Imagine...

Imagine...
Going to work and sitting at your desk, upset the boss just passed you up for a promotion. You're gonna have to stay late today and miss your daughter's dance recital. Suddenly, you are thrown five city blocks in the air. You never knew what hit you.

Imagine...
Sitting in your office and you are in complete disbelief. You cannot leave your building. The skyscraper you are in is on fire. The building is shaking. Word you are getting is that the stairs and elevators are all blocked with fired and debris. The heat is building. There is no escape. There will be no rescue. Do you wait to die? Or do you jump. You see others pass your window. You ask God's forgiveness as you take control of the one thing left in your power.

Imagine...
Storming to your cubicle. You had just had a major fight with your husband. You both said some mean, hurtful things. You sit in your ergonomic chair and silently, deep in your mind and soul, you take minor comfort knowing that you guys will be able to kiss and make up at 5:30 tonight at dinner. A flash of light and glass, your life is over.

Imagine...
Running the halls of the Pentagon to an important meeting. Something is developing in New York City that is going to have a drastic impact on National Security. You stumble on the loose corner of a rug, you curse the rug, look up as the wall to your right crushes your body. The last thing you smell is burning wood and scorched concrete.

Imagine...
Waking up, trying to regain your bearings. A second ago, you were at the watercooler talking about the new college football season. You think Florida State is going to make a run at it, but your buddy said his money was on USC. Now, the room is dark. Your buddy isn't anywhere in sight. You realize people are beating you with coats and pillows. You then realize the pain coming from your back and arms. You are covered in flaming jet fuel. You scream in pain before you fall into shock, then die.

Imagine...
Responding to the mass confusion of two planes flying into the World Trade Center. There are no elevators. No word on the conditions of the stairwells. All you want to do is get to the fires and help the people. You grab your 80 pounds of gear and climb the 80 flights of stairs...1 grueling flight per minute. You hear another series of explosions. Has another plane hit?! You never hear the answer as the floor above you lands on your skull.

Imagine...
Trying to organize batallions and companies of firefighters from the ground. These men are your responsibility. You send them up the towering inferno. The first tower collapses, you dive into a stairwell. When the dust starts to clear, a man who is a friend and the chaplain to the entire fire department lies next to you, dead.

Imagine...
Sitting on a flight to the west coast. Suddenly, men have taken over the plane. They have killed one person with a boxcutter. They have taken the cockpit and are now flying the plane to a new destination, or, more appropriately, target. You and others get in contact with people on the ground. This plane, appearantly, is the fourth in a targeted attack on America and innocent civilians. You don't know of the horrors of people burning alive in the Twin Towers...You only know what the inevitable has now become, and what you must do about it. You follow the lead of four men, one of whom yells, "Let's Roll." A short fight occurs in the cockpit. The plane loses control, turns over, and crashes into the ground. You knew going into the cockpit, these murderous scum had already determined that you and everyone else was going to die. So, you and the others aboard determined the how and when and took back some control.

Imagine...
That you had been in the Twin Towers or the Pentagon or Flight 93. That your life was taken by murderous, evil scum of the Earth that took part in killing 3000+ innocent civilians. Imagine that you were taken in an instant, without chance to say sorry for your wrongs, to make up for the mistakes you made with loved ones, or to just meet your life's potential. Imagine, even worse, you suffered and died in the fires and smoke in the aftermath of the plane crashes. You felt your flesh melt under the heat of the jet fuel. Imagine the pain and shock of knowing you were going to die and there was nothing you could do. Imagine the horrors of 9/11/01, and you were destined to become one of the many faces on the memorial walls dedicated to the victims of the attacks.

Imagine...

Now, Imagine...
A large, loud-mouth portion of the country takes your death and uses it for political gain. They accuse the President of knowing and covering up the fact that the US Government knew, and quite possibly took part in, the acts that killed you.

Imagine...
An entire political party wants to give the same people that helped planned the attacks access to US Courts and the US Constitution. From the new President through both houses of Congress, there are those that want to offer full rights and privileges to the same group of people who trained to kill you. That the new President wants to move the terrorist scum from an off-shore military base to on-shore, US federal prisons, with full access to legal representation, full Miranda Rights, and full Constitutional protection.

Imagine...
The new President and his party attacking and distracting the efforts of intelligence agencies on a daily basis. That party uses the newspapers to discredit and attack these intelligence agencies for scaring or causing discomfort to people that have information that could be used to save more people from your fate.

Imagine...
A President and his party requiring US Soldiers to hesitate everytime they arrest or even engage with an enemy. Instead of trying to protect themselves from dying on the battlefield, they have to worry about what a Democratic senator will say about them if they kill an enemy. They have to worry about some politician calling for a full trial if you kill someone who poses a threat. They have to offer Miranda Rights to terrorists they capture on the battlefield.

Imagine...
The new President refusing to call the groups that are responsible for your death "terrorists." And he doesn't call it a "war on terror," but some sort of contingency plan. The new President apologizes to unfriendly nations for how America defended itself.

Imagine...
Eight years after your death, your death is memorialized by the new President as a call to community service. Instead of calling for a restrengthening of our pursuit of Bin Laden and al Qeada and preventing more terrorist attacks on US soil, the President says America should go out and pick up litter on the highway or other such community service. He in effect dismisses your sacrifice and your murder by saying 9-11 is a day of service.

Imagine...
You are looking down on the current administration and the party in power. Are you feeling forgotten? Are you feeling disgraced? Do you think you and the 3000 other men, women, and children who died on 9-11-01 are being memorialized appropriately and with respect?