September 11, 2001 
 
 

I Don't Know Your Name 
 
 

   I don't know your name, or names -
we may never know who you are -
so I can't address you personally.

  Today, 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 allow 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 will 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.

© Jim Willis 2001

 In deepest sympathy to those 

who have lost a loved one.

 Permission to share.