ATTACK ON AMERICA!
To My Fellow Americans:
My heart is saddened and hurts deeply as I have watched these historical events
unfold before my eyes. Please.....I ask for prayers for all the families across
this country who have already experienced the loss of loved ones, heroic emergency teams,
and all the unsung heroes yet to be recognized.
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ALL WE REALLY HAVE
It was a picturesque morning in late summer. The sun was shining.
The air was crisp and clear. Life was good. And then, something happened.
Within minutes, our outlook on the world, our communities, and our families changed...forever.
In the blink of an eye, what was considered invulnerable became vulnerable.
What was safe was now dangerous.
No one could have expected it. No one could have even imagined it.
Cries of "Pearl Harbor" echoed on the television and among friends and families on the phone.
A new generation of Americans had suddenly discovered what it must have been like
for their parents and grandparents -- only this time, it was worse.
Social and political commentators, journalists, and military experts were at a loss.
No one knew what to say or how to react. The world came to a grinding halt as the shocking news
spread and people found themselves paralyzed with confusion.
Beyond the destroyed buildings of crushed metal and glass, there were the countless victims.
Innocent people who were killed or injured over issues they knew little or nothing about.
There was no sense to it. No explanation. No easy enemy. Those responsible were unknown and unseen.
Bombs weren't used -- the weapons of choice were civilian passenger planes laden with fuel.
The horrifying and surreal scenes of destruction have done two things. Yes, they have made us sad.
But more importantly, they have helped...no, they have forced...us to put our lives in perspective.
What seemed so important on Monday, seems so insignificant today. Within a few short hours,
our thoughts and priorities shifted.
Oh, the world will keep spinning, however, our minds and spirits have been transformed.
The things we took so seriously, the things we stressed about, argued about, worried about --
all of those personal issues that were consuming us -- are hardly noticeable now. The things we
believed constituted a "crisis" before turned out to be nothing more than trivial.
As parents struggle to explain this to their young children, thousands of American families
will be attempting to do what they think is impossible...putting their shattered lives back in order.
Americans will come together and the massive response will show our true colors as a nation.
Our government and volunteer resources will unite in the rescue efforts.
Citizens from every walk of life will respond in droves to Red Cross blood drives across the nation.
And we will see stories about ordinary people who did extraordinary things to help and save
complete strangers during this devastation -- true angels who spread their wings of safety
around those who were caught in a web of terror. Heroes will abound and prove, as always,
that good can, and will, overcome evil.
But why? Why does it take a tragedy of this magnitude to remind us what's really important?
Do we have to lose so much to understand?
Why does it take a catastrophe for us to appreciate what we otherwise take for granted?
I don't know. I only know that we will look at the world differently. Maybe we will be more cynical,
more careful, more determined to seek the truth.
Regardless, we will look at our friends and family with a new eye -- more loving and forgiving,
less judgmental and with the total realization that we only have each other for a finite period of time.
THAT'S THE ULTIMATE TRUTH.
Because all we really have is each other, our freedoms, our faith, and the hope that
our painful path to recovery will allow us to shape a peaceful world for our children.
Written By: ~Lee Simonson, Publisher~
A Canadian Friend Forwarded This To Me Late Last Night---the words speaks volumes:
Widespread but only partial news coverage was given recently to a remarkable
editorial broadcast from Toronto by Gordon Sinclair, a Canadian television
commentator in 1973. What follows is only a partial text of his trenchant remarks as
printed in the Congressional Record:
America: The Good Neighbor
"The United States dollar took another pounding on German, French and British exchanges this
morning, hitting the lowest point ever known in West Germany. It has declined there by 41% since 1971
and this Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possibly
the least-appreciated people in all the earth.
As long as sixty years ago, when I first started to read newspapers,
I read of floods on the Yellow River and the Yangtse. Who rushed in with men and money to help?
The Americans did.
They have helped control floods on the Nile, the Amazon, the Ganges and the Niger.
Today, the rich bottom land of the Misssissippi is under water and no foreign land
has sent a dollar to help.
Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy were lifted out of the debris of war
by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts.
None of these countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States.
When the franc was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up,
and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it.
When distant cities are hit by earthquakes, it is the United States that hurries in to help.
Managua, Nicaragua is one of the most recent examples. This spring,59 American communities
were flattened by tornadoes. Nobody helped.
The Marshall Plan and the Truman Policy pumped billions of dollars into discouraged countries.
Now newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent, warmongering Americans.
I'd like to see just one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States
dollar build its own airplane. Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal
the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tri-Star, or the Douglas 107? If so, why don't they fly them?
Why do all the International lines, except Russia, fly American Planes?
Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or woman on the moon?
You talk about Japanese technocracy, and you get radios. You talk about German technocracy,
and you get automobiles.
You talk about American technocracy, and you find men on the moon-not once,
but several times-and safely home again. You talk about scandals, and the Americans put theirs
right in the store window for everybody to look at.
Even their draft-dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are here on our streets,
and most of them, unless they are breaking Canadian laws, are getting American dollars
from ma and pa at home to spend here.
When the Americans get out of this bind ... as they will... who could blame them if they said,
'the hell with the rest of the world'. Let someone else buy the Israel bonds, Let someone else build
or repair foreign dams or design foreign buildings that won't shake apart in earthquakes.
When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age,
it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central
went broke,nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both are still broke.
I can name you 5000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble.
You name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble?
I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake.
Our neighbors have faced it alone, and I'm one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them
get kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do,
they are entitled to thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles.
I hope Canada is not one of those."
