First of all, I want to make one thing very clear. I am not a hero. I simply did what millions of other young and not-so-young men and women my age did during that terrible time. We did what we had to do; what we were told to do. We didn’t ask questions. When the president told us to shop, we shopped. When he told us to go about our business, we went about our business. When he told us not to be intimidated by the suicidal adherents of a hateful ideology that threatened freedom-loving people everywhere, we weren’t. Although some of us probably wished he hadn’t put it quite that way or even brought it up in the first place.
Oh, sure, there were sacrifices. It was hard, damn hard, especially at the beginning before the airlines added extra security lines. We would wait, 20, 30, even 40 minutes in line, with our shoes off, while some TSA goon yelled at us to get our laptops out of our briefcases. “Hurry up and wait,” that was a popular expression back then. I still remember the first time the security alert status was raised from orange to yellow. Or was it lowered from orange to yellow? Anyway, I still remember that because we were all anxious and confused. What did this mean? Should we begin stockpiling canned goods? But no matter how anxious and confused you were, the important thing was not to show it. You didn’t want to cause any panic or start a run on bottled water. After all, access to inexpensive bottled water was considered more-or-less a right of every American back then. That was one of the things we were fighting for.
You probably don’t even know that before the war on Terror started there was no Department of Homeland Security. That’s right, all those things the Department of Homeland Security does – oh, hell, I don’t need to tell you, you know what they are! — were done by other parts of the government or, in some cases, not done at all. Like cargo inspection. That was either done by another part of the government or not done at all. Anyway, now it’s done by the Department of Homeland Security, or maybe it isn’t. But the point is that, before the War on Terror started, no one even thought about it.
One thing we knew right away: this was a different kind of war. It wasn’t one of those easy wars where you just grabbed a gun and went out a shot people.. Of course, some people did that and, hey, more power to them. But that wasn’t what most of us who were fighting the war had to do. Our job wasn’t quite so simple. What was it someone said about “they also serve who only sit and wait?” That was one of the ways your dad served. I remember once waiting for almost 4 hours to have my passport renewed. And I’m almost certain that took place after the War on Terror started.
At the outset, the mood was downright spooky. For one thing, everyone was under suspicion. Anyone could be a terrorist. Except, of course, for people who obviously weren’t, like people you’d known for a long time or people who didn’t look like terrorists. But the happy days of picking an Arab man up in a bar and taking him home for an evening of political discussion around the kitchen table or what-have-you were over. Gone with the wind.
Scared? You’re g-ddamned right we were scared! With the price of gas going up the way it did, you could never be sure what a trip to the gym or the dog groomer was going to cost you. But the worst part was the uncertainty. Never knowing when some sort of mysterious “fuel surcharge” was going to be added to a plane ticket or a FedEx bill. There wasn’t any warning. Your credit card bill would come and there it was, a charge for $11.86 or $3.25, just…there.
That whole business about the “Greatest Generation,” that wasn’t something we came up with. It was your generation that started calling us that. The last thing I’d want if for you to put me up on some kind of pedestal, like some kind of hero. Did I say that already? Still I feel a little sorry for you kids not having experienced the War on Terror. (I mean that first part, not the part we’re in now.) What was it Shakespeare said? When King Henry is rallying the English soldiers before the Battle of Agincourt\ on St. Crispin’s Day?
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhood’s cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
The Old Yorker 