I really don’t want to write about this but I feel like it is important. I am going to apologize in advance if any of you find this offensive as it is fairly controversial. But I would ask that if you are offended by something I say that you try to think about why and then comment on it letting me know how you feel. I find this topic hitting fairly close to home for both myself and a lot of my friends and family, but that is why I felt like I should write about it. I want to talk about the Boston Marathon and more specifically the reaction both last year in shutting down the city and this year in the new regulations put in place surrounding the race. If you haven’t seen the new rules check out this article: Boston Marathon 2014 Changes

I am having a hard time trying to decide which direction to take with this. On the one side I want to talk about how the reactionary measures of law enforcement and our governing bodies are essentially letting the terrorists win. On the other hand I think the problem lies in the average American giving up their civil liberties to ‘feel safe.’ So lets be serious here, I will probably talk about both and make this post way longer than it needs to be.

I am going to start with a little bit of background info here. First things first, what happened last year at the marathon was a terrible act of hate. In this instance, and in most terrorist attacks, the attackers targeted not a people but a way of life. It is difficult if you are not from Boston or have never experienced Marathon Monday to truly understand what it is like. Picture your favorite sporting event that you have attended. Now picture everyone in the city is rooting for the same team; and everyone in the city has the day off to root for the event, celebrate together, and take a day to support a tremendous feet of endurance. The official holiday is Patriots Day but to Bostonians it is known as Marathon Monday. The Sox’s play a day game, and college students spend most of the holiday day drinking and watching some portion of the race. In the past it has been a beautiful day and last year was no different, the weather was amazing, the Red Sox won, and it was shaping up to be a great day. Earlier that day I was at the finish line watching the wheelchair and hand-cycle participants cross the finish line and then headed to the Sox game. I couldn’t have imagined how my day would end. When I left the game I heard sirens but hey, it’s the city and there are sirens all the time, I didn’t think anything of it. I headed back up to my apartment on mission hill and that is where I heard what had happened. The rest of the day was spent watching the news and trying to get accountability for every member of my ROTC battalion, the whole time trying to convince myself I should be studying for a neuro exam (that didn’t happen). On that day 3 people lost their lives and hundreds where physically wounded and even more were emotionally effected. But the bombers did much more than that, they took away a piece of something much more. Some would say that they took away piece of mind but I think they took more than that as well. Marathon Monday will never be the same, much like flying on an airplane isn’t the same for people that experienced the trade center attacks of 9/11. Patriots Day was a celebration, and for many, this year it will be a harsh reminder that each and everyone of our lives is vulnerable. Even where we feel most safe and secure, even in the comfort of our own cities and homes, we are never truly safe. That is a fact of life that we as American’s do not understand as well as the rest of the world. We are very privileged to not know the violence that so many of our fellow inhabitants of this world see as commonplace everyday. And maybe it is this reason that we don’t know how to deal with it. Then again maybe not. But for one reason or another we do everything in our power to avoid the fact that if some evil doers in this world wants to hurt or kill people, no law, rule, or regulation will stop them from trying. If you think about it, the worst crime out there is murder (arguably) and if someone out there is willing to do that, do you think they really care about a rule saying they cant bring a backpack to a sporting event?

This is why I feel the terrorists are winning. They take something as beautiful as Marathon Monday and with such ease pervert it into something it is not. With the new rules put in place by the Boston Athletic Association (BAA) this year, the Marathon wont be the same. After a tragedy such as this it is important to take certain measures to minimize risks in hopes of preventing an event like this in the future. Is there any possible way that the BAA can 100% ensure that all 26.2 miles of the marathon are secure? Of course not. Life is full of inherent risks and those risks can not be avoided all of the time. And should they? No. Without risks, without failure, and without suffering there cannot be growth. So by making these rules and regulations regarding what you can and cannot bring to watch the race this year, is the BAA keeping us safe? Or are they simply reminding us of our fear? And what is the goal of those terrorists that commit the atrocity in the first place? Is it to kill as many people as possible? Maybe, but I would argue it is to attack our way of life and make us lose what we have. I think they want us to be scared, they want us to lose our spirit, they want us to give up our way of life. And in making these rules, by giving into our fears, and by letting us forget what freedom we once had, we are letting them win.

