We are all Americans on 9/11

Sitting in my vehicle today in a parking lot along Oro Dam waiting for my take out meal, I was reflecting on the events of 20 years ago. I remember how my engine company on the fire line, heard about the events that occurred in New York. Remembering how all of those lives were forever altered. I glanced up and forgot for a second my depressed emotions when I saw this beautiful lifted truck. Root beer brown, with a copper stripe on the bottom. Two flags flying from the back. My eyes drawn to our country’s flag. Uplifting for a half a second. Then, saw the second flag. A word that rhymes with duck, and Biden’s name? Really?

You have 364 other days of the year to be a jerk. You have to pick this one day to fly such a thing in front of kids. To forget about just being an American? Eating in absolute disgust towards you, by the end of my meal I no longer felt disgust. Just felt sorry for you. How sad. Just feel resolve to do something I have not done in a long time. I am going to where my prayer pipe bag hangs. Going to sage/smudge. Fill my prayer pipe with tobacco. Then I am going to pray for you and your family. You WILL NOT take this day away from me, you WILL NOT fill my heart with political rage and separatist emotions. Today, I only hold with reverence what our country endured, the agony 20 years ago. Somebody like you cannot change today for me.

— Mike McCarty, Chico