{"id":2658211,"date":"2026-09-11T08:09:59","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T12:09:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/utm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaignthe-9-11-stories-about-shared-identity-and-mutuality-are-beginning-to-seem-tragically-quaint\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T08:19:19","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T12:19:19","slug":"utm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaignthe-9-11-stories-about-shared-identity-and-mutuality-are-beginning-to-seem-tragically-quaint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/utm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaignthe-9-11-stories-about-shared-identity-and-mutuality-are-beginning-to-seem-tragically-quaint\/","title":{"rendered":"Stories About 9\/11 Are Stories About Shared Identity And Mutuality"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Futm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaignthe-9-11-stories-about-shared-identity-and-mutuality-are-beginning-to-seem-tragically-quaint%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2658211&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The passage reflects on the values of mutuality, shared identity, and community spirit evident in early 20th-century America, exemplified by the 1919 Transcontinental Motor Convoy, where soldiers and townspeople collectively endured hardships and celebrated their camaraderie. It highlights how Americans previously responded to each other with kindness and solidarity, especially during moments of crisis like 9\/11, when countless individuals risked and sacrificed their lives to help strangers. Stories of heroism, such as firefighters refusing to abandon injured colleagues and civilians organizing water rescues, emphasize a culture rooted in mutual aid. the piece contrasts this with contemporary societal divisions, noting the emergence of moral decay and ideological conflicts that threaten the sense of shared identity. It questions how americans would react in the face of future attacks, suggesting that the true test of their collective character lies ahead. The article concludes with references to cultural and political divisions, emphasizing the importance of understanding what culture awaits to be tested in times of crisis.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>To think about 9\/11, start eighty-two years earlier. This is my favorite story about who we used to be.<\/p>\n<p>In the summer of 1919, with soldiers home from World War I, the U.S. Army tested itself: If an enemy invaded the West Coast, how quickly could troops equipped with a new generation of cars and trucks, still an early technology, drive across the country to join the fight?<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov\/research\/online-documents\/1919-transcontinental-motor-convoy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Transcontinental Motor Convoy<\/a> covered 3,251 miles from Washington, D.C. to San Francisco in sixty-two days, mostly on unpaved highways, with 81 cars and trucks. A young lieutenant colonel named Dwight Eisenhower went along <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/research\/online-documents\/1919-convoy\/1919-11-03-dde-to-chief.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">as an observer<\/a>, and he thought the dirt paths through the intermountain West didn\u2019t deserve to be <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/read-in-full-president-donald-trumps-state-of-the-union-speech\/\" title=\"READ IN FULL: President Donald Trump&#039;s State of the Union speech\">called roads<\/a>. The not-quite 300 soldiers on the convoy broke dozens of primitive rural bridges and stopped to fix them, dragged trucks through mud and silt with ropes, and made their own replacement parts for damaged vehicles in a rolling machine shop. It was hard, dirty, exhausting travel.<\/p>\n<p>But the convoy\u2019s biggest problem just kept getting worse as it went west: The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/its-like-we-dont-even-exist-bidens-keystone-pipeline-executive-order-hurting-small-businesses-and-towns-video\/\" title=\"\u201cIt\u2019s Like We Don\u2019t Even Exist\u201d \u2013 Biden\u2019s Keystone Pipeline Executive Order Hurting Small Businesses and Towns (VIDEO)\">small towns<\/a> where they took their scheduled stops were excessively pleased by the arrival of the motorized column. Whole communities turned out to greet them. Towns threw dances and picnics and banquets; soldiers arrived at their evening destinations and found tables laden with fresh pies and roasted chickens. A logistics exercise produced <em>weddings and babies<\/em>, an awkward reality that impaired the military objective of testing the cross-country speed of a wartime maneuver, and the convoy commander had to learn the art of gently declining an insistent brunch invitation. You can see some of that hospitality here, and look for the banquet in the giant canopy tent around the 4:14 mark:<\/p>\n<figure>\n<p><span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"1919 Transcontinental Motor Convoy - Firestone Homestead Visit\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/6l04CSpmBe0?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><\/span> <\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Americans liked each other. Americans <em>recognized<\/em> each other, and felt pleasure to host a crowd of strangers. To a small town in Indiana or Nebraska, a military convoy from the East Coast was a bunch of <em>our guys<\/em>, a bunch of <em>us<\/em>, and the party started when the first trucks hit Main Street. The story is not about duty or obligation, and it\u2019s not at all a story about obedience or a grim nationalism. It\u2019s about a big rolling party that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/no-masked-billionaire-to-protect-us-here-the-batman-reviewer-says-new-york-is-basically-gotham-city-now\/\" title=\"\u2018No Masked Billionaire To Protect Us Here\u2019: \u2018The Batman\u2019 Reviewer Says New York Is Basically Gotham City Now\">made people feel good<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>On 9\/11, people acted over and over again on their sense of mutuality and shared identity. In Manhattan, not famously a place where strangers smile at each other on the street, people died trying to help their injured countrymen. You can find these stories everywhere, the people who sat down to die halfway down a smoke-filled staircase but then felt a stranger\u2019s hand pulling them back to their feet. William Crowther, still <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/MikeBales\/status\/2097127872888459310\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">remembered<\/a> as the man in the red bandana, \u201ccarried one burned woman down 17 flights, went back up, led another group out, and went up again.