In his double pick-of-the-day article, Thomas Leemon did a wonderful job of pointing out that sports was one of the things that helped our nation return to normalcy after the unthinkable happened on September 11, 2001.
If you haven’t read his article, you should.
The sight of the burning Twin Towers, the people running down the streets of New York City, the burning Pentagon, and the wreckage in that Pennsylvania field will forever be etched in our minds.
In many ways, America has never been the same.
The feeling that our nation was a safe haven disappeared, to some degree, in the smoldering ashes of Ground Zero. We quickly became familiar with Code Red. Airport security became more intense and less convenient, and our borders have become a greater concern for many Americans.
Yet some of the changes go beyond passports and baggage checks.
You can tell a great deal about a people by those they choose to honor, and 9/11 changed the way we defined what is truly honorable. We learned something that day. We learned who our real heroes were.
In a nation that had been so enamored with celebrities and superstars, we found our heroes not on the red carpet of high society, but on the asphalt and concrete of everyday life.
In our greatest hour of tragedy, it was the “Grunt” who came to our rescue.
It was the blue-collar guy—the policeman, the fireman, the city worker, and those of the EMS. It was the “Everyday Joe” who happened to be in the wrong place at the right time, who waded into the ash and rubble and snatched life from the jaws of death.
It was fitting that the celebrities and politicians and superstars lost center stage in the hearts of this wounded nation, and the grunts stood head and shoulders above us all. They still do.
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