Coming Of Age

Here's the problem with anniversaries: they are a little like birthdays. How? Well, the first ten are very important. Armloads of attention get heaped on the day and we remember the date and where we were back then. After that, the milestones start to spread out a little. Fifteen and sixteen are a big deal, depending on your culture and bank account. If you are like me, you continue to mine the specific meaning of each year passing with the traditional gift. Usually these are prescribed by Hallmark or by Amazon.
But eighteen? That was a pretty cool one back in my teenage years growing up in Colorado because it meant I was legal to drink watery low-alcohol beer. It also meant that I could register for the draft. Had to register for the draft. Not that I would ever have to face going to war, since we were experiencing an unprecedented string of years in which no wars had us needing to call up recruits who weren't volunteering.
Eighteen years ago, our armed forces had their biggest spike of volunteers in modern history. When the towers fell in New York, men and women rushed to join up. There are, most certainly, members who are still enlisted in our armed forces who celebrate today as the anniversary of the career they began on that day in 2001.
There might even be cake.
Meanwhile, three different presidents have reckoned with the mess created by going to war in the Middle East with an enemy with which we have never fully reckoned: terrorists. Much in the same way that American colonists tormented the British army by hiding behind walls and trees instead of marching in straight lines across a field from the opposition, waiting to be shot.
And since 2001, where have Americans experienced the most terror? Right here at home. Thanks to our newly minted domestic terrorists, we have more to feat than fear itself. We have shopping malls and movie theaters and schools and churches to be worried about. After eighteen years, we still have troops in Iraq and Afghanistan fighting a war that we never understood while another is being waged right here on our shores.
Maybe once this mess turns twenty-one we can find a more adult solution. I suggest a toaster.