GROUND ZERO, New York City, Dec. 29-- My six-month old grandson was sick last night.  He coughed deep from his lungs, had a low-grade fever, was lethargic and didn't smile much.   My wife and I were babysitting.   I fixed the thermometer and scoured New York City for a late-night drug store that carried pediatric Pedeolyte, a fluid to stave off dehydration, rich in electrolytes.   I kept looking at the little guy, thinking about the Beast of Terror running around inside his blood, attacking his white cells, driving him into a state of vulnerability.

       Sick children stir something in parents, grandparents and loved ones.   You forget about yourself, your problems, your confusions, your angst, and focus on the child--this small ball of flesh and bones entrusted to your care.   Whatever "baggage" you brought into the room of the sick child quickly evaporates when the child's cry or cough or body temperature reminds you that being a Sentinel of Vigilance for a Child is the greatest of all glories, the most powerful of all emotions.
         Hunting down the Pedeolyte after the majority of drug stores closed was like searching for the antidote to the Beast of Terror's venom injected in the young baby's body when your head was turned.    Angus didn't appear sick when his parents left, but almost as soon as the door was shut he began to hack and cough and his tiny body became limp, surrendering to the battle inside his body between the "good cells" and the "bad cells."

        His eyes drooped.   Fluids ran from his nose.  He clutched my wife who rocked him close to her, his head buried against her chest, secure in the knowledge that someone was close to him, protecting, guarding him.
         Out in the madding Saturday night crowd of people clogging the East Village sidewalks, I weaved up and across the streets in search of the magic elixir that would help him flush out his dehydrated system and build defenses against the "Terror Creatures" weakening his body.   A few years ago during a flu epidemic I had been visiting my children in New York and came down with a crippling case of the flu.  I clambered aboard a plane and returned to Southern California early since I refused to be so incapacitated in New York.  I was sure I was going to die for I was almost unable to lift one foot after the other.   I rushed to the Emergency Room and got some medicine, and the doctors suggested I get Pedeolyte to replace the loss of minerals in my body.  I dragged myself to the drug store, got a bottle, and drank it alcoholically.  It was like magic.  In less than an hour I was renewed, not feeling chipper, but able to move about without the sense of dread that death was about to descend upon me.
       In my mind, the Pedeolyte was the miracle cure for Baby Angus.   One swig of it, I thought, would bring him back to life, etch upon his face his usual  happy smile, and give him the energy to laugh and shout out his gurgles that everyone tried to interpret as words.
       Around me, the body of humanity had no idea about my mission--that I was en route to "save my grandson."   The people were laughing and talking, engaged in what I considered irrelevant conversations about how they looked or who was coming to what party, or what bar had the best music, or who won the football games, or how "so-and-so" had been rude or arrogant.   On New York City sidewalks you hear bits and pieces of thousands of conversations, as though you were the Homeland Security Wiretap Team plugging in randomly to everyone's phone lines.
       Finally, I located the elixir at a 24-hour pharmacy.   There was a long line, maybe twenty people and only one attendant manning the cash register.  I wanted to shout--"I'm On A Mission From God!  Get Out Of My Way!" but I didn't.  I shuffled my feet and inched my 6-4, 275-pound frame toward the register without once telling anyone in front of me that my mission was more important than their need for chewing gum, or breath fresheners, or hand lotion.   After paying for the Pedeolyte, I mushed my way back to our daughter's apartment, elated I had in my possession a "cure" for the ailing child's dehydration.

       I thought of the statue of Balto in Central Park, the famed Husky who led the dog sled team 1,000 miles to Nome, Alaska in 1925 to save the children of the town from an epidemic of deadly diphtheria.  Balto braved temperatures below 40 degrees and "winds that could knock a tree down" to save the children of Nome.  Balto died in 1933 and his body is preserved and displayed at Cleveland's Natural History Museum where he spent half of his life.
        I felt like Balto, Canine of Vigilance.   No ice or storm or wild creature crossing my path could stop me from getting to the apartment door with the life-saving Pedeolyte.   I was Balto, hero of the frozen north, protector of sick children.
       There was still snow and ice left on the streets from the Christmas Day snowstorm, adding to my imagery of being Balto.  The wind whipped, chilling my ears as I worked my way between, around and sometimes through the throngs who cluttered the sidewalks. I slit my eyes as I thought Balto might have against the fierce wind and snow and trudged over the ice and fragments of snow.   Finally, I made it to the apartment.  I wanted to howl in glee.
       On the way home after our daughter and son-in-law returned, and we handed over Baby Angus to their care, I again listened to the conversations of the people on the streets.   It was Saturday night, and on average they were relatively young people, in their thirties.   They weren't talking about North Korea, or Iraq or the cloning of babies by cults, or the recent Chechen government building bombing by two suicide bomber trucks that killed 55 and wounded 123.  What they were talking about seemed so mundane to me I wanted to shout:  "Don't you know the children of Nome, Alaska are dying of diphtheria!"
        I wanted to be Balto, Sentinel of Greater Vigilance.  I wanted to snarl and bark at the youth, grab them with my teeth and shake them until they stopped worrying about how cool they thought they were, or how their new back pack could hold more stuff, or what this person thought of that one, or what bar had the best deal on drinks.
       It seemed the streets of New York were flowing with the virus of Complacency, injected by the Beast of Terror who doesn't want people to think about anything but themselves, about their own little small worlds measured by the mirror's reflection or how much money they have in their pocket, or how many heads turn when they waltz by.
       "The children in Nome are dying!"

