| updated weekly |
home - contribute - donate - message board - events - links - contact us - archive |
| |
| September 15, 2006 Red Alert by Soren Wuerth 9/11: Remembered Best in Harmony
Back in the days of "mission accomplished"
Our chief was landing on the deck The sun was setting on a golden photo op Back in the days of "mission accomplished" — Neil Young, Living With War 
The liquor store clerk with the bulbous nose had the news on.Last time I was in the store, he didn’t come out of the back for ten minutes, and I thought about all those bottles of wine I could have walked out with. When he finally appeared, his breath smelled strongly of vodka. He rang up my six pack of IPA. Behind him, a man on television described the ways America is safer after the World Trade Center attack five years ago. “Has Bush come out wearing his flight suit again?” I asked the clerk. He stared at me for a moment with the steely eyes of someone who has walked through wet forests with a heavy gun. “You know that bastard went AWOL?” he said. “He served in the National Guard and disappeared when it came time to do his duty. His rich daddy got him off the hook.” I wagged my head. Yeah, I knew. Incredible. I had just come back from a 9/11 memorial. The dedication was held inside the cavernous hall of a local fire station. Glaring lights turned the rain into television static. People mulled around, browsing tables filled with processed snacks and cookies. A woman handed out coaster-sized buttons with a soldier walking against a backdrop of stars and stripes and the avuncular, slap-on-the-back dénouement “Remember our heroes” in blazing letters. A digital slide show had pictures of a person falling to their death, frowning firefighters coated with ash, a bloodied woman on a curb, ghostly shadows of buildings turned to rubble. It could have been Beirut, or Baghdad, or Bombay, or Jakarta, or Kabul. But this was America: Ketchikan, Alaska. People watched with perverted fascination the horrifying pictures of people falling. Music blared, the patriotic kind. I saw a guy wearing a Stetson and an American flag-colored cowboy shirt tucked into tight jeans. He had a handlebar moustache. As I walked out, I heard a woman say something to him about the Dixie Chicks. He roared with laughter, rocking back and forward on his cowboy boots. I walked out into a driving rain. I had prepared a speech, because I heard there would be an open mike. But there were only bright lights and loud music and those awful pictures. Some people took photos of servicemen in starchy, bright uniforms. I came home with my beer. My wife was watching a Neil Young DVD. Neil is older now, his long hair gray under his worn cowboy hat. He spoke, between songs, about his dad, the war, and the prairie. The set, with all these guitar players, and old singers, a banjo picker, a choir, a fiddler, and a backdrop painted with the scene of a cabin’s front porch at sunset, looked like any American, or Canadian, rural homestead, the kind of place that surfaces a deep and abiding respect for one’s community. Neil played an old guitar … Hank Williams’ old guitar that Neil bought thirty years back. His guitar did all the crying for me that night. Soren Wuerth is perhaps Alaska's best known community activist, and is the winner of the Alaska Press Club's 2006 'Best Columnist' award. He resides in an undisclosed location in rural Alaska and can be reached at soren@insurgent49.com. |
-
Columnists -
- column archive -
September 8, 2006 September 1, 2006 August 25, 2006 August 18, 2006 August 11, 2006 August 4, 2006 July 28, 2006 July 21, 2006 July 14, 2006 June 30, 2006 June 23, 2006 June 16, 2006 June 9, 2006 June 2, 2006 May 26, 2006 May 12, 2006 May 5, 2006 April 28, 2006 April 21, 2006 April 14, 2006 April 7, 2006 March 31, 2006 March 24, 2006 March 17, 2006 March 3, 2006 February 24, 2006 February 17, 2006 February 10, 2006 February 3, 2006 January 27, 2006 January 20, 2006 January 13, 2006 January 6, 2006 December 30, 2005 December 23, 2005 December 16, 2005 December 10, 2005 December 2, 2005 November 25, 2005 November 18, 2005 November 11, 2005 November 4, 2005 October 28, 2005 October 21, 2005 October 14, 2005 October 7, 2005 September 30, 2005 September 23, 2005 September 16, 2005 September 9, 2005 September 2, 2005 August 26, 2005 August 19, 2005 August 12, 2005 August 5, 2005 July 29, 2005 July 22, 2005 July 15, 2005 July 8, 2005 July 1, 2005 June 24, 2005 June 17, 2005 June 10, 2005 June 3, 2005 May 27, 2005 May 20, 2005 May 13, 2005 May 6, 2005 April 29, 2005 April 21, 2005 |
|||||||
| Copyright
2005
Insurgent Media. All Rights
Reserved. in-sur-gent (in sur'jent), n. 1. a member of a group which revolts against the policies of its leadership. |
||||||||
