I'm not patriotic?

I'm not wearing Red, White & Blue today, that's true.

I didn't drive to work with my headlights on. I probably won't stand outside my house at 7pm this evening and light a candle.

Along with you I watched, in horror, the burning of one of the World Trade Towers.  And I sat with dumbfounded disbelief when a second plane crashed into the second tower. Then reports came in of a plane running into the Pentagon, and the truth began to sink in; we were under attack. On our own soil. And innocent people were dead and dying.

At first I was angry, then I was a little scared. I'm pretty active on the Internet & it occurred to me that I have people I know that live in New York and Washington. I've never met these people in real life. A few of them wouldn't even know me by my real name. But I spent most of Tuesday afternoon trying to find out about them, and frequenting the message boards common to us.

Slowly news started trickling in. One girl thought her clunker of a car had blown up & stopped by the side of the road to check under the hood. 100 yards away the smoke started billowing up from the Pentagon and she realized it wasn't her car. Another checked in on Wednesday & spoke of a sign on the door that had a number: 15. The number of people in his office unaccounted for. That afternoon the number was down to 9; cheers went up when 9 was crossed out and 8 was written in its place.

A third was covered with the dust when the second building fell down. It's hard for my mind to get around what he saw, and I heard it second hand. The most frightening parts I won't mention here; you can find stories like it elsewhere on the net if you're really interested. But he mentioned a barge being used to transport the bodies across the river, and seeing a huge stack of empty body bags.

Here, in a small town in Northeast Ohio, I have been deeply affected by this. People I knew, even if only via electrons, were involved. They are all safe, thankfully. And their stories fill me with both relief and anger. Relief that they are OK, and anger that this even has happened.

I'm sorry, I just don't believe that wearing some type of clothing, or turning on my headlights, or lighting a candle is going to do much good. I have a dozen e-mails suggesting various things for America to show our unity; I choose to do something a bit differently. 

Yesterday I contacted the Red Cross as I heard they are in need of network technicians & equipment. I have both & am willing to donate both time and equipment. Two of my friends have volunteered and are ready to head out, if needed, at a moments notice. I simply await a call or an e-mail from someone I know is probably completely swamped. 

We all have our own way of coping. Mine is different than yours. You can call me weird if you like. Or tell me my thinking is skewed. Feel free to tell me how wrong or right I am here.

But don't dare tell me I'm not patriotic because I don't follow some e-mail sent out. Don't even think about it.

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