To our American neighbors

Page 4

We've discovered this month how hard it is to come to work and do a job we love when our hearts have been broken.

The morning of Sept. 11, 2001 scarred all of us forever. We admire the courage and spirit the American people have shown as they carry on after such a devastating blow. Coping so valiantly with the almost unbearable grief and shock is an heroic act.

We have all been affected by the horrors visited on the victims and their families and not one of us wouldn't jump at the chance to undo the events that caused you so much sorrow, if only we could.

We think of the children who watched the shocking images on television that even we, as adults, found astoundingly horrifying-almost too much to comprehend and deal with. What must those children now be thinking? What fears must haunt their innermost thoughts? What must they think about the world around them?

How could anyone do that to an innocent child?

Don't tell us those children- or any of the people on those planes or in those buildings- had it coming. Nobody deserves that fate. Nobody.

We can't help but return to images of mind-destroying terror. That's a harm that was inflicted on all peoples in all parts of the world that day. Even those who might cheer the actions of the terrorists must think about what it would have been like to choose between burning to death or jumping out of an 80th floor window, what it must have been like to look out the window and see a 757 coming right at you, knowing you'll never see your loved ones again, what it must have been like to selflessly rush to the aid of others only to be crushed under tons of falling concrete and steel-and we hope they shudder and weep with the horror of it as we did. We hope it changes them forever as it has changed us.

If all mankind was to wake up and realize that such brutality is inhuman and devastating to all that makes us human, if we all suddenly realized that violence and hate are a scourge on our species and on our planet and that we'll never truly be civilized until we turn our backs on it forever, if that great good was to come to pass as a result of the attack on America, it might be worth it. For then, the dead would be martyrs to the cause of peace on earth, heroes for all the ages. But if we don't learn those lessons, they remain merely . . . victims.

Every soul alive that day was diminished by the destruction of the World Trade Center and that part of the Pentagon. We all paid a price.

It's one thing to hear about or read about the deaths of people far away. It's another to watch it unfold in your living room. Yes, we'll plead guilty to being less aggrieved about other victims in other places than we should have been. But that won't happen any more. We pledge that and we ask all people who love life to take that pledge with us. Every death due to violence and hate diminishes all of us. We must learn to love life, all life, and hope that in time the pain from the wounds of that horrible day will fade to manageable levels.

Punish the perpetrators, yes. Snuff out the hateful thing that terrorism is, by all means. But no more innocent victims. As everyone in New York City must now know, there's no such thing as "acceptable collateral damage."

Let's show we're better than the hate-mongers and terrorists. Please, in the name of humanity, no more innocent victims.