        I  really wanted to shout those words.  I wanted all of the people on the streets to be talking about Vigilance, worrying about North Korea shoving out the weapons inspectors, hooding the television cameras in the Yongbyon nuclear facility  and bringing in 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods to make plutonium for nuclear bombs.  I wanted them to be arguing over South Korean President Kim Dae-jung's "sunshine policy" strategy to bring North and South Korea closer despite North Korea's flagrant refusal to abide by the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.   I wanted them to argue the illogic of President Bush's pre-emptive attack strategy against Iraq and his "hands off" attitude about blowing up the nuclear manufacturing plant in North Korea, which allegedly has produced two nuclear bombs and intends on building three more.   I wanted them to argue why Asia doesn't have a NATO, and to support the presence rather than removal of 37,000 American troops guarding the DMZ which is 150 miles wide and two and a half miles wide.    
       There was not a whisper heard of those issues as we weaved our way through the spools of people sewing their way up and down First Avenue in the chilly night.
        There was even silence on the cloning issue.   Rogue scientists claim they have cloned human children.   Small groups working outside the international scientific community allege to have "created" the first human clone, a child born to replicate its parents, to extend in the 21st Century what Adolph Hitler demanded in the 20th Century--that a "super race" be formed, minus all the flaws of races with inferior qualities, that would rise up and lead the world the way they wanted it led.

        Little factual information is available from these rogue cloners because they do not want to share their data with the science of cloning for a number of reasons--the strongest being the moral criticism of playing "God" with life.   Nothing, I thought, could endanger human beings more than twisting nature's will and creating life to specifications.   I shivered in the cold air not just because my physical self was victim to the icy winds, but because the draft in my soul caught the empty winds of Complacency among so many.   One day, I thought, the world will awaken to a strange mutation of human life, and instead of worrying about how one looks or what bar he or she will find the most excitement, the dilemma will be the future of humanity as we have known it.   
       The final aggravation was there was nothing about the World Trade Center twins uniting to share their common feelings toward their brothers and sisters who died on September 11, 2001.    More than 50 victims of the World Trade Center attack were twins, and their counterparts gathered here the other day to share their stories about what it was like to have their genetic duplicate killed under the crushing destruction of the Twin Towers.
        The universe connects twins with a special cognition, a knowledge between themselves uncommon between average brothers and sisters, sisters and sisters, brothers and brothers.    Identical or fraternal, history has recorded the heightened sensory knowledge of one twin for another.    There is some avenue of communication little understood that allows a twin to "feel" the other twin's emotions, to sense the other twin's emotions.
        I wondered if the twin conference talked about their counterparts being Sentinels of Vigilance?   I wondered if they knew they hovered over Ground Zero, eyes panning the horizon, ever Vigilant to ward off Terrorism with their Shields of Vigilance and Swords of Vigilance?   I wondered why, also, the people on the streets didn't want to talk about the twins, or North Korea, or the clones.
        I felt like an alien last night.
        I knew the scattering of humanity on the streets represented those wishing to "escape" reality, and justified their lack of tackling the issues to pre-planned Saturday Night Complacency.  After all, they had worked hard all year and now they were out to wash themselves in the Holiday joy and excitement of the city.   Why chew on such grisly issues as North Korea?  Iraq?   Cloning?  Nine Eleven Twins?  Chechnya Terrorists?

         Why should they be Baltos?
         But my efforts to justify their Complacency only angered me.
        I caught myself resenting the simple-mindedness of those passing by, speaking in shapeless, meaningless terms about nothingness.
       I supposed I had spent too many days as a TerrorHunter.  I supposed I was thinking too much about the safety of my grandson's health, and the health of all the children, past, present and future.
       I thought about the South Korean children who climb up into an observatory looking from South Korea to North Korea and are told by their teachers--"One day you will be able to visit there."  I thought about the concept of peace, and how the Beast of Terror draws lines between nations and peoples, fueling the derision with Fear, Intimidation and Complacency.
        I wished the people last night had spoken one word of Vigilance, just to reassure me they weren't swallowed by the Beast of Terror, weren't consumed by his hunger to blind the youth to the future of the world, and how to deal with it.

       I was disappointed, however.   Not a word of Vigilance was heard except, "Look Out!" when a taxi brushed too close to a group standing on corner.
        As I lay in bed, I thought of Balto.  I thought of him standing at attention up in the sky, with the Sentinels of Vigilance, howling.

        I  hoped he would awaken the Spirit of Vigilance in those walking the streets.  Vigilance, I knew, was the serum that would fight the deadly Terrorism disease of Complacency.  I just hoped Balto had enough of it to go around.
         If you want to inoculate yourself from Complacency, take Balto's serum today.  Take the Pledge of Vigilance (see below)