NOT ALL HEROES ARE PEOPLE
This is a true story which happened on September 11th, 2001!!!
James Crane worked on the 101st of Tower 1 of the World Trade Center. He is blind, so he has a golden retriever named Daisy. After the plane hit 20 stories below, James knew that he was doomed, so he let Daisy go out of an act of love.
With tears in her eyes, she darted away into the darkened hallway. Choking on the fumes of the jet fuel and the smoke, he was just waiting to die. About 30 minutes later, Daisy comes back along with James’ boss, who Daisy just happened to pick up on floor 112. On her first run of the building, she leads James, James’ boss, and about 300 more people out of the doomed building.
But she wasn’t through yet, she knew there were others who were trapped. So, highly against James’ wishes, she ran back in the building. On her second run, she saved 392 lives. Again she went back in.
During this run, the building collapses. James hears about this and falls on his knees into tears. Against all known odds, Daisy makes it out alive, but this time she is carried by a firefighter. “She leads us right to the people before she got injured” the fireman explained. Her final run saved another 273 lives. She suffered acute smoke inhalation, severe burns on all four paws, and a broken leg, but she saved 967 lives.
The next week, Mayor Giuliani rewards Daisy with the Canine Medal of Honor of New York. Daisy is the first civilian Canine to win such an honor!!!
AS FOR WHAT TO DO WITH OSAMA BIN LADEN:
Killing him will only create a martyr. Holding him prisoner will inspire his comrades to take hostages to demand his release.
Therefore, I suggest we do neither.
Let the Special Forces, Seals, or whatever covertly capture him, fly him to an undisclosed hospital, and have surgeons quickly perform a complete sex change operation. Then, we return her to Afghanistan to live as a woman under the Taliban.
AMERICA
As the soot and dirt and ash rained down,
We became one color.
As we carried each other down the stairs of the
burning building,
We became one class.
As we lit candles of waiting and hope,
We became one generation.
As the firefighters and police officers fought their way into the inferno.
We became one gender.
As we fell to our knees in prayer for strength,
We became one faith.
As we whispered or shouted words of encouragement,
We spoke one language.
As we gave our blood in lines a mile long,
We became one body.
As we mourned together the great loss,
We became one family.
As we cried tears of grief and loss,
We became one soul.
As we retell with pride of the sacrifice of heroes,
We become one people.
We are
One color
One class
One generation
One gender
One faith
One language
One body
One family
One soul
One people
We are The Power of One.
We are United.
We are America.
DEEPAK CHOPRA ON September 11th
The Deeper Wound
As fate would have it, I was leaving New York on a jet flight that took off 45 minutes before the unthinkable happened. By the time we landed in Detroit, chaos had broken out. When I grasped the fact that American security had broken down so tragically, I couldn’t respond at first. My wife and son were also in the air on separate flights, one to Los Angeles, one to San Diego. My body went absolutely rigid with fear. All I could think about was their safety, and it took several hours before I found out that their flights had been diverted and both were safe.
Strangely, when the good news came, my body still felt that it had been hit by a truck. Of its own accord, it seemed to feel a far greater trauma that reached out to the thousands who would not survive and the tens of thousands who would survive only to live through months and years of hell. And I asked myself, Why didn’t I feel this way last week? Why didn’t my body go stiff during the bombing of Iraq or Bosnia? Around the world, my horror and worry are experienced every day. Mothers weep over the horrendous loss, civilians are bombed mercilessly, refugees are ripped from any sense of home or homeland. Why did I not feel their anguish enough to call a halt to it?
As we hear the calls for tightened American security and fierce military response to terrorism, it is obvious that none of us has any answers. However, we feel compelled to ask some questions.
Everything has a cause, so we have to ask, What was the root cause of this evil? We must find out not superficially but at the deepest level. There is no doubt that such evil is alive all around the world and is even celebrated.
Does this evil grow from the suffering and anguish felt by people we don’t know and therefore ignore? Have they lived in this condition for a long time?
One assumes that whoever did this attack feels implacable hatred for America. Why were we selected to be the focus of suffering around the world?
All this hatred and anguish seems to have religion at its basis. Isn’t something terribly wrong when jihads and wars develop in the name of God? Isn’t God invoked with hatred in Ireland, Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Israel, Palestine, and even among the intolerant sects of America?
