God Have Mercy, War Has Come Home

America roused.

The wrath cometh.

Through how many warnings have we slept? How many terrorists have we goaded, on how many continents?

In an angry world, America once again believed itself an island.

Then from the sky ....

Not the sky of missiles and “Star Wars.” But from the everyday friendly skies of United. From American Airlines, something special in the sky. Not yesterday’s war for which generals and politicians and spies always plan. But this new war.

Where we all watch.

Women in high heels, men in suits: the human figures of this new battlefield.

Clerks on the run. Sirens.

We knew it would come somehow, somewhere, someday.

Then it came: Twin Towers, gone. Pentagon, aflame.

Cities in panic.

Listen to the change in vocabulary. The uncounted dead are not victims. The uncounted dead are casualties.

God have mercy.

War has come home.

No mercy.

We will not shirk.

Foes may underestimate us. They have before. Self-absorbed, lethargic, quarrelsome, half-hearted--that was America on Monday. Interest rates, stock markets, budgets, tax cuts, conservatives and liberals.

Slack faces; taut faces. That was America on Tuesday morning. Trembling hands; cracking voices.

Then, fury.

The world boils with deadly passions. America stands apart from the fray no more.

Where were you when the 21st century arrived, nine months and 11 days late?

Did you feel the ground shake? Did you grab for the phone to hear--oh, God, please--to hear a voice? Did you clutch someone because two are not as empty as one?

Did you hurry across the street in your quiet suburb to knock on a neighbor’s door, speechless? Did you look at the car next to you on the freeway, surprised to feel kinship with a stranger whose hollow eyes met yours? Did you feel some of yourself vanish in those clouds of soot and jet fuel?

Were you the shirtless young man who ran to the shoulder of the Pacific Coast Highway to wave an American flag?

In a smaller world 60 years ago, a vast naval armada threaded across the Pacific to strike Honolulu. Dead: 2,300.

There was no warning. But there were many warnings.

Sept. 11, 2001: Rubble in Manhattan. Rubble in Arlington. Smoke over America. Mountainous graves on city streets.

There was no warning, but again many reasons to be warned.

Sixty years ago at Pearl Harbor, our foe flew under the flag of a nation. Sixty years later, our foe lurks in the shadows. That’s why they call it terrorism.

But it’s different now. Where are the words for this? We are numbed because the trivial has been hyped for so long. We didn’t save a big word for just such a day.

The thunder has only begun.

The last time America was attacked, it altered the lives of everyone in the country. Can we expect any less this time?

Don’t you feel the centrifugal force pinning us against the wall together?

They say that great events bring forth the greatness of democracy.

We must hope that this will not change.

Since the American Revolution, this country has gone to war nine times. This war will be different. This war will be the same.

“We are fighting in the war of civilization against barbarism, of liberty against tyranny,” Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed at the dawn of World War I.

Sixty years ago America had tried to draw a curtain around itself. Sixty years later, it wanted to build a shield.

You cannot be mighty and not be challenged. But your foe chooses the terms of the attack.

America has been staggered.

America has resolve.

Doesn’t it? It does.

We have seen the face of our adversary. Our adversary is faceless.

We will not cower.

Death: America’s last war claimed 148 battle deaths in the Persian Gulf. On the opening day of this war, we have only wild guesses of how many more fell.

But better today when our foes have only stealth and suicide. How far away are they from nuclear bombs in laundry trucks? From vials of anthrax in detergent boxes? We know their ambitions.

They picked this day to rouse us.

They have.

Our world is diminished. It is in the hands of the single-minded now. America, though stunned, will not cower. It staggered but will prevail.