Pax America

[Centauri18]

I'll be ready with the next installment soon, which documents a very different Vietnam War - instead of a war in Vietnam for control over the country, it's a war over control of all of Southeast Asia.

[vovan]

Very nice. The story is even better with the maps.

[Centauri18]

Stay tuned for the Vietnam War, and the Second Carthage-Egyptian War - tactical nuclear war is involved with the latter.

[Centauri18]

Now, I made World War Two different because of one thing - would one nation (or two) having hegemonyin Europe be such a bad thing? I have a theory that Germany winning the First World War would have meant no Nazis, no rise of fascist regimes. No WW2, Or at least no Holocaust.
Would that have been such a bad thing?
Think about it, that's all I'm saying.

Oh, and I'll have Vietnam up in a little bit, When Pax America returns. Stay tuned.

[Centauri18]

Vietnam

New Washington Junior High School, 2003 A.D.
"So what did they mean, 'Cold War'?"
"Wars where people died were considered 'hot wars', in comparison, but this was a war where armies did not have to fight each other for countries to be destroyed or conquered. Nations could destroy other nations at any time through nuclear arsenals. Not a very pleasant time, let me tell you."
"Oh, sure, like you know what it was like to live back then."
"I know enough, thanks very much."
"Okay, so who was it we were afraid of?"
"Well, the Germans were our allies, and that was about it. Well, we weren't afraid of Egypt or Carthage, because all their attention was focused on each other. It was like Rome and Carthage all over again. We were worried about pretty much everyone else."
"So why didn't nuclear war ever break out?"
"The Hiroshima Accords. It was a product of the United Nations basically saying that any use of nuclear weapons by one nation against another would be considered an atrocity, and the whole world would go against the one who had used them, regardless of consequences."
"So no one used nukes?"
"No one wanted to chance having the whole world ganging up on them, that's right. America could have pulled it off - well, maybe - but I guess you never know."
"I don't want to think about that. New Washington could have been hit by a nuke, and then we'd either not exist because our parents were dead or sterile, or we'd die of radiation poisoning or something."
"They figured how to take care of that in the 1970's. But it probably wouldn't have happened."
[OCC: I don't know. I have never fought another civilization that had nukes. Well, not since Civ2, but that doesn't count since I quit soon after because I couldn't keep any of his cities. He'd nuke his own cities to keep me out!]
"I'm glad. So do we still have nukes?"
"Some. But there are getting to be less and less all the time. People figure that the cost to the environment is too high to keep having them, let alone using them."
"What about the nuclear waste?"
"Jettisoned into space. It's somewhere around Jupiter by now, most of it. And you know no one uses nuclear power, not since Chernobyl."
"Why space?"
"Come on, man. That stuff would take ten thousand years to become... well, not lethal anymore. That's older than civilization."
"What if it ends up on some other planet?"
"It's been targeted towards a star - Alpha Centauri C - and it should be there in a few years."
"What will happen then?"
"Nothing, far as NASA scientists can figure."
"Oh. So what about what we're going into today - you know, Vietnam?"
"I still don't know why they call it that. Sure, the bulk of the fighting took place there, but it was over all of Southeast Asia. And the Chinese lost a lot of territory by the time this was over. If it was up to me, it'd merely be the Sino-Indian War."
"Persia got involved, too."
"Yeah, but because of a peace treaty they signed with India. They were mostly fighting India's war. The Persians counterattacked when the Chinese attacked India, and the Persians gained a lot of territory. Liberated a lot of old Russian territory that the Chinese had been subjugating for decades. The locals didn't seem to notice, thinking they were trading one conqueror for another. The Chinese Revolution took place after that. Mao was so angry at his subordinates - whom he blamed for losing the war - that all of China went Red."
"Oh, yeah. And now things are getting better over there."
"Thanks to modern medicine, strangely enough. Mao is getting psychological treatment from American doctors. he has been since the beginning of Red China."
"Oh. So what about Vietnam?"
"Well, I guess we're going into that as soon as the bell rings."
BRRRRIIIINNNNGGGG!

