Didn't want to watch, had to, better for it

     I don't trust American media to deal with something like the 10th anniversary of the terrorists' attack on America, and had planned to pass the day with my nose in a book.
     But I had to watch. I was snagged by a random channel while looking for something mindless -- plenty to choose from -- and found myself compelled to stay with the visuals, and the memories, and the thoughts they brought about what might have been.
I sat there and wept.
     So many might-have-beens; at least one such story for each victim, and another for each survivor of a victim.
     I occurred to me that the people who died when the planes were flown into masses of humanity as an otherwise ordinary workday was just beginning were only the first names on a long list, one that grows daily.
     Those who never got to finish a second cup of coffee that morning were caught unaware; many of the subsequent victims volunteered, signing up for military service to do something to take the fight back to the extremists with a rage from the Dark Ages.
     Every American -- and every Iraqi or Afghan, or whatever nationality -- drawn to this infamous flame has danced with death in a thousand moments of violence. Soldiers, civilians, volunteers, career military and the random passers by have paid with their lives in the sequential events that follow what we call, "9 - 11".
     Parents and wives and husbands sit at home and watch the news that is allowed to be broadcast, and wait for news that no one wants to hear. Pride, fear, frustration, depression, hope -- how many moments of anguish have followed the unspeakable and cowardly act on an incredibly beautiful September day ten years ago?
     Another casualty was what we used to think was almost uniquely American virtue -- tolerance for people with different opinions and points of view.
     Oh, we came together for a time after 9-11, and some would like to believe that we are solid in our resolve to ensure security now and justice over time.
     But the truth has been held hostage by one faction or another, then dressed up in different versions and sent out through the land to represent differing definitions of what America is all about, what is the definition of a patriot, and whose opinions reflect the nation's constitution.
     Four suicidal foreign zealots knocked down some buildings with airplanes; didn't live to see the results. Perhaps they were intelligent, educated men, but they were misinformed, or hopeless, and angry, and terminally misguided.
    The rest of the damage has been done by the living,  and not all of them live in some mud hut in the Middle East.
     I am glad they have built a memorial and are replacing a building at Ground Zero. I know we will never forget, and that we all love our soldiers and support their families and the families of victims of 9-11.
     But who among us will keep zealotry from destroying us from within?