Wages Of Fear

The anger that comes with the fear is the hardest part for me. The explosions in Boston brought them both back in ferocious doses. It was another day at school, and while events continued to unravel in their horrible way, I felt drawn back to my Internet connection while the students in my room busied themselves with their research projects. My first thought was "there must be a mistake, these things don't happen here," but then I was reminded of a time when September 11 was just another day. I moved quickly to a sense of injustice, "who could possibly do such a thing?"
On April 19, 1995 there was no reason to believe that anyone would drive a truck full of explosives, fertilizer and motor racing fuel and park it in front of a federal building, light a fuse and run away. Timothy McVeigh fixed that. Now Homeland Security would like to restrict the availability of fertilizer. Mister McVeigh is gone, but his memory lingers on.
On April 20, 1999 Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold helped reshape our thoughts about school security. No longer do we think exclusively about the threats to our students from the outside. Now we look at the kids in our schools as suspects. As ticking time bombs, like the ones that failed to detonate in the Columbine High cafeteria that day.
And now another April day is sullied forever. Sporting events, which had already become more difficult to simply buy a ticket and walk in, will have heightened security. Suspicious packages and bags that have been left unattended now become increasingly terrifying. This is how terror works. It makes the ordinary extraordinary. It makes it terrifying.
Which brings me back to the anger. All the dead, all the injured, and still no real sense that we are winning this war on terror. Because it's a feeling, and feelings go away. The anger has subsided, but the sadness fills the void.