Pat Dollard

They were almost surreal.

Everywhere we went, people nodded to one another, smiled at strangers, waved to the neighbors they never usually even gave a second look at.

In the grocery store, it was bizarre. Everyone was kind, courteous…

I’m not exaggerating here.

I don’t have any proof, but I would be willing to bet that the crime rate in America dropped dramatically in the week following 9/11.

Republican or Democrat, hippie “free-spirit’ or CEO, it really didn’t matter.

We were all Americans. We truly were the United States.

Heck, even leaders of other countries were saying “Today, we are all Americans.” Anyone remember who said that?

It is sad that it would take something like the 9/11 attacks to bring about the awesome spirit that permeated our great nation in the days afterward, but I will never forget those days. I long for that kind of unity and peace in our country again.

Watching some of the old videos, some of the events taking place around the country today, it is evident, at least to me and in my own mind, that we are far from “healed” with regard to 911.

If the Earth, you, and me are still here 50 years from now, it may be different. When the last of us who actually lived through this, watched it happen, and experienced all that has happened as a result of those attacks is gone, and there is nobody alive who was living when the attacks occurred, or actually remembers them, maybe then we will have healed.

Today, it still hurts.

But to the point of my little ramble here…

Not long after the attacks, there were those who started believing that our Government was somehow behind the attacks. That the Bush Administration either orchestrated and carried out, or simply set up and allowed the attacks.

I looked over the stuff that was being presented.

The movement became known as the 9/11 Truth Movement.

I watched “Loose Change,” listened to unqualified celebrities give their scientific opinions, visited the websites, and came to the conclusion that it was 19 screaming jihadis who hijacked jets and turned them into flying VBIEDs (I don’t think that term had really even been coined yet), orchestrated by Al Qaeda, namely Khalid Sheik Mohammed and Osama Bin Laden and all of their little jihadi piglets.

To believe that our Government was behind this is, in my opinion, bull.