I was stunned last week to get an e-mail from my daughter's elementary school suggesting that kids wear red, white and blue on Friday, Sept. 9, to honor the memory of the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001.
I knew the 10th anniversary of 9/11 was coming, of course. It's no surprise that the deadliest foreign attack on U.S. soil should be an occasion for reflection and study at any of my kids' schools. I'd be upset if it weren't.
But the red, white and blue are celebratory colors. And this anniversary was no occasion for celebration.
Sure, we got Bin Laden. We also defeated the Japanese in World War II. But I don't see people dressing festively to celebrate the anniversary of Pearl Harbor.
We remember Dec. 7, 1941, as a "day that will live in infamy." That's what 9/11 means to me.
Over Labor Day weekend, my younger two kids and I drove to Michigan to visit friends and family. We passed near Somerset, Pennsylvania, where Flight 93 crashed in a field on Sept. 11, 2001.
My sixth grader noted the signs along the PA Turnpike for the upcoming 9/11 commemorations. "Where were they trying to take the plane?" he asked me.
"I can't remember whether they were headed for the White House or the capitol building," I told him. "But the passengers stopped them."
"Why did they crash the plane here?" the 8-year-old chimed in from the backseat.
"Well, the passengers fought with them to keep them from crashing in Washington. They heard from their families about what happened at the World Trade Center in New York. I guess this is where they were when the plane went out of control," I said.
"They wanted to stop the terrorists from getting Washington," my son said thoughtfully. "They sacrificed their own lives to keep other people from being killed."
"I didn't know that!" burbled his sister. "I remember when they told us about New York and Osama bin Laden—"
"—And the Pentagon," her brother sternly reminded her.
"—And the Pennagon," she continued. "But I didn't know about this."
The 11 year-old was silent.
I remember driving to my office on Sept. 12, 2001, weeping as I saw our country's flag displayed—hanging from windows at Congressional office buildings, at half-mast all along Independence Avenue—as a symbol of national unity.
That display of our flag and its colors is a world removed from the cheerful red, white and blue on our clothes for the 4th of July.
In the end, my kids went to school in their regular clothes. We did not lose any family members or friends on Sept. 11, so mourning would have been a little over the top. But I'm pretty sure no one wanted me to send them in with their patriotic garb at half-mast.
