Yesterday, I watched in horror as two passenger jets were deliberately crashed into the towers of the World Trade Center in New York City.  The destruction was almost too much to understand for we are so calloused by the normal run of TV violence and we find it shamefully difficult to fully feel the truth of these horrendous acts.

I watched the replays and listened to the commentaries for what seemed most of the day and into the evening and slowly the magnitude of this disaster enfolded me within its terrible aura of adrenaline and pity.  As I tried to understand the mind-numbing numbers of what was being shown, I  conducted my own internal war against my personal defensive denial and callousness. 

The forces portrayed in the scenes of destruction and smoky chaos and noise was overloading to my senses.  My mind is permanently engraved with those pictures of a commercial plane with 92 souls disintegrating into a fireball and shower of debris and smoke and I will always remember where I was on September 11^th, 2001.  NYC911.

This loss of life and the attendant heroism and nightmarish tragedy is akin to famous battles such as Antitum, Appomattox or Agincort.  It could not have been worse if we had a meteor strike or volcano eruption in the same place, for here there were perpetrators who were once human children.

Accidental horror can be dealt with more easily then can the unreasoned and cowardly actions of terrorists for at least we know that humans are not the cause.  But here, in the heart of our country, we have been stabbed by soulless fanatics who mistakenly believe their fundamentalist ideas are Allah’s will.  May their karma be forever blackened and their souls erased from eternity, never to live again or enjoy the life force they so arrogantly took from our citizens on that bleakest of Tuesday mornings.  For those dead and maimed, I pray that there is some worthy compensation in the here and beyond. 

Nic East, Hill Home Forge

September 12^th, 2001