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Cliff's Terrorism Diaries  

Saturday, January 5, 2002—Ground Zero Plus 116


SNOW!!
Purifying The Fear Of Terrorism

by
Cliff McKenzie
Editor, New York City Combat Correspondent News
 

            Snow!!
            It purifies the fear of Terrorism.   It makes us make a choice.
            I woke up at 3:30 this morning.   I’m waiting for the first snow.
            Snow represents a cleansing of the seasons.   I await its power to blanket the earth with purity, wholesomeness, and a refreshing reminder that what was once changes, and becomes the past.
            Snow is an emotional eraser.   It renews the idea of things being constant, of life being linear.   It reminds us all there is a time to sleep, for it is Heaven’s blanket, covering all with its bedspread.
            September 11th rocked the world.   At least, it rocked mine.  It brought Terrorism into the homes of millions of Americans, and reminded us all that we could be as vulnerable to attacks as the citizens of any country.   It took away the security blanket we have enjoyed for decades upon decades.
            The first snow in New York City will end the Season of Terror.   As it falls and covers the earth, it will disguise the rupture in the womb of the earth at the World Trade Center.   It will cover the cracks in the sidewalk, the buckles on the streets and hide the rubble and twisted metal under its protective cover.
            For a few moments, maybe a few hours, perhaps even days, the whitewashing of the snow will shift my thinking away from the day when I stood watching people jumping from the Twin Towers, and horrible rumble of the earth as it exploded under the weight of one of the world’s largest icons collapsing into a pile of death and destruction.
            Snow will heal some of the wounds of the Second Tuesday in September.
            It will be a virginal reminder that what was then, isn’t today.
            Purity will replace Ravage.
            Cleanliness will cover Violation.
            Serenity will overpower Chaos.
            Snow does that.   It changes the Season of Terror.   It smothers the Beast of Terror with the wings of angels.  

 The snowflakes will fall as feathers from Heaven, kissing the wounds of the earth, healing them in a private, celestial solace that cannot be understood or reported with words—for it is a simple feeling that one senses that it is time to move forward, to rebuild a world tainted and tarnished by the violence and corruption of those who try to impose their hatred, anger and envy upon others with brutality against the innocent and helpless.
            Snow is Innocence itself.
            It falls like a baby’s being—void of any anguish or tumultuousness.   Historically, black has been deemed the color of “evil”—it’s backdrop.   We illustrate “evil” in paintings by darkening them; putting figures in black capes, and calling voids in space that suck the energy of all life into them, “black holes.”   We call evil men and women “those with black hearts.”
            White, the essence of snow, is the absence of black.   It is the symbol of that which is pure, innocent, and faultless.   A newborn child, regardless of skin color, has a “white heart”—it is purity at its best.  It is like the snow.   Its innocence is the hope of the future.
            As I await the first snow, I think about the purity it will bring.   I think about all the children who will be born on the day of the first snow.  I think of their innocence.  And I think about the need we, as Citizens of Vigilance have to protect that innocence.
            The snow will not eliminate Terrorism’s threat.  It will not wash away the horror of what happened on September 11th, or the possibility that it might recur in other forms, administered by other “evil black hearts.”
            But it will freeze in our minds the concept of “purity.”   It will purify and illustrate the need to protect the innocent from future harm.   It will symbolize the priority we all have to become Citizens of Vigilance, vowing to protect our children, their children, and their children’s children from the ravages of Terrorism.
            When the first snow falls and we joyously greet it as it covers the wounds of the past, we will face a choice.
            The choice will be to either forget September 11th, or to vow to act in such as way as to insure another September 11th doesn’t happen.   The purity of the snow will remind us we can take responsibility for our future security, or ignore it and hope that something like the destruction of the Twin Towers and the Pentagon was only a stitch in time, an anomaly from which we are now safe.
            Snow will clean the slate between commitment and indifference.  It will erase the option one has to straddle the fence between:  “I can’t do anything because I’m just one individual so therefore I won’t do anything” and “I can do something by becoming a Citizen of Vigilance and be aware of my responsibility to fight Terrorism by not becoming complacent in my thinking or actions.”
            The first snow will remind us all to “fight or flee.”   We can use the power of its purity to renew our commitment to “never forget” what happened on September 11th, or, we can pretend that it will never happen again, and let complacency rule our lives.
            I plan on renewing my vows to remain Semper Vigilantes—Always Vigilant—on the day of the first snow.
            I plan on going down to Ground Zero and looking up at the Sentinels of Vigilance—those 3,000 plus souls who gave their lives for all of us on that fateful day in September—and telling them I understand they gave their lives to remind me to stay vigilant and protect the innocence of the children of our society.
            I will see the Sentinels of Vigilance falling from the sky in the form of every snowflake, reminding me they will never forget, and reminding me to remind others they are still alive in spirit, season by season, watching, protecting us from Terrorism’s greatest black hole—that of complacency.


Go To Daily Diary, Jan. 4--Attack Of Terrorist Computer Anti-Virus

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