I have friends who are runners. Michele Poole has participated in twenty-one consecutive Freihofer’s Run for Women races, and I suspect she’ll be there for her twenty-second race. My trivia team buddy Jeremy McNamara has run half-marathons and triathlons, and he’s currently in training to participate in another triathlon later this year. I have Facebook friends whom I know have competed in the Utica Boilermaker race or the “Runnin’ of the Green” race through Green Island. I’ve worked with people who have actually run the New York City Marathon and the Boston Marathon.
And prior to 2:50 p.m. Monday afternoon, the only thing I would have associated with the Boston Marathon was that it ran through neighborhoods and areas familiar to me – these had names like Park Street and Copley and Kenmore, stops on the Green Line MTA train route. The race was always held on Patriot’s Day, a Massachusetts state holiday that celebrated the original start of the Revolutionary War. And before 2:50 p.m. Monday afternoon, most people outside of Massachusetts might associate Patriot’s Day with getting an extra day to file your Federal income taxes.
Yesterday, Jeremy put a message on Facebook, asking who’s running Boston. My friend Ed made a comedic post about how to contact the mayor of Boston. I followed that up by saying that Tom Scholz has run Boston for nearly 40 years.
And then at 2:50 p.m., that all changed.
I saw the video of the explosions. I saw the runners falling down, their bodies hit with shrapnel and percussion. The police. The rescue workers. The absolutely disgusting act by individuals whose sense of decency disappeared the moment they came up with an idea to kill people.
Don’t tell me that this is an act of terrorism. It was an act of cowardice. And an act of murder. And an act of treason upon our nation. What do you tell the parents who earlier that morning took their eight-year-old son to see the Marathon.. and later that evening, were forced to make funeral arrangements.
Even this morning, I can’t watch the footage without thinking of what would have happened if the injured runners had included any of my friends. If the injured bystanders had been anyone in my life. But it doesn’t matter if I know the injured or I don’t. They’re human beings. They may have run in their first marathon ever; this may have been the culmination of their chance to fulfill a dream, the finish line their final goal of a personal challenge.
And some filthy, soulless cowards took that away. And for what reason? There is never a good reason for hurting innocent people. Were these runners supposed to wear body armor as they cross the finish line?
And should we now enter a period of fear? Where we worry about that unattended knapsack on the subway, the briefcase on the park bench? Do these cowards think they are the second coming of the Irish Republican Army? No. I equate their acts with those of Timothy McVeigh, who two decades ago this very month, orchestrated the bombing of the Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City. Or of those of Eric Rudolph, the worthless excuse for a human being who orchestrated the 1996 Atlanta Olympics bombing. Cowards.
As someone who spent many formative years in Boston, I stand with those who helped and saved and healed. I pray for those who were injured and mourn those who have passed. I may be a resident of New York, but Boston is still in my heart.
And a personal message to the disgusting, worthless pieces of scum who would threaten our freedom and who would hurt their fellow human beings in such a manner.
Justice will find you. Your disgusting act of vulgarity will not go unpunished. And that, once you are found and tried and convicted…
I want you to feel the pain that you inflicted on those whose lives you took away.
Boston will rise again. We will not let the acts of cowards destroy our freedom. Never. We didn’t let it happen in 1775.
And we sure as hell won’t let it happen in 2013.
Chuck The Writer 