Written By: ~Gordon Sinclair in 1973~
Graphic By: B.G.Milne
An Open Letter To Any Terrorist:
Well, you hit the World Trade Center, but you missed America. You hit the Pentagon,
but you missed America. You used helpless American bodies, to take out other American bodies,
but like a poor marksman, you STILL missed America.
Why? Because of something you people will never understand. America isn't about a building
or two, not about financial centers, not about military centers, America isn't about a place,
America isn't even about a bunch of bodies. America is about an IDEA.
An idea, that you can go someplace where you can earn as much as you can figure out how to,
live for the most part, like you envisioned living, and pursue Happiness.
(No guarantees that you'll reach it, but you can sure try!)
Go ahead and whine your terrorist whine, and chant your terrorist litany:
"If you cannot see my point, then feel my pain."
This concept is alien to Americans. We live in a country where we don't have to see your point.
But you're free to have one. We don't have to listen to your speech. But you're free to say one.
Don't know where you got the strange idea that everyone has to agree with you.
We don't agree with each other in this country, almost as a matter of pride.
We're a collection of people that don't agree, called States. We united our individual states
to protect ourselves from tyranny in the world. Another idea, we made up on the spot.
You CAN make it up as you go, when it's your country. If you're free enough.
Yeah, we're fat, sloppy, easygoing goofs most of the time. That's an unfortunate image
to project to the world, but it comes of feeling free and easy about the world you live in.
It's unfortunate too, because people start to forget that when you attack Americans,
they tend to fight,like a cornered badger.
The first we knew of the War of 1812, was when England burned Washington, DC.
to the ground.Didn't turn out like England thought it was going to, and it's not going
to turn out like you think, either. Sorry, but you're not the first bully on our shores,
just the most recent.
No Marquis of Queensbury rules for Americans, either. We were the FIRST and so far,
only country in the world to use nuclear weapons in anger. Horrific idea, nowadays?
News for you bucko, it was back then too, but we used it anyway. Only had two of them in
the whole world and we used 'em both. Grandpa Jones worked on the Manhattan Project.
Told me once, that right up until they threw the switch, the physicists were still arguing
over whether the Uranium alone would fission, or whether it would start a fission chain
reaction that would burn everything.But they threw the switch anyway, because we had a
War to win. Does that tell you something about American Resolve?
So who just declared War on us? It would be nice to point to some real estate, like the good
old days.Unfortunately, we're probably at war with random camps, in far-flung places.
Who think they're safe.Just like the Barbary Pirates did. They were wrong.... So are you.
Better start sleeping with one eye open.
There's a spirit that tends to take over people who come to this country, looking for
opportunity, looking for liberty, looking for freedom. Even if they misuse it.
The Marielistas that Castro emptied out of his prisons, were overjoyed to find out
how much freedom there was. First thing they did when they hit our shores,
was run out and buy guns. The ones that didn't end up dead, ended up in prisons.
It was a big problem then (especially in south Florida). We solved that problem.
As for you, you're only the newest problem, not the first.
You guys seem to be incapable of understanding that we don't live in America,
America lives in US!
American Spirit is what it's called. And killing a few thousand of us, or a few million of us,
won't change it. Most of the time, it's a pretty happy-go-lucky kind of Spirit. Until we're
crossed in a cowardly manner, then it becomes an entirely different kind of Spirit.
WAIT UNTIL YOU SEE WHAT WE DO WITH THAT SPIRIT...THIS TIME!
Sleep tight, if you can. We're coming. And we have the resolve to vanquish. Remember,
you can run, but you can't hide. We have the greatest scientists in the world,
we nailed Timothy McViegh,and we'll get the evidence to identify you too, nobody will want
anything to do with you, because our President said,"We will make no distinction between
the terrorist responsible and those that harbor the criminals." Count your days terrorist....
they ARE numbered. You threw the first punch, you caught us off guard, but we're
awake now, and we speak and fight back as one United Force.
Written By: ~An American~
Stand Proud, America!
I AM THE FLAG OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
I am the flag of the United States of America. My name is Old Glory.
I fly atop the world's tallest buildings. I stand watch in America's halls of justice.
I fly majestically over institutions of learning. I stand guard with power in the world.
Look up and see me.
I stand for peace, honor, truth and justice. I stand for freedom.
I am confident. I am arrogant. I am proud.
When I am flown with my fellow banners, my head is a little higher, my colors a little truer.
I bow to no one! I am recognized all over the world. I am saluted. I am loved - I am revered.
I am respected - and I am feared.
I have fought in every battle of every war for more then 200 years.
I was flown at Valley Forge, Gettysburg, Shiloh and Appamatox. I was there at San Juan Hill,
the trenches of France, in the Argonne Forest, Anzio, Rome and the beaches of Normandy, Guam.
Okinawa, Korea and KheSan, Saigon, Vietnam, Desert Storm and even the WTC, I was there.
I led my troops, I was dirty, battleworn and tired, but my soldiers cheered me
and I was proud.
I have been burned, torn and trampled on the streets of countries I have helped set free.
It does not hurt, for I am invincible.
I have been soiled upon, burned, torn and trampled on the streets of my country.
And when it's by those whom I've served in battle - it hurts, but I shall overcome -
for I am strong.
I have slipped the bonds of Earth and stood watch over the uncharted frontiers of space
from my vantage point on the moon.
I have borne silent witness to all of America's finest hours.
But my finest hours are yet to come!
When I am torn into strips and used as bandages for my wounded comrades on the battlefield.
When I am flown at half-mast to honor my soldier, or when I lie in the trembling arms
of a grieving parent at the grave of their fallen son or daughter, I am proud.
MY NAME IS OLD GLORY, LONG MAY I WAVE!!!
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