A Day Like Any Other?

     Was 9/11 really that bad? David Bell, a Johns Hopkins History professor has posed the question, and I feel obligated to answer with a resounding yes.
     In the history of America, we have yet to fight a war (and let's not forget that our Muslim enemies have consistently, even prior to 9/11, referred to their efforts against us as World War III) in which the opening salvo claimed so many lives, even military, as 9/11. The Revolutionary War, the French-Indian War, the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Pesian Gulf War all cost America the lives of her best and brightest. But never, ever, in the history of our country, has an enemy force set foot on our native soil and struck such a blow against our civilian population as on 9/11.
     It was Stalin who said, "The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of a million is a statistic." In the same vane, I would argue that the death of a soldier is to be expected, the death of a civilian is horrific. I can say this without impugnity, for I have been there. No one can Kerry me, for I have been a boot on the ground, a Jarhead, a Leatherneck, a Devil Dog. I have humped with pack in the depths of a cold, wet night, and carried one in the chamber with an eye on the horizon and an ear out for anything out of the ordinary. To die was a chance we took, and knowingly. To die is a chance those in Iraq yesterday, today, and tomorrow knowingly risk by choice. 9/11 was not such a choice.
     9/11 started off as any other day. Security lines at the airports, congestion on the freeways, cups of coffee and bagels. Mothers and fathers fixed breakfasts and lunches, men and women kissed spouses and loved ones goodbye. It was a day like any other.
     Then a group of monsters murdered almost 3,000 people.
     Was is a day like any other? Was 9/11 really that bad? You decide.
          2,819 people died.
          343 Firefighters and Paramedics died.
          60 Police Officers died.
          1,609 people lost thier spouse or partner.
          3,501 Children lost a parent.
          20% of Americans knew someone that died that day.
          115 Nations are represented in the number that died on 9/11.
     Was 9/11 really that bad? Bell compares it to what Russia experienced in its tumultous history, to military strikes like Hiroshima, to the total dead of wars past. Apples to oranges, I say. I'm not Russian or Japanese, and I'm not nuanced enough to push the emotional attachment I have for my country aside. My nation was attacked. My countrymen died. Perhaps I am not intellectual enough, but to my mind, to even pose such a question is an affront to those who died and those who lived, to the lost and their survivors.
     By my count, David Bell owes a lot of people an apology, more than 5,110.