Where Were You
Yesterday was Patriot Day. It marked the 21-year anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and United Airlines Flight 93. Patriot Day is a remembrance of the lives lost on that September morning. The first few years following 9/11, people would meet on Patriot Day and start their conversations with “I remember, I was at….”. At 8:46 AM, Eastern Standard Time, the first airplane struck the World Trade Center. Do you remember?
About 30% of the population of the United States is under 21. They were not even born on 9/11. Will our public schools, local governments, state legislatures, and federal government teach what happened on that horrific day? Do most young people even know what it means when the flag is flown at half-staff? What do our holidays really mean anymore? Picnics and BBQs? Is Memorial Day nothing more than the start of summer and Labor Day means back to school? Pima County Board of Supervisors just passed Juneteenth as a county holiday and the county employees “will be provided eight hours of administrative leave with pay for the celebration of Juneteenth, which they can take anytime during the month of June”. The County also observes Cesar Chavez Remembrance Day in a similar way allowing employees to take a day off anytime during the month of March. Are holidays becoming just a day off work for our government employees?
Patriotism is the feeling of love, devotion, and sense of attachment to one’s country. Have we lost our patriotism? Have we lost our shared vision as a country? At least 10 years ago I was at a seminar, and they discussed the concept of a ‘cafeteria plan’ for employee holidays. For example, there are 11 federal holidays and employees would just take off whatever 11 days they wanted. If you wanted to work on Christmas Day but take off for your birthday, that would be one holiday. As business owners we were all struggling as to how we could work this out—who would open the office for that one employee on Christmas Day? I remember at lunch we were all laughing and talking about what days we would take off! As more and more positions become remote positions, I see this happening and am not laughing so hard now.
Has our country become such a melting pot that Washington’s Birthday, Thanksgiving, and Christmas don’t mean anything to people in America? And what’s the purpose of Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day if you aren’t fighting for and remembering those who fought for America? I talked about Labor Day last week—and thanks for all your comments—but, does that just signal back to school shopping?
I was at the Pima County Board of Supervisors meeting last week. After we said the Pledge of Allegiance, one of the Supervisors said the Pledge in another language as we continued to stand. When did we start saying the Pledge of Allegiance in other languages? When did we start having holidays that we don’t celebrate, we just take a day off sometime during the month? It’s been coming; it’s been gradual; it’s here now.
Over 2,000,000 people have crossed our southwest border this year. They don’t celebrate most of our holidays. Join me before we don’t celebrate Independence Day.
Vote 2022.