What My Dad’s September 11th Has Taught Me About Americans & COVID-19

Bridging the gap between differential experiences is hard but not impossible

In late August 2001, before smart phones and social media connected everyone to everything, my dad went on a short-term missions trip to a remote part of Haiti.

He was still there on September 11th, in the hills and far from a landline, television, or computer.

I was the first one to reach him on a scratchy connection.

He’d heard from locals that something happened in New York, but broken English obscured the details. He hadn’t seen any images or videos of the events -- and wouldn’t until he returned.

In vain, I tried to convey the scale of devastation. “World Trade Center GONE! Commercial jets! Hijackers! Thousands dead!” (The thousands included a pastor at my then-church and a graduate of the high school I attended.) He still wasn’t quite grasping the situation. To this day, it’s something of a family joke that Dad doesn’t “get” 9/11.

How could he? He missed the visceral shock, fear, and uncertainty. He can’t live those hours, no matter how many times he listens to others talk about it or watches the towers collapse.

The difference between how my dad experienced September 11, 2001, and how (for example) New Yorkers experienced it is comparable to differences in how Americans experienced the onset of the COVID Era and the events that followed. I’m thinking not only of policy differences between states and cities, but the degree or extent to which individual citizens perceived the “rightness” of government actions and were compelled or forced to upend their lives.

In general, people who saw/see actions taken in the name of slowing spread of a “new” disease as

• a minor inconvenience,

• a good & necessary burden to bear,

• a nice break from their normal lives,

• a financial/professional/political boon, or

• compatible with their beliefs about illness, the role of government, sense of duty, etc.

at low or no personal cost, have very different experiences than people for whom March 2020 came at a very high cost, was morally injurious, and/or marked the beginning of The Worst of Times. Many Americans effectively “missed” the worst of the Human Rights Heist of 2020 just like my Dad “missed” 9/11.

Nothing can change people’s experiences, but one’s perspective about that experience is very much subject to other influences. Right now, it seems like the differences still interfere with many Americans’ ability to grasp that the decisions of nearly all governing officials in early 2020 were wrong.

That’s very different from the events of 9/11. My Dad didn’t have to see the events on live television or in person to recognize the twisted, depraved work of diabolical minds. Whatever one’s point of view on who/what all was responsible for that disaster, there was immediate, near-universal agreement that the acts involved pure, capital-E Evil.

If wrongs weren’t committed in 2020– only mistakes and errors in judgement – then it’s much easier to *move on* without talking about what happened, why, and who needs to be held accountable, isn’t it?

I submit that evils far more subtle (and arguably more damaging to more people) than the destruction of planes & buildings took effect with the so-called “pandemic response.” For instance:

• Pretending an illness is more deadly to a group of people than it is.

• Redefining sick as a positive test result irrespective of symptoms.

• Sorting jobs, & activities into “essential” and “non-essential.”

• Saying love is staying away from others.

• Forcing people to die alone.

• Using hourly workers to “protect” salaried professionals.

• Ordering churches/places of worship to close.

• Preventing healthy children from going to school.

• Jailing college students in dorm rooms or hotels.

• Forbidding weddings & funerals.

• Forcing humans to cover their faces as condition of public life.

• Threatening or revoking someone’s livelihood, liberty of movement, or participation in daily life for refusing an injection.

What’s hard to handle is how well-meaning, rule-following people like Joe Average mistook these evils for social and scientific “goods”. I’ve realized that getting millions of compliant, go-with-the flow-Joes to see, let alone say out loud, “Yes, all of that was destructive & wrong, whatever the intentions,” is a lot harder than getting people to say hijackers and their accomplices were villains of the worst kind.

There is no single or silver-bullet solution to the problem I’m describing - which is similar to “The Now I Know Problem” - but I believe that Americans for whom the “pandemic”¹ was either beneficial or not a big deal will eventually, over time, better apprehend what occurred by hearing, reading, and telling people’s stories.

It didn’t take long for Dad to put himself in others’ shoes by watching and listening to friends, family, and strangers talk about how they lived that day. This is the way of history, isn’t it? Most of us didn’t experience firsthand the myriad atrocities that occurred decades ago or in far-off places. It’s through the telling & re-telling stories that we gain empathy and understanding.

Some from the COVID Era that don’t involve my own family include

• the man in a nursing home in central Illinois who was not allowed to be in the same room with his visiting wife for over a year,

• the teacher who saw a student on Zoom sitting naked at a dining room table,

• the friend who lost 100 pounds in 2019 and gained it all back in 2020,

• the teen who took his own life after losing hope that high school football would resume,

• the kindergartner who missed 40 days of in-person school in 2021-22 due to illegally-implemented “close-contact exposure” quarantines,

• the neighbor who couldn’t give his mother the funeral she wanted (and he needed).

• the healthcare worker who refused the shot, lost her job, and is still out of work

• the overseas missionary who took the shot so his wife & daughters wouldn’t have to

Will such stories necessarily change the hearts or minds of everyone who still looks back on 2020 fondly or neutrally and/or are quick to chalk it all up to overreaction & mistakes?

No.

But I am hopeful the totality of evidence from millions of stories - as well as data, rigorous research, courtroom battles, etc. - can bridge “the experience gap.” If posterity, at least, is persuaded to view what happened in March 2020 as bafflingly unscientific, illegal, unethical, and depraved, they may be able to keep it from happening again.²

My Dad, watching a bald eagle in a field in Wisconsin (August 2017)

1. I don’t believe a pandemic occurred and assert it was staged.

2. I originally wrote this essay in September 2022 but never published it. This version captures about 85% of that draft. Although I direct my thoughts here to/about Americans, nothing I’m saying is exclusive to Americans.