September 11 Digital Archive

tp68.xml

Title

tp68.xml

Source

born-digital

Media Type

story

Created by Author

yes

Described by Author

no

Date Entered

2003-02-28

TomPaine Story: Story

""Toward A More Perfect Union""

Let's call him Doc. He is one of the Little Men.

I've known Doc for a bout 20 years. My contacts with him have been
fleeting, my conversations with him short, but I know that he sometimes
lives on the street when he is losing the battle against his chemical,
emotional, mental, physical and spiritual demons.

When I saw Doc a week or so after September 11th, 2001, he was on one of his losing streaks.

The horrible images of the destruction of the World Trade Center and at the Pentagon were still fresh in my mind.

I asked Doc what he thought of it all.

He looked at me, cocked his head to one side, thought a moment and said, ""For a motherfucker like me, it was just another day.""

We have learned more since 9/11 than I can set down here. I wonder if we have learned anything about Doc, his brothers and sisters, his sons and daughters?

Do we know that the Doc's of this great country, worried about finding a
job, a place to stay, something to eat, ""ain't feelin'"" our pain and sorrow, our anger and loss, our need for revenge?

Does the more perfect union we have attempted to forge in the aftermath of the attacks include Doc, who, like Rudyard Kipling's Tommy Atkins is
""chucked out"" in peacetime, but who is ""Savior of his country when the guns begin to shoot?""

Have we learned that the Little Men count as much as the Big Men--maybe more, since there are so many more of them?

I last saw Doc about a month ago. He was sober, happy, healthy and working.

A spirit such as his is one which this union will need to live long and
prosper.

If it rejects him, brands him a loser, can it long stand?

Citation

“tp68.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed November 4, 2024, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/753.