Never Forget, they say.
But we need to interrogate our memory and ask ourselves, Just what is it that we should never forget?
Twenty years ago, today, on a Tuesday morning, my roommate and I walked from our house on College Street, through Tattnall Square Park, to the beautiful and historic campus of Mercer University's College of Liberal Arts, only to find that classes had been canceled. And so we walked across the Quad to the Student Center, where we learned from CNN what had happened.
We stayed there for a while, talking and processing, but it seemed clear to us that these were symbolic targets, attacking symbols of Western capitalism and American military. It also seemed clear that there would be no reflection on those symbols, just bloodthirsty calls for war.
We also knew that we would be in the minority in opposing those calls.
We were unfortunately correct, as the response from the mainstream media, as well as both political parties, was universal. We would be going to war - but not, importantly, against any particular nation. The enemy was an idea, Terror, and anyone at home or abroad who our leaders told us embodied this idea. That, it seemed, included those of us who opposed war.
And although we predicted this, it represented a new America to me. I grew up in a military town in the Deep South, but I had never seen such hatred or bloodlust. In an instant, peaceful and loving people I had known my entire life were driven by vengeance and xenophobia into rage and fury. That was when I knew that home was no longer home.
Back at our apartment, a creative spark hit. We began collaborating and sketching out ideas for political artwork.
The spark that did not come, however, was the one that would have led me to call my then-fiancee, seven hours away in Memphis. Those were the pre-cell phone days, but honestly I just didn't think it was necessary. In my mind, there was no doubt that we were both safe.
Needless to say, she thought differently. And she was not too happy with me when we finally spoke.
Lesson learned. I now call and text her more than she calls or texts me.
Within a few weeks, Jono and I had opened White Sands Art Gallery. Our first monthly show included a couple of the political collaboration pieces we did together, paintings of bodies by Sara, and photography by Logan White.
Logan is now an accomplished photographer, published in the New York Times and Vogue. But her first show was at White Sands. At the time, she was one of Jono's high school students, and she happened to be on a business trip with her dad to New York City on September 11. She had brought her camera, of course, so she ventured out to document the day. Her photo of a man, alone, playing the trumpet in Central Park, hangs in my office.
White Sands was a big success. We would host monthly shows for local artists until we graduated in May. We even ventured outside of the visual arts when the English Department asked us to host their senior poetry reading. But I'm most proud of the benefit show we did for the battered women's shelter, where all the artists donated their commissions, netting the shelter's largest donation of the year.
We were less successful, though, in fighting what would become the War On Terror.
And over the past two decades, nearly 1-Million people have died as a result - in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, and elsewhere - including 15,000 American soldiers and contractors. At least 387,000 civilians have been killed, representing over one-third of all deaths, as well as hundreds of journalists and humanitarian aid workers.
This doesn't even take into account the indirect deaths. Nor is death the only bad outcome.
The price for this war: $5.8-Trillion so far. But medical care for the tens of thousands of American soldiers who have returned with deep trauma and disabilities will bring the total up to to $8-Trillion in the next thirty years.
And what do we have to show for it?
We have our memory. That's what we have. But what and how we remember is what really matters.
I hope that we never forget our failed foreign policy. Twenty years later, the Taliban are back in charge. And we spent trillions of dollars in what seems like a direct effort to make more people hate America.
I hope we never forget that invading a country and trying to force it to adopt Western democracy...just does not work.
Is democracy good? Yes, of course. But we are not good at spreading it - at least not through military might. Our military costs more than that of the next seven nations, combined. Money's not the issue. As hard as it might be to admit, we're just not very good at this.
And so we should stop doing things we aren't good at.
We should, instead, do things we are good at. Things we know how to do.
Things that spread good throughout the world. Things that make people hate us less. Things that make people want to like us more.
Things like essentially ending infant mortality and maternal mortality. Things like ensuring everyone in the world has access to immunizations. Things like ending the TB and HIV epidemics. Things like fighting malaria and parasitic diseases. Things like ensuring that everyone has access to food and clean water.
These things are all possible. These are all things we are good at. These are things we know how to do.
Imagine the world we could create if, over the next two decades, we spent $8-Trillion on these humanitarian efforts.
Wouldn't that be a wonderful world to pass on to our children?
That's the lesson - or at least a lesson - we should all take from September 11.
But it's a lesson I fear we will never forget...because it's a lesson we never learned to begin with.
And so, rather than singing out with pride, "God Bless America," we might do well to cover ourselves with sackcloth and ashes, bow down on our knees, and plead humbly, "Lord, Have Mercy On Us."
