An Open Letter to Terrorists
I don't know your name, or names
- we may never know who you are -
so I can't address you personally.
You killed several thousands of
our friends...perhaps not people who we
knew personally, but people like us.
People who worked hard to make a living,
who loved someone, who were loved by
someone, who worried about making a better life
for their children and grandchildren, who
believed in God and the American Dream,
who criticized this country for its
insufficiencies and cared enough to
try and change things and ensure a better
future, not just for us, but for the world.
People who leave behind scores of loved
ones, friends, pets, neighbors, coworkers,
and members of their faiths.
Perhaps even people who derived from your
own country and who sought refuge here.
Your act was a slaughter of the innocents.
You are like an insidious cancer that strikes
without warning, ravages bodies, tears families
apart, and in the end can never destroy the soul.
You are the ultimate coward.
You may topple our buildings, collapse our
communication systems, disrupt our government,
crash our markets, and leave behind the carnage
of bodies, but you will never destroy the soul of America.
We made this country from the bits and pieces
of the rest of the world; we took the best,
the worst of every culture and nationality,
race and creed, and made an alloy that may be
dented, but not even a trial by fire can melt.
I don't know what God you believe in, or what
hateful rhetoric you espouse, or what your
misguided political beliefs might be that allows
you to do what you did today without a fear of
eternal damnation. I only know that you may
win a battle or two, but you will never win this war!
We have the entire history of the world on our side,
and no dictator, despot, or madman has survived
as long as America has thrived and prospered.
If you accomplished anything at all today, it
was to give America a wake-up call, and we will
now rise up stronger than before.
You are defeated before you've even begun, there
in your private hell and later in your eternal one.
Someday your people may even need our help,
and because we are America, we would respond.
May God bless the friends we lost, their families,
friends, neighbors and coworkers. We will help them
rebuild from the ashes.
May God continue to bless America, help her to
protect us all, and may she continue to shine as
a beacon of democracy and hope to the rest of the world.
Poem by: Jim Willis 2001(c)
