Freddy Mercury of Queen wrote the fighting ballad "We Will Rock You!" and combined it with a slow ballad to create the megahit "We Are the Champions". In discussing our numbness after September 11th of 2001, Chris expressed that it was hard for him to motivate himself toward doing much of anything. Here's my response, which later I posted to Scouts-L and Embers.

Hey Chris!

I am personally having a hard time dealing with this.

You and about 99 percent of the people in the nation, Chris! Jessi and I
have just finished talking over the phone...she's wanting me to fill up my
tank before I come home this evening. She's saying that gas stations are
backed up with people filling up so that they can take advantage of the low
prices now before morning, when gas prices are supposed to shoot upward in price!

She said that everywhere she goes, she sees people with a desperate look on their faces. I explained to her that they are scared. They are frightened
and that as Dave wrote earlier, our nation and perhaps the world has changed
as of this morning. They don't know who to blame -- terrorists from some
foriegn country or our own "home-grown" terrorists. Does anyone recall what happened after the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in OKC a few years back??

Let me refresh your memories. It was a morning, like this one, with people
coming and going in front of a "secured building" as all of our federal
buildings had become due to bombings overseas in recent years.

Right after nine in the morning, a truck pulls up in front of the building,
the driver exits, and a short momments later, the side of the building and
the truck explodes.

Right away, everyone including the President was getting ready to go out and
kick some serious butt overseas somewhere....there's a lot of people to kick
and in some cases, we were just WAITING for them to "knock that block off
our shoulder" or "cross that line." Then...we all were horrified to find out...

..that it wasn't someone speaking some strange language, or someone wearing rags for clothing, or even someone whom can barely understand English. It was a very educated, highly trained (by the US MILITARY!!), and decorated Gulf War veteran who chose to take out his rage, hatred and anger out on the government he swore to protect. He and a friend of his, also feeling the same way, looked up some simple recipes, rented the truck and blew up the building.

We were all about ready to bomb some off-shore country when it was
discovered that these two people did this.

We felt shameful. We felt relieved in a way, because we could now blame
someone. And just like today, every hate group and organization attempted
to distance themselves from the "ones who did this" unsuccessfully.

The nation bound together. We held each other. We celebrated the lives and
the deaths of those involved. We moved forward.

That's what we have to do in this case, too. We have to move forward.
Whoever did this...home grown, or from some other land, far away -- wants us to be distant. Wants us to be confused. Wants us to doubt our government, our leaders and ourselves. They win when this happens.

But when we move FORWARD as a nation, not just as individuals, but together
-- holding each other up, supporting each other, leaning on each other,
wiping each others' tears...THAT'S UNBREAKABLE, that's strength, that's what our nation has been all about since it was conceived by a group of farmers and businessmen so many years back.

That's the message we need to send out to our Scout and Scouter friends,
Dave. Not one of restitution. Not one of anger. Not one of "desperate
acts deserve determined fists!"

As Scouters, we teach our Scouts and Venturers that the best way to handle
fear and despair is to talk through it and move forward with that knowledge.

If we know that we're scared of something, it doesn't bother us as much and
there's others there who now know that it bothers us....and they will help
us get through it if they are truly friends.

We need to have our Scouts and Scouters to talk through their fear, their
despair. We need to let them know that whoever is behind it will be caught,
will be punished, the right way, just like it was in the past.

We need to let them know that it's okay to be scared.

We need to let them know that it's okay to be mad or to cry or to yell out.

We also need to let them know that they need to maintain control. Over
themselves and over those around them. Over the situation they are now
in...whether they are in New York City, Washington/Pentagon City, Boston, or
upstate Pennsylvania. Or in Little Rock, Dallas, Creek City, or Portland.

That's the message, I feel, we need to send to our Scouters and their youth
members, gang. Not one of "we'll get you back, you so-and-sos" because we
don't know for SURE WHO was behind it. The coming days, when the recorders are found from the planes; when the videotape is played back and the people found; and when our government's agents and those whom support our government around the world and within our borders start taking stock and telling us who, when, and why -- those are the days in which our Scouts and Scouters will be glad that they moved FORWARD and decide to make the next day just as good as yesterday.

Our Scouts and Scouters, gang, are the future of our nation, of Scouting, of
life in these United States. We need to insure that we give them a positive
message, a message which states "We will get over this too, and we will do
it TOGETHER, just like we teach all of you in Scouting!" We need to say more
than "give blood." We need to say:

"We need to move FORWARD and you need to be in front, in the middle and in
the back, getting us there. We don't have a momment to spare!"