An 'F' in the Sept. 11 Classroom
By Travis K. McSherley

America received a pop quiz last September.  She passed.

Faced with a swift and unexpected blow by an unconventional enemy, the United States survived the Sept.-11 massacres with the kind of togetherness and nationalism that one could have only expected at the end of “Independence Day” or Mel Gibson’s “The Patriot.”

No one woke up that Tuesday morning with any thought of how long the day could be.  Only a fool would have suggested that by day’s end, our nation’s military command center would have a gaping hole in one of its five sides or that the dominant features on New York’s skyline would soon lie in a heap of rubble in Manhattan.  But the test came, and the U.S.A. put her best foot forward, as if she’d been studying all along.

U.S. lawmakers banded behind their president, promising a bipartisan effort to retaliate for those awful deeds.  Breaking out in a spontaneous rendition of “God Bless America” on the Capitol’s steps, 50 states worth of Democrats, Republicans and Independents cast aside those coarse party lines.
After reporting for hours upon hours of domestic and international effects, the media networks joined forces to broadcast an unprecedented telethon to support the families of victims of the attacks. 

And a country that was losing the grip on its religious roots remembered its God, flocking to church and putting the Lord’s name back into public conversation.  Franklin Graham even appeared on NBC during prime time presenting the Christian message to a brokenhearted nation.

After acing the quiz, though, I’m not sure that the United States has learned enough from the rest of the class.

The notes are still available – after all, on the one-year anniversary of Sept. 11, nearly every media outlet in the country will be reminding us of the images, sounds and voices from that most eventful day.  Yet few people would even need television specials and newspaper reports to recall the brutal assault on the East Coast.  I can still close my eyes and see the horrific shots of the second tower being pierced by Flight 175.

Frankly, none of us want to relive that experience.  The media could do better than to spend the whole day reminding the nation of events that we’ll never forget, but I also feel that we have lost many of the lessons that we gained that day.

Last week, Congress chose to convene at historic Federal Hall, a building within a few blocks of where the World Trade Center towers stood and meeting place of the first Congress in 1789.  While this ceremonial gesture of solidarity is admirable, one finds it difficult to accept this as the same group of legislators who stood and sang together last Sept. 11.  In the past few months, squabbling over Iraq, casting blame and accusations over corporate scandals, and the usual election-anticipating politics have transpired as normal. 

The same media that so many hours working together after the attacks have replaced war stories and national security issues with Enron, Martha Stewart and child kidnappings.

College and professional sports paid homage by allowing the stadiums to remain silent for several days after Sept. 11, reopening with displays of passion and patriotism.  But unsurprisingly, the biggest sports story within the past few months was disagreements over multimillion dollar baseball salaries.

I thought the world had been changed forever.  “America will never be the same,” they said.  I wish I could buy it.  That we see the world with a differently tinted lens is likely, but even a great tragedy has seemed unsuccessful in creating a renewed America.  The country survived its day of testing and has allowed life to continue more or less normally, a feat both impressive and a bit scary.

Let us honor the memories that were so viciously forced upon on Sept. 11, 2001.  But let us remember and learn from all of the positive gains we made during the days and weeks that followed it.  For if the pain, the cooperation and the lessons of Sept. 11 are allowed to drift into the distance, toward a teacher as cruel as history, then worse days may be yet to come.  Next time, we may be left with the final examination.