9/11

11 Sunday Sep 2016

Posted by michael schinker in 9/11, terrorism

It happened fifteen years ago. Doesn’t seem that long ago, maybe because every year at this time there is so much attention given to remember the worst occurrence of terrorism within our borders. And so we must. The horror of the event and its aftermath is seared into our national psyche.

September 11, 2001. Everyone can tell you where they were and what they were doing when they heard about it. Just like our now very senior citizens can talk about huddling up next to a radio broadcasting the shocking news that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. President Roosevelt just a few hours later would forever label that day, December 7^,1941 as the Day of Infamy. My generation can remember where they were when they heard that JFK had been shot, and then to an on-edge nation pronounced dead in Dallas at 1pm on November 22, 1963. We were glued to our black and white TV sets for days, watching and grieving as a painful episode of history unfolded live from Love Field to Arlington Cemetery.

I watched the towers burn and fall on a small TV at work. I kept saying, “This can’t be happening. This isn’t real. It’s like a computer-generated special effects scene from a Spielberg movie.”

As that morning went on I couldn’t help but wonder, “Are we done now? What’s next? The Sears Tower? Hoover Dam? An A-Bomb detonating at the Strategic Command Center at Offutt Air Force Base, only a few miles from my neighborhood?” That’s where President Bush was headed on Air Force One, to weather any further threats deep underground. I thought maybe tonight I should revive and recite the faith of my childhood prayer, “Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake . . .”

Every year at this anniversary time I tell myself I’m not going to watch any of those documentaries. No more film footage of planes hitting buildings, over and over, in slow motion. No more faces of terror and disbelief, ash covered first responders, exhausted, gasping for breath. And that unforgettable, ugly pyroclastic cloud of dust and debris chasing countless panicking New Yorkers down the streets and avenues of our nation’s premiere city. But this week, I did watch, mostly on the History Channel. I still get pretty choked up, even sick. I can’t bear to see those poor souls hanging out of windows, waving for help, then leap to their deaths; anonymous faces now referred to simply as “Jumpers.” I even had the nerve to view some posts on YouTube, where you can find dozens of opinions by conspiracy theorists with elaborate “proof” that what our government says happened wasn’t really the truth.

Regardless of what you choose to believe about the incredible circumstances of that fateful day and who was responsible, it did happen. I think you can be sure of this, however, that hundreds of men and women were just settling in at their desks, sipping coffee, starting their computers when all hell was unleashed beneath or above them, and certainly not what they expected to experience that morning when they shut off the alarm clock. Another several hundred or so were expecting to land safely at their destinations, to spend their time visiting relatives or friends, or to get on with the business schedule for the day. But flights and lives were abruptly rerouted to Shanksville and the Pentagon.

There are probably as many lessons to be learned from the events of 9/11 as there are people who have been touched by the tragedy – our lifetime’s day of infamy. To me it affirms what the Bible says in James 4:14: “Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” In other words, life is fragile. But we tend to see the end as far away, and I’m sure most victims of 9/11 felt that way. Sadly, I’ll bet many hugs and kisses were deferred for a later time, which was never to be. Psalm 103:15 says, “The life of mortals is like grass, they flourish like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone.” So today while you are mowing the lawn, catching up on the laundry, watching football, grocery shopping, or even working at a job, stop everything and say “I love you” to that person you know who needs to hear it the most. Let’s remember to cherish the minutes we have, even if they are difficult, because in an instant, everything can change. And usually it does.

Is Paris burning?

14 Saturday Nov 2015

Posted by michael schinker in ISIS, terrorism

≈ 1 Comment

The question was asked by Adolph Hitler in August of 1944 after ordering his military governor/general Dietrich von Choltitz to destroy the City of Lights rather than have it fall into the hands of General George Patton’s Third Army, just miles away from liberating the heart and soul of France.

After the horrific attacks of last night on specifically targeted groups of an innocent civilian population –– couples and families at a restaurant casually enjoying a meal, exuberant young people at a rock concert, spirited soccer fans –– again Paris, and France and Europe and indeed all of western civilization are in the cross hairs of madness. Jihad is in the early stages of metastasizing from the traditional borders of the Middle East and is headed to a town near you and me.

A force to be reckoned with from the mid-thirteenth century until World War I, the Ottoman Empire with Islam as the official and only religion left a permanent bloody fingerprint on the West. The conquering Turks absorbed, adapted and modified the economics and sociology of the lands they occupied and the cultures of the peoples they dominated. Yes, the corollary effects on literature, architecture, language and art can still be seen today from Spain to Constantinople. And yes, there was an aspect of genteel sophistication to the ways of the Sultan that may have to some degree balanced out prejudicial brutality against Christians and Jews.

Not so with ISIS. We’ve seen news reports and videos documenting these barbaric henchmen in action, destroying irreplaceable religious and cultural artifacts in ancient sites throughout Syria and Afghanistan, archaeological relics that survived for millennia, now broken into rubble. They want to erase every trace of our history and replace our future with a worldwide Islamic Caliphate, one that excludes everything that we love and hold dear: our faith, our family life, our freedom. Now becoming increasingly frequent and ambitious, these terrorist acts show the unmasked, lethal side of modern radical Islam and its agenda. What is it that we don’t understand about “Death to Infidels?”

The Eiffel Tower went dark last night, maybe saving it from being an easy target, maybe just to show that the spirit represented by one of the most recognizable landmarks in the world was severely wounded: the joie de vivre that has made Paris the exciting, romantic magnet it has been for centuries. Perhaps today we need to acknowledge our fraternité with the shocked and mourning citizens of our nation’s oldest ally, France. Maybe now more than ever we all need to recognize and declare loud and clear, “Je suis Paris.”