The VigilanceVoice

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Monday-- February 11, 2002—Ground Zero Plus 153

The Miracle (s) Of Nine Eleven
Conceptions Of Life In The Face Of Death
by
Cliff McKenzie
Editor, New York City Combat Correspondent News 

GROUND ZERO, New York City--There is life after death.   It comes in the form of new children.  It is the legacy of human evolution--the purpose for our existence--to grow, to expand, to explore the universe of thought and imagination.  To find peace in a world laced with Terrorism.
        Today is the 153rd day after Ground Zero.    In real time it is 154 days since the first Terrorist plane smashed into the World Trade Center North Tower at 8:46 a.m.--an attack heard around the world.  Since the War of 1812, America has been free of  foreign invaders attacking its mainland soil.  
        Unfortunately, death is part of life--it is its handmaiden, its denouement.  Nature automatically replaces that which is lost.   The tree's broken limb grows a new one, the trampled plant  issues its seed despite being crushed so its children can grow again in the New Season of Life.  The cities of Dresden and Hiroshima rebuild themselves after World War II.   An abused child heals the emotional scar tissue through love and therapy, struggling to avoid transmitting its horror onto his or her own children.
       While death takes, life gives.  Around the world, millions of babies are being conceived as I write these words.  Seeds are being fertilized in the wombs of mothers of all races, religions, creeds.  Some mothers live in total luxury in regal skyscrapers overlooking Central Park, others struggle in impoverished villages in dusty, fly-infested huts where just outside children starve to death before they have a chance to live.
       This is the yin and yang of life, even if we don't like its reflection.   Life replaces death, regardless of the ease or hardships of its offspring.  
       Nine Eleven was no different in that respect.   Except for one important note.  The children conceived in the aftermath were Miracles of Vigilance--at least, I believe they were. 
      One of those Nine Eleven conceptions is my grandson or granddaughter.  My older daughter and her husband conceived a child immediately following September 11, or on that date.  Her pregnancy is aligned with the days following the attack.
     Based on the  birthrate published by the U.S. government of 14.2 births per 1000 population, 11,672 Miracles of Vigilance were conceived that day.  For "numbers people" I took the annual births of 3,947,600 and reduced it by 25% to account for a nine-month pregnancy.  That left 2,960,700 net nine-month births.  I divided this "nine-month-birth-cycle" by 365 days to average out the conceptions per day.
     If any of you number crunchers are double checking me, you'll find I'm off by 3,561 births.   The reason is simple math and moral consternation.  Annually, Americans abort 1.3 million children.   If you do the math, America had 11,672 conceptions on September 11, but only 8,111 will be born.   The 3,561 will never have a chance at life.
     Even though the aborted children will not statistically make it into the record books as a "live birth," or as a statistical "Miracle of Vigilance," I will remember them. They will have died as heroically, and perhaps more so, than those in the World Trade Center.  Hopefully, so will others.  The  3,561 abortions conducted on September 11, 2001, rivals the number of lives lost in the holocaust at the World Trade Center and Pentagon.   Realistically, the "Victims of Terrorism" should be doubled.   Not only did Al-Qaeda kill our citizens, but we also turned our heads as thousands of our own were sucked down a tube for a variety of reasons, none of which makes any sense to Mother Nature.

        The 8,111 children who will statistically be born nine months after September 11 will not only be charged with symbolizing a great tragedy in American history by the attack of the Terrorists, but they will have 3,561 others to mourn for--their other "seeds of Vigilance" which never sprouted, who were attacked by the "right to kill one's offspring."
      Terrorism comes in many forms and shapes.  Some we laud as "individual rights" others we admonish as acts of the "Evil Ones."   
      I prefer not to think of the aborted children on that day.  It is easier for me to praise the glory of those who will be born than to feel the sadness and waste of those who were destroyed on the whim of a parent, and the acquiescence of a society that has devalued life by legalizing its termination.
     I have a grandson or granddaughter gestating in the womb of my daughter.  It is swimming in amniotic fluid, receiving blood and nutrients and shaping its body so it can "make a difference" in a world often smothered by "indifference"--to the cruel and senseless taking of life on a personal, political, or religious whim.
      Abortion frustrates me.  Our headlines blare the "war news" of our "hunt for bin Laden" as though he were the only Terrorist or symbol of Terrorism in the world. We hold up the victims of Nine Eleven as we might the Holy Grail, justifying the use of America's might to smash those who dared to kill our 3,500 adults on September 11, while each day that passes as we hunt down bin Laden, an equal number of future U.S. citizens are stripped of their life without a blink, a nod, a grimace, a whimper of our nation's conscience to fight for them.