\u201d He died doing it.<\/p>\n<p>Immediately, instinctively, without hesitation, people who could help stopped for people who needed help. Firefighters died refusing evacuation orders, saying over the radio that they wouldn\u2019t leave injured people under any circumstances:<\/p>\n<figure>\n<p><span><\/p>\n<blockquote data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<div lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">\n<p>Patrick \u201cPaddy\u201d Brown, 48, Captain of Ladder 3. Marine, Vietnam tunnel rat, FDNY legend. Men transferred just to work for him.<\/p>\n<p>Sept. 11, 2001. He signed in at 8:00 a.m. After the first plane hit, Ladder 3 went up. Command ordered them out. From the 44th floor he radioed: \u201cI\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/OsPwo47gUL\">pic.twitter.com\/OsPwo47gUL<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u2014 Mike Bales \ud83e\udee1\ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8 (@MikeBales) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/MikeBales\/status\/2096565017659207778?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 6, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/span> <\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>\u201cI refuse the order,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.firehero.org\/fallen-firefighter\/patrick-j-brown\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Captain Patrick Brown<\/a> said. He died with his countrymen, choosing to share their danger when they were too badly hurt to help themselves, and not because anyone thought that he was required to. The opposite: His chain of command told him to run, and he wouldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p>When the towers fell, the evacuation of Lower Manhattan by water was explicitly ruleless and self-organizing. A Coast Guard lieutenant <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/BarnabyHistory\/status\/2097067384523706398\/photo\/1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">announced over the radio<\/a> that everybody with a boat should just do whatever they had to do, and hundreds of boats swarmed the city to grab people and race for safety. <\/p>\n<p>On 9\/12, rural Wyoming and small town Arkansas were horrified and enraged by an attack on New York City and Washington, D.C., in a spontaneous moment of mutuality and shared identity. They attacked <em>us<\/em>. They attacked Iowa and South Carolina as much as they attacked Manhattan. <\/p>\n<p>Some time has passed since then, and there are some obvious questions that can\u2019t be avoided.<\/p>\n<figure>\n<p><span><\/p>\n<blockquote data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<div lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">\n<p>The school teacher Lucy Martinez making the gun motion at her neck mocking Charlie Kirk is a prime example of this moral decay and demonic evil. <\/p>\n<p>And she is still employed teaching children her violent behavior. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/aIkx1qzzDm\">pic.twitter.com\/aIkx1qzzDm<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u2014 David Jaromnak (@EarnurHKG) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/EarnurHKG\/status\/2054726463593795839?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 14, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/span> <\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>TWANLOC: Those who are no longer our countrymen. If you haven\u2019t read it, take a moment with <a href=\"https:\/\/boriquagato.substack.com\/p\/socialists-and-anti-heroes\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">the report<\/a> on the Socialism 2026 conference from the pseudonymous writer at the Substack page called Bad Cattitude, which concludes that \u201cthe core of their beliefs\u00a0stands\u00a0antithetical to human flourishing.\u201d Their beliefs are also antithetical to shared identity and mutual sympathy. They are not us, and they very much don\u2019t think that we are them.<\/p>\n<figure>\n<p><span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"UVA&apos;s Tiffany King on her radical students wanting to \"crash\" the United States\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/VJ6jhZFUS7o?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><\/span> <\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>A major terrorist attack on an American city in 2026: What would the reaction look like? How would we behave in the streets as people fought to survive? <\/p>\n<p>What culture is waiting to be tested?<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      Chris Bray is a senior correspondent at The Federalist and a former infantry sergeant in the U.S. Army. He has a history PhD from the University of California Los Angeles, not that it did him any good. He also posts on Substack, at &#8220;Tell Me How This Ends,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/chrisbray.substack.com\/\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Reflecting on 9\/11, remember our past unity and heroism<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2086,"featured_media":2658212,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/lucy-scaled.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33651],"tags":[56199,85495,85494],"class_list":["post-2658211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-western-journal","tag-9-11-2","tag-mutuality","tag-shared-identity"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/lucy-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2658211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2086"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2658211"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2658211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2658217,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2658211\/revisions\/2658217"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2658212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2658211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2658211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2658211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}