As the editor for the Kevin Jackson Network, I spend a lot of time talking with other writers about the issues floating around. I like to compare where my co-workers land on any given spectrum.
Yesterday, we all seemed to be on the same page. Sure, we try to remember 9/11. At least on it’s anniversaries. We won’t even talk about what a crying shame that is. But there’s a day we’ve forgotten- perhaps the most important day of them all. September the 12th.
On September 11th we were under attack. We were breaking down, bleeding, dying, and scared. How many of you wondered where the next attack would be? Who among us worried about the children we were sending to school? Or the first responders we love so dearly?
I’ll tell you that I was a young mother then. I had my toddler snuggled on the couch as we watched firemen run into a building that collapsed. It fell faster than a house of cards. As the daughter of a fireman, my heart broke for the children who watched their dads head to the fire department that day, for the very last time.
I still think of those families. Last year, I watched Diane Sawyer’s 9/11 special. She followed the lives of this group of babies who were due right around that fateful day. One of my favorite stories to come out of all the tragedy is one of New York’s firemen. First responder Carl Asaro’s oldest son Carl Asaro Jr. decided to follow in his father’s footsteps.
Yesterday he joined Fox & Friends to tell his story.
“My dad was like Superman… he could do no wrong,” Asaro Jr. told co-host Steve Doocy. “We’re always proud of him… We were part of the firehouse, the fire department, when we were kids… the Christmas parties… all the events, the picnics and stuff like that.”
“My dad was always happy,” he continued. “My mom was happy and life was always good… so it was kind of an easy choice.”
39-year-old Asaro was a member of the FDNY Engine 54/Ladder 4/Battalion 9 deployed to the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. None of those firefighters returned home and Asaro’s body was never recovered.
Doocy asked Asaro Jr. about a pin he was wearing, which he said he wears as a tribute to his dad.
“We buried a guitar case with this very logo at the top with letters and red, white and blue pins on the inside and some T-shirts of his and everything, so it’s just a tribute little nod to my father,” he said.
Asaro Jr.’s biggest inspiration to serve the community is his family, including three siblings who also signed up to answer the call of duty as firefighters.
“I’m proud of him, and I’m proud of everything that he’s done,” Asaro Jr. said. “I wouldn’t be sitting here if it wasn’t for him.”
These are the stories that remind us of just how great we can be. Like I said earlier, on 9/11, we were under attack. But on 9/12, we rose from the ashes.
Great Again
Trump isn’t the only one who wants to see America great again. Because we did it once before. September 12th, we weren’t black, white, Asian or Mexican. We were American. We weren’t rich, poor, Southern or Yankee; we were American.
How many great stories rose up from that tragedy? Neighbors joined together. Towns joined together. Our little communities grabbed on to one another and we became one nation, under God. We remembered our roots. So why can’t we remember them now?
Should it take another tragedy to unite us? Of course not. But leftism is destroying our nation, and we’ve yet to see the ashes all around us. And if we can’t see what we’ve become, how can we rise up?
What have we done to ourselves, courtesy of the Big Cheat? We have Bidenflation that will take generations to overcome. Defunding the police will cost countless lives and immeasurable property damage. Liberal educations will rob the future of great thinkers. But it’s not just the policies dragging us down. It’s the spirit, or lack thereof. We’ve let something almost die out. Now, we only see it in glimpses, like the burning embers at the end of a fire.
One of my fellow writers, Lawrence Johnson, said it like this: “When did America develop 9/11 amnesia?”
But there is hope. Our fire can be refueled. We can take everything we once built, everything Trump once rescued, and we can stir those ashes until we rise again. If only we remember September the 12th, and how it brought us all together.
