Herman Melville - "Moby Dick"

Well, it seems to be de rigeur today among bloggers to post about the 9/11 attacks. I had intended to avoid doing so, as I don't think my reactions were significantly different from yours, that I'll have any fresh take on it, or even that I'll write about it better than many people will. Go read BeerMary's essay as evidence of this.

I don't intend to watch minute one of the media frenzy about it - they don't have anything to show me that I haven't already seen, and I certainly don't need my resolve refreshed with the sounds of the WTC jumpers smacking the ground at terminal velocity - I can hear that noise anytime I wish - it's been branded into my synapses.

I damn sure don't want to hear about healing, forgiveness, and understanding; some things are never meant to heal, some things are easily understood, and there are some things you do not forgive. When a pit bull kills a child, we don't understand and forgive, we put the animal down. It's a shame, I guess, as the pit bull, bred to be a fighter, could not really help himself. Too bad, so sad.

Even sadder that some cultures are producing the human version of that pit bull, and we're going to have to take them down, too, and the culture they rode (or flew) in on, too.

Make no mistake, we will. The peaceniks, the appeasers, the flat-out cowards of the world can bleat and piss and moan, but the Islamofundamentalists are going down. You all might as well save your breath, because you're shouting into a hurricane, and the hurricane is winning.

This fully came home to me one night a little over six months ago, at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, of all places.

Alan Jackson was playing that night. Alan wasn't feeling too well, having cancelled his show in San Antonio the night before. He'd lost his voice. Determined to play the show, he flew back to Nashville, got treated by his doctor, and flew back just in time to take the stage. The Powers That Be running the rodeo brought in Pat Green to do a few tunes so Alan wouldn't have to sing a full set. Pat, in turn brought up his pal Cory Morrow to do a few tunes with him. Waylon Jennings had died that day, so Pat and Corey did their cover of "Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way." It was a fine tribute.

Alan came on, sounding fine, but looking a little subdued, tired, rarely smiling. Still, he put on a good show. For his final song, he played "Where Were You When The World Stopped Turning," in my opinion still the only decent song to come out of the 9/11 attacks.

And something spooky happened.

This was late in Febuary, well after the first spasmodic jingoistic rush of patriotism and bloodlust had run it's course through the citizenry, and all the flags that people had started flying on their cars and truck had started disappearing, while those that remained were growing faded and tattered. Similarly, people had come to grips with the attack to a large extent, and daily life in the US was back to normal for most of us, to the extent that it ever would be.

When Alan started that song, a hush as deep and absolute as I've ever seen in a crowd that size fell on the Astrodome. Every spectator, rodeo cowboy, beerman, peanut hawker, security cop, I mean everygoddambody froze in place like a Marine recuit standing at attention with three DI's and the Commandant of the freakin' Corps staring at him. None of the restless shifting from foot to foot and idly gazing around you see during the national anthem at a ball game. Solid rapt attention.

When he started the chorus, the crowd started singing along with him, and thousands of lighters popped up in the darkened Astrodome on the end of outstretched arms, not waving, not bouncing, as solid as the torch on the end of Lady Liberty's hand. "I'm just a singer of simple songs; I'm not a real political man I watch CNN, but I'm not sure I can tell you the difference in Iraq and Iran"

And that's when that spooky feeling hit me. I don't think I can well describe it to anyone that has not been a Marine. We place a emphasis, perhaps an archaic one, on close order drill. (That's marching in formation for you civilian types) Even more so than that of the other armed services, we pride ourselves on precision and snap when marching. There's a drill competition in boot camp for each recuit series, and the DI's are in deadly earnest to have their platoon win. You spend hours every day on "the grinder," a concrete drill field so big you could land planes on it.

There's a feeling that you get toward the end of boot camp, shortly before the competition, when everything is going right, when the platoon is having a good day, the DI whose cadence you like the best is singing out the rhythm and barking out the commands, and every heel is clicking on the concrete within a nanosecond of the others, so the sound of the platoon is like one giant Marine snapping down the grinder. It's a feeling of being part of a group, in tune to one another, moving in perfect unison, larger than oneself, for a common purpose. I've had musician friends tell me of similar experiences they have when jamming with long-time bandmates, and can recognize it when it happens onstage.

That's the feeling that came over me that night at the Dome. That every soul there was united, not in some bloodlust, or sunshine patriotism, but in a steady, unassailable determination to make forever sure nothing like this would ever happen again, that the men that flew those planes into the towers had unleashed a mighty, primeval, force whose strength they had woefully understimated, that of a united people marching forward with a common purpose in a juggernaut that would crush these jihadists like a steamroller on a scorpion.

It was then I knew that the resolve of the American people would not be a fleeting one, that the raging wildfires of our anger would not burn themselves out, but die down to a steady, sustainable, level of resolve, one that can be harnessed for useful work, like the banked blaze in the firebox of a steam engine that propels the mile-long freight train behind it.

It takes a long time for a freight train to get up to full speed, miles in fact, but once it gets going there's a momentum there that stops at nearly nothing.

I've got some bad news for you Islamofascists - a year ago you grooved our souls for this fixed purpose, and we're rolling down the rails. The problem for you is that you're tied to the tracks.

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