We remember, and we will never forget

Jim Goldsworthy, Columnist

I haven’t looked to see, but my buddy and I may have been quoted in another newspaper.

At first, I was going to decline, but I am a product of a time when there was a more cordial relationship between newspapers than seems to exist today ... a brotherhood, as well as a rivalry. I also have done my share of walking up to strangers and asking them to talk to me.

Besides, I wasn’t there as a representative of my newspaper, but as an American citizen.

A young reporter with a modern camera and an old-fashioned notebook asked us why we were there.

My buddy told her we wanted to honor both those who’d died that day and those who serve in our defense.

I said it was because we remember and will never forget. What I wonder, I said, is why more people aren’t still angry about it.

My buddy and I are still angry, I added, and so are many of our friends — but then, we’re still angry about things that others seem to have forgotten, or at least consigned to a place where they don’t have to deal with them. He nodded at me, understanding what I meant; we’ve known each other for a long time.

When he came home from Vietnam, a bartender pointed to him and told his father, “Finish your drinks and get that piece of **** out of here.”

That attitude has changed, for the most part, but it’s hard to forget. I didn’t go to Vietnam, but two of my friends from high school did, and they didn’t come home alive. Others did return, but were changed in ways that no one should suffer.

My buddy and many of the others never stopped loving and serving the country that in large part turned its backs on them, and I believe that’s the main reason troops who are coming home today are being greeted as heroes. Maybe America has learned at least one lesson.

(Not all of America scorned its Vietnam veterans. Another of my friends came home and was told by his father to put on his Marine uniform, because they were going out on the town. They, and several of his dad’s buddies — robust men of early middle-age — went to a college bar and sat around a big table in the middle of the place. Nobody said a word to them. It takes a great Dad to do something like this, and it also speaks to the quality of his friends.)

Because we remember and are still angry, my buddy and his wife and I left early to go to Shanksville, Pa. We figured there would be a good crowd, and a few thousand people were there — not a few hundred, as some of the media reported.

Flight 93 returned to earth not far from where we sat, carrying into eternity the men and women who became the first casualties and the first heroes of The War on Terror. (It may no longer be politically correct to call it that, but that’s exactly what it is.)

Hearing on their cell phones that other hijacked airliners had been crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, some of Flight 93’s passengers and crew said, “Let’s roll!” and fought back. They prevented the destruction of either the White House or the U.S. Capitol and the deaths of many more innocent people.

Their names were slowly read aloud, sometimes by their surviving spouses or relatives, and bells were tolled. A bagpiper played “Amazing Grace.” It was riveting. The only movement was among the photographers who crept silently around, looking for subjects whose faces reflected the mood. We believe that one of them took my buddy’s picture, and another may have taken mine.

Colin Powell and Lt. Gen. Tommy Franks were among the speakers. Both men are Vietnam veterans, and my buddy said they were good soldiers and good Americans. We agreed that if they had run for president and vice president, the others could have stayed at home.

Powell reminded us that it wasn’t something we started. We were attacked by fanatics who hate us, our way of life and our freedom, and who want to destroy us.

It wasn’t the first time such a thing has happened to America, and it likely won’t be the last. Say what you like about the Bush administration and whatever it may have done, those attacks haven’t been repeated on our soil since Sept. 11, 2001.

For as much as we’d like to believe otherwise, there exist people who cannot and will not be talked to and reasoned with.

Unless you have been confronted with it personally, in the way that some of the men and women I’ve met have been confronted, you might have trouble understanding that our desire to shake hands and make peace is seen by these people as a sign of weakness, and it encourages them. Bleed us enough, they believe, and we’ll give up and go home. They, however, are going nowhere of their own free will.

Two people are needed to shake hands, but it takes only one to begin the killing.

The pity is that the overwhelming majority of the world’s people share at least one thing with most Americans: They want only to live in peace.

It is said that, “The Price Of Freedom Is Not Free.” My buddy helped pay part of that price in Vietnam, where he and the others contended with numerous factors — including Agent Orange — that would not ultimately contribute to their enjoying long and healthy lives.

When it was announced that a permanent memorial to Flight 93 will be dedicated on Sept. 11, 2011 — the 10th anniversary — he and his wife and I agreed to return and be a part of it.

“Promise me this,” he asked her. “If I’m no longer here, bring something of mine and leave it here that day.”

We remember and will never forget, and we’re still angry ... as are many of our friends. What we don’t understand is why more people don’t feel the same way.