      While the President of the United States attends funerals for the fallen of September 11, he avoids the unmarked graves of the aborted babies whose full-grown bodies would fill the hole left at the World Trade Center in less than a year.
       No matter how hard we ignore their deaths, they must be counted as victims of the tragedy of September 11.  Their removal from the earth is nothing more than a civilized act of Terrorism, not unlike the uncivilized act of Terrorism performed by those Terrorists who smashed their planes into the heart and soul of America in New York City and Washington D.C..
       I want my Miracle of Vigilance Grandchild to know he or she was a gift of Nine Eleven.  I want him or her to know there is some powerful reason for the birth of 8,110 other Miracles of Vigilance conceived that same day, and, that there was no reason for the death of 3,561 others who could have been given life but for a law which sanctions the killing of innocent children--a law which Nature herself abhors because it violates the principle of growth and replacement and survival of a species--they were never given the right to live.  
       I do not side with religion or politics on this issue, only with Mother Nature.   Were she for the arbitrary killing of life before it was born, I would have no argument with abortion.  But she doesn't condone genocide.   She supports the struggle for life, not the ease of death.  Her mission is to keep life growing, evolving, adapting, expanding, replacing itself.
       Perhaps I am emotionally connected to new life because I placed my hand on my daughter's tummy the other evening to feel the life within.   I looked at the sonogram of her child sucking its thumb in her womb.   I saw the Miracle of Life's face.   I felt the Miracle of Vigilance speaking through my fingertips.

        In the womb of my daughter, and the other thousands of mothers who conceived that horrible day of September 11, beats the heart of America's future.  While all children are precious, these 8,111 Children Of Nine Eleven will have an added gift upon their birth.   They will be born as symbols of Vigilance, special reminders to us all of the need to fight our fears with courage, our intimidations with convictions, our complacencies with action.  They are not alone.
        On the other side of the world, Afghanistan women will also be bearing Miracles of Vigilance.   While America has ten times the population of Afghanistan, it doesn't have a lock on Miracles.  
        In that country, nine months from now, 3,063 children will be born by Afghan mothers.   Afghanistan has a reported 1.2 million births per year at a rate 41.4 births per 1,000 population--nearly three times the birth rate of America.  
       Afghan children, as our own, will replace the dead.   Annually, Afghan's death rate is 17.72 per 1,000 population, not quite twice as high as America's 8.7 per 1,000 population.   478,440 will die, not including any additional due to the bombing and war currently being fought.  On major difference between the U.S. and Afghanistan is the life span.  For the U.S. its nearly 74 for men and 80 for women;  for the Afghan's it is 47 for men and 45 women.
      Infant mortality, however, will claim many of the children.   In America, our infant mortality is .0066 per 1,000 live births, or just a bit more than a half a percent of all live births.   Afghanistan's is 22 times that of the U.S., 147.02 per 1,000 live births.   
       Whether Afghan children will grow up to be Miracles of Vigilance or Terrorism is yet to be decided.   They will have a choice.   All children have choices.   It is part of Mother Nature's architecture to offer a child the right to "go with the flow" or "swim against the current."    On both sides of the world, one or more of the Nine Eleven Children may become great leaders of peace and unity, or advocates of violence and destruction.    Only time and the cast of the dice can predict that final outcome.  But all have a chance because they were born.  The aborted have not choice.  Pregnant mothers killed in bomb blasts or by mines, have no choice.
       Regardless of the parents political, social, economic or religious convictions, a child is born with pure innocence.   Circumstances shape its behavior, beliefs and convictions.  But in the final analysis, an individual chooses either to act for the good of humanity or as its agent of destruction. 
       I hope my granddaughter or grandson recognizes that he or she was not alone on the Day of Conception, September 11.   I hope he or she has the wisdom to see beyond his or her race, culture and creed to the great expanse of a world that needs more people carrying the Shield of Vigilance than the Sword of Terrorism.
      To reinforce this wish, I'm going to put my head on my daughter's tummy and press my ear against her womb in hopes I can hear the child's heartbeat.   Then I'm going to whisper softly--Semper Vigilantes--Semper Vigilantes--Always Vigilant--Always Vigilant--and hope the words find a home in the child's heart, and in all children's hearts who conceived that day, and all those conceived from that day forward.