The War in Vietnam came as a result of Chinese expansionism. Mao had a lot of young soldiers causing trouble throughout the Chinese Empire and decided to give them something to do. So he mobilized for war on India.
Why India? You see, Mao was still afraid of the Mongols, who had been building their military despite also building up their cities. The Mongols, after all, had to deal with possible enemies on three sides: the Vikings on one side, the Japanese on another, and the Chinese to the south.
But Mao was less afriad of the Indians. Historically speaking, Gandhi was a pacifist. He had not participated in any of the World Wars, even though he could easily have dominated. In ancient times, he could have used his grand War Elephants to destroy the Chinese at one point. But he sold them all to Carthage for use in World War One.
India's land and riches interested Mao. India's military spending was very low, and they sold weapons to other nations, so India had to have a lot of money. They were a civilization that rewarded commerce, after all.
But Mao wondered how the religious Indians would handle having the militaristic, industrious Chinese for overlords.
So in the end, Mao decided not to attack mainland India, except as a diversionary attack. He decided to go after the Indian conquests - all through culture, of course - in Southeast Asia.
Especially a small province of strategic importance. The Chinese called it Vietnam.
The attack on India came at about the same time as Indian diplomats met with Prime Minister Xerxes to discuss an alliance. India was peaceful, they had no weapons, and they needed allies. The Persians agreed, and when the Chinese attacked, they were greeted by hordes of machine-gun-carrying Immortals from Xerxes' special forces.
The Persians expanded to the north, and within months, China had lost all the territory it took from Russia during the second World War.
China had territory in Southeast Asia already, and things did not go too much better there.
Indian fighters were experts at fighting in the jungles, and they fought using what the Americans called guerilla tactics, after an old Spanish word meaning "little war."
The local group that held off the Chinese in Vietnam would become infamous - the Viet Cong.
Anti-war riots soon took place throughout China, and after five years of fighting, China pulled its forces out of Southeast Asia. India took over.

America and Iroquois-Canada paid attention mostly to their own affairs during the Vietnam era. They signed alliances with Persia and the Ottoman States. America also signed treaties with the Vikings, and eventually the two nations would become friends again.
Sweeping reforms swept through Scandinavia around that time. The Vikings finally asopted Democracy, and the old Berserk warrior class was finally retired. While the Vikings built up their military, it would take more of a defensive role. They soon joined the United Nations Security Council and regularly contributed troops for peacekeeping missions.
These forces were most needed in Carthage, where Hannibal (nicknamed "Hannibal the Cannibal" by Egyptians) was ready to declare war on his old rival. He had signed an alliance with Arabia and they were ready to close in on Egypt like a vice.
The people were, of course, behind Hannibal, and there would indeed be war.
It was the only exchange of nuclear weapons between nations in world history, but only on the battlefield. For every inch of Egyptian territory that was gained, Cleopatra would claim part of Carthage for Egypt. The war between those nations ended up as a stalemate.
But once again, Miss Cleo was so busy with Hannibal that she did not notice Arab forces landing near Johannesburg, near the southern tip of Africa. Most of the southern part of Africa was soon part of Arabia, and Cleopatra sued for peace.
But she was merely waiting, building up her military after the devastating damage it had taken due to Hannibal's tactical nukes, but she knew that Arabia had overextended itself and Hannibal's troops were no better off than hers, due to Egyptian tactical nukes.
She was merely biding her time unti she would expel Carthage from Africa, once and for all.

The war ended - finally - and workers on both sides of the Carthage-Egyptian War worked fervently to clean up the pollution caused by the detonation of the tactical nukes. Under the rules of the Hiroshima Accords, they were not allowed to build more, so it was just as well. Tactical nukes generate less radiation than regular nukes - ICBM's, used to kill cities. Tactical nukes were designed just to kill troops. The blistering heat generated by a detonation would be enough to do so.
As the 1960's became the 1970's, American technological development once again accelerated. America was still working on the Mars Project, mostly in the hopes of terraforming the planet into a possible second Earth. The rest of the world was still hopelessly behind in technology.
America and Iroquois-Canada shared technology, and as the 1970's became the 1980's, the two nations began work to collaborate on the first international space station.
America had built the Hubble Space Telescope and launched it into space, but this was to be more than simply looking into space. Someday there would be travel involved.

