If you have read my blog for any amount of time you will have seen my "Where was I" and the comments filled with your stories (I really should go timestamp it to today but everyone else has it covered so I'm good I think). What I have talked about was my reaction.
First, a little history about me. I was raised an Army brat. There is a distinct chance that by the age of 15 I had lived more places, been more places, seen more things, spoken (badly usually) more languages and experienced more than many will in their lifetime. I don't say this to brag because in a lot of ways it was a horrible way to grow up, but that's a post for another time. Our first time in Germany (1974-1978) was two years after the terrorist attack at the Munich Olympics. To be fair I remember very little from this time but I remember the almost overwhelming sense of security. Our second time in Germany was 1984-1987. In case you don't know that was the height of the 1980's terrorist attacks on Americans, soldiers and civilians. These are the years of the Frankfurt Airport bombing, the Berlin Disco bombing, the Rhein-Main Air Force Base attack (bombs and guns), the Rome and Vienna airport attacks to name several of the more infamous. These were the years of the Red Army Faction, Hezbollah, the Japanese Red Army along with state backed terrorists (primarily the Soviet Union, Iran and Libya). Terrorism is something that most people saw on television, the nightly news covered the bombs and then told a happy story about a cat that made it 100 miles to find it's owner.
For all of us overseas, especially in Europe, at this time this wasn't some abstract threat, it was a way of life. We lived with threats daily. Several Christmases we couldn't even have wrapped gifts to give to our friends because ALL packages had to be opened and searched before being allowed onto base or into housing. It was just the way it was. We didn't bemoan our fate, we didn't freak out about things, we kept going. We were teens, we adapted. When our parent had to go downstairs and start the car and we waited upstairs in case it exploded we didn't really think of it. When our high school had a machine gun in a sandbag bunker at the entrance to the driveway it wasn't abnormal. Military Police armed with assault rifles wandering the halls of our high school and riding the school buses? Being picked up by the MPs and driven home because you were walking downtown and there has been another threat against dependents isn't anything to get worked up about (except when the neighbor kids go running upstairs to tell your Mom the police just brought you home). Well of course, it's just common sense. This was our life.
In June of 1987 I came back to the States and I was, in a word, stunned. The local airbase was virtually open, they barely checked ID's. My high school (for my last two years) had no ID checks or guards of any sort. People weren't aware of their surroundings, they couldn't tell you instantly where all of the exits out of a building were or if that backpack sitting over there had been there for any amount of time. Hypervigilant is a good word to describe me and (I think) all of us that had been overseas at this time.
On September 11th, 2001, the naivete of the United States was lost. A couple of days later I was talking to a friend I had known in Germany and he had the exact same reaction that I did. Yes we were angry, yes we were hurt but even more we were stunned it had taken this long for terrorism to come to our shores. The complete lack of security anywhere made an attack not just likely but expected, at least by those of us that have lived it before.
Now that innocence is gone. We as a nation realize we need to be vigilant. We need to be aware of what is around us. And it seems to be working. Did we go too far in some regards (cough Patriot act cough)? Yes, but it's natural to react to strongly to something that surprises you. Too bad they didn't ask us that had been through it before.
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