An Open Letter To He Who Hides Behind the Casket of Innocents 

From: Randy Wayne White 
Pine Island, Florida 


On Tuesday morning, September 11th, 2001, you delivered onto our nation 
yet another public invitation, and then, characteristically, fled into the 
shadows. Because your invitation was written on the flesh of innocents, and 
with the blood of our heroes, it demands a response. 
A week ago, most of us would have declined out of indifference, out of 
ignorance. We were an insulated people, secure in the triumphs of our 
forefathers. 

Not today. Not ever again. In the last few hours, we have aged a 
generation. Our indifference lies beneath rubble in a great city, so your 
invitation - as much as we loath your methods - is now most welcome. We 
welcome it because you have forced us to understand that the event which you 
press upon us is inevitable and unavoidable. You have invited us to a Day 
of Reckoning. We accept. That Day of Reckoning will soon come. 
If our response seems unexpectedly strong, it may be because we were never 
the people you thought us to be. You have said publicly that you believe 
Americans to be weak, spoiled by our own wealth. You have said that we lack 
courage, resolve and morality. You have said that we are a mongrel nation, 
a nation divided by racial hatred and class warfare. 
Perhaps it would be good to explain to you who we really are, and so thereby 
remind ourselves what our heritage demands of us. 
We are the sons and daughters of every race, all religions, the world's 
yearning masses, joined between two oceans and by a passion for self 
determination and freedom. Don't assume, because we use hyphens as 
identifiers, that a hyphen can divide us. Our own history proves, again and 
again, that in times of national emergency, we are all defined by one word, 
not two: American. 

In us runs the blood of revolutionaries and explorers, of farmers, 
immigrants and Algonquin statesmen, of train barons and train robbers, and of 
individuals who, though chained to slave ships, refused to bow down as 
slaves. We are the people who risked the gallows to create a sanctuary of 
earth that, for the first time in man's history, guaranteed religious 
freedom to all, as well as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. A mongrel 
nation? Absolutely. You may have forgotten the first time you spoke those 
words. It was in Berlin, 1939. 

We forgot, too, for a time. No longer. 

Do we lack courage, resolve and morality? You will soon curse the day that 
you doubted us. We are the 50,000 who took our strong convictions to earth 
at Gettysburg. We are the thousands of white crosses that rest where 
poppies grow at Flanders Field in France. We are Doolittle's Raiders and Patton's 
blood and guts. We are the 101st Airborne Screaming Eagles who jumped into 
Normandy - my own father among them - and we are the body of a lone Army 
Ranger that your followers dragged naked through the streets of Somalia. 
We are the 1st Cavalry who perished at Little Big Horn. We are Apache 
warriors who refused to run, and so stood awaiting death while chanting: 
"Your bullets stand no chance against our prayers!" 

To understand us read Thoreau and Emerson and Martin Luther King. Courage 
is a national cornerstone, but best demonstrated by us as individuals. We 
are Teddy Roosevelt charging up San Juan Hill on horseback and exploring 
rainforest rivers by canoe. We are Lou Gherig saying a fearless farewell. 
We are Rosa Parks, with tired feet, refusing to move to the back of the bus. 
We are John Wayne, standing tall, fighting cancer, and we are a great 
American Muslim named Ali, devoted to his understanding of what is right and 
wrong. 

Tough? Send a boxing team to the Olympics. Better yet, send them to 
Manhattan. We have some heroic fire fighters there who'd purely love to 
meet them. 

No. You cannot possibly know who we are, what we are, or you would not have 
delivered your cowardly message. 

The difficult question for us as Americans, though, is not will we triumph, 
but how? Our problem is this: In any conflict, the boundaries of 
acceptable behavior are defined by the party which cares least about morality. 
You have defined the boundaries, and there are none. The lives of the 
innocent, of women, children and good men, are meaningless. You hide weapon 
factories beneath day care centers. You hide collectively behind the 
caskets of innocents. You have no morality, no character, nor conscience, while we 
are blessed - and burdened - by all three. 

No matter. We will find a way. Americans always have. As Americans, we 
always will. Your invitation to us was written in the blood of our own 
heroes, so we have no choice but to accept. Your Day of Reckoning is near. 
A century from now, history will still hear the weeping of your widows. The 
world will agree that those of us who died that terrible Tuesday did not die 
in vain. 

Your cowardice cannot stand in the face of our resolve. Your Evil has no 
chance against our prayers. 

--Randy White White 
Pine Island, Florida