I'm not sure about that.

For certain, I'm not prepared to OPPOSE such a thing, but to be honest, I'm not sure I see the point.

Does anyone really observe Pearl Harbor Day anymore? A few, but only a few, and fewer every year.

No one really bothers to Remember the Maine, though. Remembering the Alamo is done purely for reasons of tourism.

The morning of 9-11 was something that no one who was alive and cognizant that day will ever forget without help from Alzheimer's. It was, I guess, our generation's "moment." Just as our parents all know exactly where they were when Kennedy was shot, we can all recount our tales of how we found out about 9-11. In fact, I just did so this afternoon in an exercise for my Documentary Videomaking class. I was planning to make several callbacks to the Trade Center that morning. I'd been building a phone rapport in a few of the offices over the prior weeks. I've often hoped that those folks were on the lower floors.

The point is, I'll always have that connection to the date. I'll think of it every year. I won't make a show of it with an FB post or a t-shirt, as I'm not the demonstrative sort (not that there's anything wrong with that), but I'll think and feel about it without any prompting from anyone.

However, the next generation won't, because to them it will be as Pearl Harbor is to us: a piece of history. Not a shaking event that rattled the nation's sense of security to the core, as these two events were to their respective generations, but as a a date in history that they have no heartstring tied to. That is, unless we fail them as our parents' generation didn't fail us when they solved the problem themselves. Even in that event, however, the feeling won't quite be the same.

So the reality of it is that our generation doesn't need to be reminded of the day or how we feel about it, and if made official it will be mere calendar clutter by 2060 at the latest. Not that our legislators wouldn't LOVE the distraction of having to run this through the channels, mind you.

And why, knowing that we'll never forget it ourselves, do we want to make a holiday of it? That question could lead to some serious self-discovery, couldn't it? Careful, now.

Certainly, people are sincere in feeling that this day should never be forgotten, ever, but they must know that this isn't realistic. Again, people felt that way about the Alamo, and they were sincere, too. Life will always heal the wounds of such atrocities under bandages made from bigger, newer atrocities.

Perhaps, and this is only a suggestion, we need to feel that after eight long years, something can actually be done decisively about it? Even if we can't get Osama, even if we can't eliminate Al Queda (whose name should really be HYDRA, they've got so damn many arms), we can at least do this? Perhaps it will make us as patriotic as the Pearly Harbor folks, despite the fact that they sacrificed their rubber, meat, sugar, and cookware to help the war effort where we took tax breaks instead and went shopping? Perhaps we just need to do something because we don't know what the hell to do but aren't ready to drop it, either?

So really, you want to give the folks in Washington the nod to pursue this aside from than the truckload of issues they're already falling behind on, I won't fight against it. I'll just be over in the corner, wondering.