Friday, July 20, 2012

9/11/12

Amherst Town Center 9/11/11

The Amherst Select Board, as keeper of the public ways, will hold a Public Hearing on 8/27 to decide if 29 commemorative flags can reappear in the downtown this coming 9/11 to remember 3,000 lives snuffed out in a heinous sneak attack that forever changed…everything.

And it's not you I'm concerned about ever forgetting that awful morning.

You remember exactly where you were, what you were doing when those cryptic first reports leaked out about something unusual happening in lower Manhattan.  Or that first moment you switched on the television to whatever station you were watching the night before and that stunning image of those majestic towers billowing black smoke filled the screen.

My God...how could you possibly forget?

No, it's the younger generation I'm worried about.  Those who were too young on 9/11/01 to grasp the severity of the wound inflicted on the American psyche. 

Under current town policy regulating/restricting the flags to six holidays, they can fly on 9/11 only during "milestone" anniversaries, meaning every five years.  So last year on the tenth anniversary, the first time I did not have to go before the SB with my annual request (which was denied for years on end), they did fly.

But now they will not fly again until 2016, on the 15th anniversary.  In 2020, another off year, the freshman class coming to UMass/Amherst will not have been born on 9/11/01

Those 3,000 slaughtered Americans are just as dead this year as they were last year, and still deeply deserving of our reverence: not just one-out-of-five, but every year.

SAD UPDATE

President Obama and Governor Patrick have ordered all state and federal flags to half staff to remember, honor and commemorate those killed in the Aurora, Colorado senseless mass murder.

4 comments:

Thomas Stratford said...

How about 3000 flags in 3000 homes!

Displayed with Honor!

Larry Kelley said...

Amen!

Anonymous said...

I am waiting for it to come out that the Colorado Perp was forced to drop out of grad school by their Behavioral Intervention Team, with the carnage occurring as a result.

The nice thing here is that we have a living perp who has (apparently) no history of mental illness and hence it will be interesting to see where his defense goes and for what.

The fact his last class was one on mental illness strikes me as significant, I think he was pushed over the edge into one. I have seen it happen at UMass, it is only a matter of time before UM creates an active shooter who kills folks off campus....

UM loves US said...

UM has many guards in place against such shooting Anon, not to mention that all students (as well as those mentally ill in Amherst) have access to the state-run clinic.

As for forgetting 9/11, I would not worry. As a UMass student I placed American flags up and down North Pleasant. Not one other school, town organization, or even citizen did such a thing. I will never forget, and I will not let Amherst's barbaric laws stop me.