FanBoyWonder Remembers 9/11

FanBoyWonder takes a moment today to remember those who perished on this day six years ago.

On September 11, 2001, we all watched the world change before our eyes—and not for the better. Nineteen terrorists with four hijacked airplanes managed to inflict damage that just the day before would have been considered unimaginable—the end result was 2,948 confirmed dead, 24 reported dead, 24 reported missing—total Sept. 11 casualties—2,996.

That list may grow as the number of Ground Zero first responders grapple with their rescue related illnesses. If fact we may never know the true casualty count as the government they so heroically served has sought, at least in some cases, to plausibly deny their claims of rescue-related illness.

For a complete list of September 11 victims and/or to pay your respects more directly, click here

www.september11victims.com/september11victims/victims_list.htm

Enough time has passed now that we can recall the facts of that day but the feelings are more difficult to call to mind.

In the days following the attacks, Marvel Comics really stepped up to the plate by banging out a very special memorial issue in just a matter of weeks after the Twin Towers fell.

The result was Amazing Spider Man—issue 36 (vol. 2) by J. Michael Straczynski, John Romita Jr. and Scott Hanna. It may have been a rush job by comic book publishing standards, but all of these years later it stands the test of time by capturing the feeling and emotion of those dark days after the attacks.

But it also gave us hope….hope that we would get past those dark days and move on.

Spider-Man’s words, as penned by Straczynski, say it all:

“We could not see it coming. No one could. We could not stop it. No one could.
But we are still here. With you.
Today. Tomorrow. And the day after.

“We live in each blow you strike for infinite justice, but always in the hope of
infinite wisdom.

“Because we live as well in the quiet turning of your considered conscience.
The voice that says all wars have innocents.
“The voice that says you are a kind and a merciful people.
The voice that says do not do as they do, or the war is lost before it is even
begun.

“Do not let that knowledge be washed away in blood.

“When you move, we will move with you. Where you go, we will go with you.
Where you are, we are in you.

“Because the future belongs to ordinary men and ordinary women, and that future
must be built free of such acts as these, must be fought for and renewed like
fresh water.

“Because a message must be sent to those who mistake compassion for weakness. A
message sent across six thousand years of recorded blood and struggle.

“And the message is this:

“Whatever our history, whatever the root of our surnames, we remain a good and
decent people, and we do not bow down and we do not give up.

“The fire of the human spirit cannot be quenched by bomb blasts or body counts.

“Cannot be intimidated forever into silence or drowned by tears.

“We have endured worse before; we will bear this burden and all that come after, because that's what ordinary men and women do. We persevere.

“No matter what.
This has not weakened us.
It has only made us stronger.

“In recent years we as a people have been tribalized and factionalized by a thousand casual unkindnesses.

“But in this we are one.

“Flags sprout in uncommon places, the ground made fertile by tears and shared resolve.

“We have become one in our grief.
We are now one in our determination.
One as we recover.
One as we rebuild.

“You wanted to send a message, and in so doing you awakened us from our self involvement.

“Message received.

“Look for your reply in the thunder.

“In such days as these are heroes born. The true heroes of the twenty-first century.
You, the human being singular.
You, who are nobler than you know and stronger than you think.
You, the heroes of this moment chosen out of history.

“We stand blinded by the light of your unbroken will. Before that light, no darkness can prevail.

“They knocked down two tall towers. In their memory, draft a covenant with your conscience, that we will create a world in which such things need not occur.

“A world which will not require apologies to children, but also a world whose roads are not paved with the husks of their inalienable rights.

“They knocked down two tall towers. Graft now their echo onto your spine.
Become girders and glass, stone and steel, so that when the world sees you, it sees them.

“And stand tall.

“Stand tall.

“Stand tall.”

God Bless America!