For the past few years there has been a charity organization known as Tough Ruck that takes place as a part of the marathon. Participants sign up to raise money for service members and their family members who have lost loved ones in the war. After raising money they ruck the marathon wearing a pack with the name of a service member who lost their life overseas. For my civilian readers out there a ruck is a backpack that soldiers use to carry their gear. These packs can vary in weight between 35 and upwards of 90 pounds depending on the needs of the mission. A ruck march is a walk or march between a 12 and 15 minute per mile pace either for training purposes or in order to get somewhere. Tough Ruck is a mixture of current military members and other people who sign up to participate. When these guys and gals head down Boylston Street towards the finish, the crowd starts chanting “USA! USA! USA!” If you have never seen it, it is quite the sight. But if you head down to the finish line this year you wont be seeing them. Because of the new rules set up by the BAA, “units or groups such as military ruck-marchers and cyclists, which have sometimes joined on course, will not be allowed to participate.” So instead of letting the National Guard and other service members ruck the marathon as a memorial for their fallen brothers and sisters, they have to sit on the sidelines. The rules go on to say no bags, backpacks, props like military or sports equipment, and signs bigger than 11×17 inches are banned. So this year instead of the colorful signs, instead of the USA chants, what are we going to have? Please don’t get me wrong, I think the marathon will be beautiful this year and personally I am disappointed that I cannot be apart of it. I have been planning and training to ruck the marathon this year with a USA flag, not to honor all of the men and women who have lost their lives for this country but for one person in particular that was affected very deeply by last years events. So take a look at these rules. Do you think they are going to do anything to protect the runners and spectators this year? By forbidding military members from rucking are they making the race safer? No. If you watched the news broadcast last year you probably saw the soldiers tearing down the barricades to get to the victims. Those soldiers had just finished rucking the marathon. This year they wont be there. Just think about for a second, is that really helping anything?

Now I want to back track a little bit. I want to talk about last year, more specifically the Friday after the marathon. This is the day that there was a car chase through Watertown that resulted in the death of one of the suspects and the eventual capture of the other. For the residents of Boston you will remember this as the day that the Mayor of Boston issued a “shelter in place” order. That means the roads were shutdown, businesses closed and locked their doors, and everyone was advised to stay inside their homes. This being America, it is just a suggestion for the general public’s own safety that they follow the shelter in place order and not an actual law. The order was issued to protect the citizens of Boston and also that there was ease of transportation for police to move around and catch the bad guy. Seems like a good way to get the bad guy and hey it worked. It was a very eery sight to see, no cars on the street, no hustle and bustle of the city, just eery quiet.

I had gone to the ROTC office early that morning to get ready for a training event we had that weekend. After sitting around waiting for a couple hours I went out to see if anything was open to get a bite to eat. Only one place was open, Chicken Lou’s (shout out to Northeastern), so I ordered a TKO. While I was waiting a Boston police officer came in and told them they had to close (and was quite rude about it too) because of the shelter in place order. Chicken Lou’s finished serving everyone that was there and then closed their doors like the police officer insisted. I went back to the office and continued to watch the news, I remember seeing swat move door to door with armed troop carriers rolling down the streets of Watertown. Police and National Guard pointing their weapons at windows and entering homes like they were in Afghanistan looking for Taliban members. This was a scary sight to see. But why am I bringing this up? Why should it matter that Chicken Lou’s had to close? The police where just doing their job right? I mean they caught the bad guy so why does it matter how they did it? It matters because the reactionary measures taken by our government to do everything that is necessary to catch the bad guys is actually letting the terrorists win. They are destroying out way of life. If we give up our civil liberties to allow us to feel safer, what do we have left?

They are trying to protect us, to keep us safe, and to put the bad guys behind bars. At a certain extent I want them to do that, I want the marathon bomber to be punished for what he did and I am glad they caught him. But I don’t want to give up my ability to keep myself safe, I don’t want to have someone else telling me what I can and cannot do in order to make me safer. The role of the government is to look out for the best interest of those they govern over. I get that but I have a problem with them telling me what my best interest is.

I don’t know how old I was when I first heard the term “civil liberties.” But I remember my Uncle Chris talking about airport security and more specifically the new x-ray system at the security checkpoint. He asked me what I thought about it, and I told him that if it keeps me safer and is at little or no inconvenience to me then I had no problem with the added security measure. He was adamant about not giving up a single civil liberty and it was a huge invasion of privacy to fully x-ray all passengers going through airport security. Although my uncle can be a little extreme sometimes (sorry Uncle Chris) I think he makes a good point. If we give up our civil liberties to make ourselves safer, aren’t we giving up exactly what the terrorists are trying to take away? They are attacking our freedom and our way of life. And if we give up our freedom, our civil liberties, and completely changing our way of life we are letting them win.

Life is inherently dangerous, and it is our own responsibility to keep ourselves safe and protect our American way of life.