A Story About Terrorism

A quick story. I was working on a job recently and had hired two young plumbers named Jimmy and Sean to re-pipe a building. Jimmy was breaking open a wall when he found an old newspaper stuffed inside. It was used as backing for an old plaster patch. He unfolded it and said in a soft voice "March fourth nineteen-seventy-six", then said loudly, "Sean, check it out, they had terrorists back in 1976." They huddled around the paper for a bit reading headlines in disbelief. Sean said,"that was before we were even born, they'll never get rid of those guys." I said, "these were different guys, the IRA," but I could tell it meant nothing to them. I said, "the Irish Republican Army," still nothing. Looking at these kids and by their names I suspected there was a very good chance that one or both had a distant relative that called Ireland home. I felt like tinkering with their perception of terrorists but I realized that making this connection maybe possible in my mind but probably not in theirs.
We talked a bit about the terrorists of today and it was clear that they had strong feelings about it. I'd call it a heart felt hatred for terrorists actually. They told me about where they were and what they felt on 9/11. Being in their teens and early 20's at that time, it was obvious that it was truly pivotal for them.
I remember the Cuban missile crisis and the fear I felt as my neighbor built a bomb shelter especially because my dad didn't. And I did hate the Viet Nam war but it was hard to know exactly who to hate.
My feelings about the 9/11 attack do not include hatred and it's not because hatred doesn't suit me anymore like some wasted energy or something. It's because I have always thought that efficiency was particularly important. Nothing complex, just a strong belief that the most important measure of success is how quickly something gets properly completed. Now, I know that this means different things to different people but since nothing has really been accomplished with a unified hatred approached to terrorism I think thoughtful people would agree it's time to try something new. But instead our Government acts like a couple of 20 year olds feeding off each others hormone induced one upsmanship and dragon slayer fantasies.
P.S The incident was a bombing in a London train station. It was the fifth since IRA hunger striker, Frank Stagg died after beginning his strike 62 days earlier.