Why Not Us?

My husband's employer sent an email to all 3,500 employees this afternoon informing them that within the last 24 hours someone left two flashlights near businesses that exploded when innocent people picked them up and turned them on. My husband has never received a similar email during the 9+ years he has worked at the hospital. The Feds are on it and obviously we're all praying that they catch whomever is doing this before someone is seriously hurt. The first 6 months of our marriage we lived outside Nuremberg in Bavaria, Germany. My lasting memory of landing in Frankfort is of guards armed with Uzis patrolling on a catwalk above us. The only place I had ever seen patrolling armed guards before was at a US Military base or when crossing the border into Canada. However, their weapons always were in plain sight but holstered. During our German classes we were taught how to tone down our "Americanness." We were instructed to speak more quietly (Americans are loud and boisterous) and how to hold a knife and fork like Europeans so we couldn't be singled out as easily. The Germans understood that they had roughly the same chance of being a victim of terrorism violence as they had of being hit by a car while crossing the street. It was just a fact of life. When the planes crashed into the Twin Towers on 9/11 my husband and I were shocked, but not totally. We knew it was only a matter of time before, like the Germans and other Europeans, we Americans learned that we, too, have roughly the same chance of being a victim of terrorism violence as we have of being hit by a car while crossing the street. It is just a fact of life. This morning while working out at SpoFit (I'm not one of those zone people while exercising) I met a man who tripped over his wife's power wheelchair, never felt any pain from the injury and 6 operations later had to have his leg amputated. It is just a fact of life. Rather than bemoan his fate he was working out in the pool while innocently bantering with the Aquatics Director who easily is young enough to be his granddaughter and was flattered by his attention.