September 11, 2001, and John McCain

Posting about McCain brought back a memory.

On September 11, 2001, I was in Washington, D.C. My Lovely Bride and I were down South, visiting family. We came up September 10 to her sister's house in Maryland. I had arranged with one of Congressman Duncan Hunter's staffers, Valerie, for a tour of the House of Representatives floor and the Capitol. You could do that pre-9/11. So, at about 9:00 a.m., I dropped off my brother-in-law, sister-in-law and My Lovely Bride outside one of the congressional office buildings and looked for a place to park. There are no places to park on Capitol Hill. The last parking place was taken in 1987 and has been passed down from father to son ever since.

While I was making increasingly wider circles around the Capitol, I noticed a bunch of young men and women all briskly walking or running, every one with cellphones stuck in their ears. They all wore Navy Blue blazers, white shirts and khaki trousers. I started giggling at how self-important these Congressional aides thought they must be. All in the same uniform, all talking earnestly on cellphones, I just thought, "Yeh, I'm in the Imperial Capital, and that's how everybody, all these pretentious kids, sees themself here. What a bunch of dweebs".

It wasn't until I finally got inside (by waiving at the guard at the door) that I realized something was wrong. About then, I can't remember if I heard a noise or somebody shouted, "It's the Pentagon!". I still hadn't figured what had happened. I got to Duncan Hunter's office by then. He was there and put on his "glad to see a constituent" face. We chatted a bit, and he asked for my cellphone number, saying "Maybe we can have dinner tonight". I suggested that he was going to be rather busy, for it was now clear that New York and the Pentagon had been attacked.
Duncan dismissed the objection with a waive of the hand and said he was there to see his "people from home".

At this point, I hustled My Lovely Bride, brother-in-law and sister-in-law out of the office. By the time we made it to the exit, guards were shouting at everybody to "Get away from the building!". My Lovely Bride has had a few back surgeries and is not exactly an Olympic sprinter. She was hobbling with the cane and I was darting around her shrieking, in a purely husbandly and loving way, of course, "Let's get out of here!". We made it to the rental car and spent the next couple of hours on totally grid-locked streets trying to get of out D.C. and back to Maryland.

I didn't know then that what saved our butts was probably the heroic actions of the passengers on United Flight 93. They selflessly gave their lives to force the airliner down in some remote Pennsylvania woods. The airliner was thought to be aimed at the Capitol.

Fast forward. Last year, My Lovely Bride and I were visiting family in the Susquahanna Valley, north of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. We were driving through the world's longest valley, the Juniata Valley on old US Hwy 30 when I saw a turnoff for Shanksville, PA. I turned to My Lovely Bride and asked, "Hey, didn't something happen at Shanksville?". I'd forgotten. I forgot United Airlines Flight 93. I cannot even remember the name of the hero whose last words were, "Let's roll!". My sorry butt was saved, but I hadn't the fainest clue. That's what six years does. We're still at war. There are still crazies out there that want to kill us because, and only because, we're Americans. But, I'd forgotten the heroics that probably saved my family and me.

That's why we should vote for McCain. The other two, Hillary and Barrack, are just wrong on the war. We've got lots of time to sort out universal health care, and the rest of the largesse that the federal government doles out, if we protect ourselves and fight this war. Read Norman Podhoretz' "World War IV". Vote for McCain.