Never Forget Something Something

As you are aware, I HATE memorial-type cartoons. Well, I usually hate them. What I hate about those cartoons is that they rarely say anything meaningful or significant. At my last newspaper job, it was mandated that I draw a cartoon for Memorial Day and Veterans Day. My only problem with that is that I didn’t have a choice and I wasn’t allowed to say anything meaningful. It was a challenge to say the same thing twice a year, year after year, in a new way.

The other thing I always hated about these kinds of cartoons is that it’s knee-jerk nationalism. No thinking is required. You support America with no questions asked. That’s very dangerous and I almost lost my job because of it. So in addition to the two military holidays, a lot of cartoonists are also burdened to draw to commemorate December 7 and 9/11.

Some cartoonists don’t mind this stuff because it’s a day they can phone it in. Here’s one for my colleagues who haven’t thought of their 9/11 cartoon yet. Draw a bald eagle with a tear drop coming out of one of his eyes, make sure it doesn’t look like a money shot, and give him a thought balloon containing the World Trade Center. You’re done and you’ll get a gazillion reprints, just so long as that tear doesn’t look too jizzy. The funny thing about this is that if someone has already drawn that cartoon, it doesn’t matter.

I drew the rough for this cartoon last year and it probably would have been more appropriate then as it was the 20th anniversary (oops, 21st). But, something else happened that made me shelve it. What happened around this time last year? I had to look at my folder from 2022 because I couldn’t remember, but I knew it was big. What was it? Queen Elizabeth died. So, I stuck it in my Maybe folder to wait a year. I was reminded of it when I saw a couple of 9/11 memorial cartoons on Facebook. Naturally, those cartoons were empty basic memorial cartoons. But remember, I’m not like a lot of cartoonists.

Yes, let’s never forget 9/11…but let’s also never forget all the bullshit that followed, and maybe some of the bullshit that preceded it (In case you’re a Republican, “precede” means before).

Speaking of never forgetting, where were you when 9/11 happened? I was sleeping in and my phone woke me up. It was my friend Mitch telling me that a plane had just flown into one of the towers. At first, I didn’t know what kind of plane it was so I wasn’t sure if it was a terrorist attack. As I was turning my TV on, Mitch called me again to tell me a second plane had flown into the second tower. He asked, kinda laughing, “What’s wrong with these pilots?”. I said, “Mitch, this is a terrorist attack. It’s al Qaeda.” It was obvious these weren’t accidents. At that time, al Qaeda was the only one on our radar having previously attacked the USS Cole while it was docked in Yemen’s Aden harbor and two of our embassies in Africa. This was actually al Qaeda’s second attack on the World Trade Center, previously bombing it with a van in 1993. The Clinton administration had also coordinated a missile attack against al Qaeda in Afghanistan. It had to be al Qaeda responsible for the strikes on the World Trade Center. I don’t think I even showered before I went to work. I was at work when a hijacked plane flew into the Pentagon. About an hour and 20 minutes later, the fourth hijacked plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania because the passengers revolted.

We should never forget the heroes of 9/11 and all who died. Over the years, I’ve met people who lost friends and family members in 9/11. Today, there are adults who were born after 9/11 which blows my mind that they lived in the world before it. We are still living in a world affected by 9/11. We can never forget that.

But let’s not forget why it happened or the mistakes and crimes that followed.

Update: I forget things. I just looked through my folders of roughs and this cartoon was written TWO years ago. My confusion is that I do remember pushing it aside for Queen Elizabeth’s death but it had “20th anniversary” on it. So, I held onto this one idea for two years.

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