The rest of the world was peaceful, for the time being, at least.
But in Arabia, a coup was on the horizon, something that would ultimately lead to one of the worst tragedies of the twenty-first century so far...

"So, of course, the Vietnam War in many ways marked the beginning of the world we live in today. The beginning of the rise of the Arab nation, and the ultimate rise of Democracy throughout the world."
"And another war."
"And, sadly, another war. Yes. If you'll turn to page 325 in your books, we have an updated map of the world as it was in the year 1972, when the war between Carthage and Egypt - and while the Arabs capitalized on it, they could not truly be called participants - ended in an uneasy peace between the two nations."
"What was happening in Arabia, anyway?"
"Like I mentioned before, there were conspiracies to overthrow Abu Bakr, leader of the Arab people, and replace him - keeping him alive, of course, because killing him would mean the death of Arabia - and take over leadership. There were numerous would-be despots waiting in the wings, waiting for the opportunity to bring their view of the world and their own personal squabbles to the world stage. All right, the homework is on the board, and you don't have to do the essay questions. See you in the morning."
BRRRRRIIIIINNNNNGGGG!

Next: Operation: Desert Storm

[Centauri18]

Reviews?

[Centauri18]

Operation: Desert Storm

New Washington Junior High, 2003 A.D.
"This chapter's important, Tad. I'm gonna explain it to you only once."
"I know, man. This was the only chapter in the book so far I was even alive for."
"Yeah, you were what, a year old?"
"Shut up. I was stil alive for it, and I spent last night reading newspaper articles about it, and watching my mom's old recordings of CNN."
"Okay, okay. So do you know that led to this?"
"A coup in Arabia. A man named Sadaam Hussein took over the country, locked Abu Bakr in a dungeon, and embarked on a reign of terror, planning to take Ottoman Palestine, and probably finish off Egypt."
"Yes, and it was also Arabian expansionism finally coming to a head. It shattered Arabia's power base and changed the balance of power in the Middle East."
"Yeah, I guess that makes sense. So did your dad serve over there?"
"Yeah. How did you know?"
"Your dad was in the Viking Army and then came over here and joined the Army, right? It was during that time, so it makes sense."
"Right. He was in the military, but he didn't do anything big. He was sent over there with U.N. forces trying to keep Sadaam from running rampant all through the Middle East and Africa. Sadaam made enemies out of Egypt and Carthage - one of the few things both nations agreed on - and he took part of Egypt in a brief skirmish before U.N. troops came in and stopped the Arabs from going any further or the Egyptians from using what was left of their nuclear arsenal to attack."
"I thought that they'd destroyed their tactical nukes."
"Not their ICBMs."
"Oh, crap."
"Yeah. The U.N. barely managed to stop them from launching nukes against Baghdad. The Desert of Arabia was a better place to live now, since the introduction of new American terraforming technology that could make even the desert into grassland."
"Is that even possible?"
"What do you think happened to Phoenix?"
"Oh."
"Well, Carthage took a small piece out of Egypt as well. But this was through negotiations. Perhaps Hannibal and Miss Cleo would finally get along someday. Maybe it was because they shared a common enemy in Sadaam."
"But once he was taken care of, would they be at war again?"
"No. Egypt and Carthage seemed to realize that if they could agree on wanting to take Sadaam out, they could agree on other things, too. Hannibal and Cleopatra met at the Pyramids in Giza, Egypt, to celebrate peace."
"A democracy making peace with a communist nation. I bet a lot of people were shocked."
"They were. Even the Iroquois had introduced elements of socialism into their government, with the state owning sources of food, clothing, and other things."
"The essentials."
"Yeah. Senator Jack Kennedy from Boston had socialist tendencies, and he became a member of Lincoln's cabinet. But back to the Middle East. Persia was consolidating its conquests, and the Ottoman States were at peace with their neighbors. Up until 1991."
"Yeah, and that's when Desert Storm happened, right?"
"Right."
BRRRIIIINNNNGGGGG!

