationalism was used by our government to launch a crusade in the form of a completely unjustified invasion of Iraq (the “weapons of mass destruction" intelligence fiasco is well documented) and a war in Afghanistan that is no closer to being resolved today than when our troops first arrived.

Three thousand innocent Americans were killed on 9/11. So our government in turn launched campaigns which have claimed the lives of over 300,000 in Iraq and civilian body counts in Afghanistan estimated in the tens of thousands. It should be noted that it has been verified that Iraq had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. These numbers are skirted or ignored by most people in the U.S. Why? The terrorists hurt us. We wanted revenge. The terrorists were Arabs. Killing Arabs, including those who had nothing to do with terrorism, government or military, is now okay.

I have to tell you that a lot of bad came out of 9/11. Not just the lives lost in the planes, the towers and the Pentagon. And a lot of it was OUR doing. We started wars where hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. You see, to me, innocent American lives aren't the only ones that matter. They don't count more than those from a third world country run by a dictator. Life is life. White, brown, Arab, Caucasian, Muslim, Christian… The suffering of any innocent is an affront to humanity. No one can control who they are born to or where that happens to be. Too many people used 9/11 to prop up their long-held racism and xenophobia - and that is sad.

So much is being said about the heroes of 9/11 – mainly those lost while responding at the World Trade Center. But what about the rescue workers who got sick and wasted away after being exposed to the aftermath at Ground Zero? What about those who were allowed to wither away to nothing because they lost their health benefits and couldn’t afford treatment? Why is there no talk about this? Is this how we treat our heroes?

I am not insensitive to the events of 9/11. I cry when I see the footage from that day – when I think of what it must have been like to lose family, when I ponder what it must have been like to be on the floors above where the planes hit the towers and to be facing certain death. I remember the fear I felt that day and how much it burned when footage of celebrations in the Arab world were shown. But you know what? What have we learned? Have the thousands of deaths taught us anything? I am not so sure that they have.

I have one last argument against the national holiday idea. What if they had hit us again? What if we are hit again in the future? Are we going to have a national holiday every time terrorists strike the United States? Will there not be heroic acts during future attacks? I guess a big mental block for me is that while we mark a solemn day in our history, we also bring notoriety to the acts themselves. The terrorists succeeded in killing many Americans and greatly changing the way we operate and think. The date September 11 is permanently stamped as a day that will invoke a wide gamut of emotions for generations to come, if not forever. There is no need to make it a holiday because we will never forget. Now, we just need to learn from it.