Welcome to the New Normal

This time of year is always special for me and it has nothing to do with the holidays. Twenty-five years ago, my unit was preparing to go to war. It had been fifteen years since our military had its last engagement in Vietnam. We had had small scale conflicts; Grenada and the communist factions of Cuba and the Soviet Union, Panama and the ouster of Manual Noriega just prior to Operation Desert Storm and the many years of watching the borders of Korea and Europe during the Cold War. Now a new war is upon us, terrorism. We have watched it from afar, it is something that happens over there and we have long been isolated from terrorism. As long as I can remember, there has always been terrorist acts being reported, written about and many of the acts were brought upon by; left versus right, have-nots versus the haves and religion against religion. The fights have always been over there, as we watch from afar and thought; how terrible it must be to live with terrorism. The troubles in Ireland, the loss of life as we watched from afar, terrorism between two factions, extremism and now the start of an old phenomenon has raised its ugly head in our country; terrorism. It’s no longer over there, it’s here and will be in our lives from here on. We can wage battles, over there, and talk of how we are going to defeat those who inspire terrorism, but it’s here, now. The real question is; how do we defeat terrorism? The answer is; you don’t. Is there peace in Ireland? Can there ever be peace in the Middle East? We can answer that with our own experience within our country, our racial divide. We can all claim ourselves as being optimist and looking forward to the brighter future but, I proclaim, being the ultimate pessimist, we cannot have peace as long as we have poverty, religion, different races and language. There is no sense in hiding in your home to escape terrorism, it’s here, live your life, be vigilant and know; terrorism can happen to you. Welcome to the new normal.