I wanted to tell you a story about my best friend Peter. We met in high school back in 1984. I was a confused kid who was a musician and he was a not-so-confused kid who enjoyed listening to and collecting music. We became fast friends and saw many concerts together. When it was time for college in 1987, Pete headed off to Northeastern in Boston and I was accepted to Berklee School of Music in Boston.

In September 1989, I moved into Pete’s apartment. It was a tough time for me. I had just dropped out of school and needed to find a job hopefully in a music related field. I applied to the coolest record store in Boston, Planet Records. I filled out my application with my usual low self-esteem attitude that was common for me at the time.

Pete saw my application lying around and immediately got to work. He typed it up and added parts about my expertise in jazz and blues. I got the job, but I always wondered if he helped me so he could have better access to those great albums in the store!

Sure, that was part of it, but it was more than that. He really cared for me as a friend and helped me get my life started. In 1991, after Pete moved out, he met a beautiful woman named Sue Kim. I was in the wedding party on that August day in 1993 and was so proud of them. We remained very close and when times were tough for me, I could always count on Pete and Sue for friendship. In February 1999, they had a baby girl Christine who they told me was named in my honor.

Uncle Chris was there dressing up as a clown or Santa and beaming with pride that my best friend had a wonderful family that I was so close to.

In 2001, the Hanson’s took a vacation to visit Sue’s family in California. For some reason I had a strong urge to reach out to them that Friday in September. I sent Pete an e-mail wanting to get together. I didn’t receive the response until the following Thursday, but he sent it to me Monday the 10th. “Sorry I missed this. Was busy all weekend anyway. Going to LA tomorrow with the family, be back in a week and will call. It will be Christine’s first visit to Disneyland.”

Of course Christine never got to see Mickey Mouse and became the youngest victim of 9/11 at 2 1?2 years old. Pete, Sue and Christine and thousands more were murdered that Tuesday morning. I couldn’t believe it and was in complete and total shock at the loss as was the entire country. After the grief, the anger set in. Let’s go get them! Osama bin Laden and countries like Saudi Arabia where 17 of the 19 murderers came from. Wipe out the Taliban! I was very happy that we went into Afghanistan and took out the Taliban. It will be no time before we get Osama and maybe go after Saudi Arabia. Of course this never happened. We cut and ran in Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden is still free and President Bush holds hands with the Saudi Arabians.

I started to hear about the resurgence of the Taliban about a year ago. It was like hearing about new cases of polio or ricketts. I was sure that we wiped them out already. Then in March 2002, the president told us that he doesn’t spend much time thinking about Osama bin Laden. He doesn’t know where he is and doesn’t care.

I’ve told you all this so that you might understand why some would question the Iraq war. This has been said before by a lot of people including President Bush, but it bears repeating. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. If your friends were murdered and the police were looking at the wrong suspects, would it bother you? Iraq is in a civil war. Let’s get out of there and find the people that murdered Christine once and for all.

Chris Clark lives in Standish

Copy the Story Link