The Gulf War started with the rise of Sadaam Hussein, who had appointed himself as leader of Arabia for life. Abu Bakr, the true Arab leader, was locked up in a dungeon deep under Baghdad - the new capital of Arabia, built just ten miles from Babylon, which Sadaam decided to rebuild - and Sadaam took over.
Sadaam's ascension delighted many Islamic hard-liners, who wanted a return to the old ways of Islam, including the traditional roles of women, and a regression in technology. The hard-liners didn't beliueve any accounts of history or science that contradicted their views, and so it was like a new Dark Age. Many decent Muslims were forced to flee the country when the hard-liners took over. Most fled to Persia or the Ottoman States, and Sadaam invaded them in 1991, as punishment.
Now, the Ottoman States were America's allies, and we were obligated to help them fight back. We sent tanks and the new F-22 Falcon jets. The new M-1 tanks would go through anything Sadaam could attack with like a hot knife through butter.
But it was by sheer numbers that Sadaam managed to voerwhelm many American positions.
Persia and the Ottomans fought back with everything they had.
CNN had dubbed the American operation Desert Storm, and the name stuck. Even though Sadaam did most of the storming at first.
His initial forays into Persia and Ottoman Palestine were successful, but the Coalition forces caught a second wind, and pushed Sadaam back.
The Arabic province of Iraq (formerly Babylonia), Sadaam's base of power, was overrun. American troops stormed past Babylon, long since captured by the Arabs, and the Hanging Gardens. The flag of Persia was raised over Iraq as the Ottoman Army, spurred on by the Ottoman people, poured into the Saudi provinces, liberating the Arab capital of Mecca from Sadaam's regime. Muslims all over the world rejoiced with the liberation of the holiest city in their faith. Sadaam had turned the city into a fortress and supressed the religion for his own purposes. Medina, home to the second-holiest shrine in Islam, fell to the Ottomans soon after.
The Arabs were driven to the edge of the Arabian peninsula, in the province of Yemen. The province of Oman fell to Persia.
The new Arab capital was built in Mogadishu, in the province of Somalia. Sadaam was excecuted by a firing squad made up of Xerxes' elite guards, the Immortals, in the square at Baghdad. All of Arabia rejoiced.
The extremists who had supported Sadaam fled into other nations, taking refuge among the mountains of Persia, particularly in the small province of Afghanistan.
Among them was a former Saudi oil tycoon named Osama bin Laden, who took his wealth with him to Afghanistan. For the most part, Persia, who was still trying to consolidate its new holdings, ignored them.
It would prove to be a costly decision.
Abu Bakr was released and headed to the new capital in Somalia. The Ottomans still allowed Arab pilgrims the right to enter their territory, which now included all of Saudi.
The world was very forgiving, and life went on as it always had.

And so the Gulf War passed as little more than a footnote in American history. Persia now owned the long-conquered remnants of its old rival, Babylon, and the Ottoman States now ran the three holiest cities in Islam. They still allowed Jewish and Christian pilgrims to visit Jerusalem, and there was even a large population boasting members of all three faiths sharing the city. The Holy Land was finally at peace.
But America looked on the situation with a small amount of what was considered cynicism at the time. Americans called it realism. In a world where war was the norm, peace was just too good to last...

"And the extremists in Afghanistan banded together eventually, right?"
"Right, Tad. They banded together to form Al-Queda, meaning "the base" in Arabic, one of the world's first true terrorist organizations. Unless you count the National Socialists in Germany in the 1950's."
"And we ignored them."
"They were a bunch of guys living in the mountains with machine guns. Against the most powerful nation in history they were hardly a threat. Sure, the Persians had trouble dealing with them. But they proved just too hard for even the Immortals to catch."
"Unfortunately."
BRRRRIIIINNNNGGGG!

Next: The Twenty-first Century and Enduring Freedom

[ChrisiusMaximus]

Very good and exciting stuff to read and the maps are great.

[Centauri18]

Well, the next chapter is probably the last for "Pax America" - Which, if you didn't notice, is a play on Pax Romana, a great Roman Peace which gripped Europe because of Roman conquest. A lot of the stuff is based on reality - for instance, Germany really did hold off the Romans, the Iroquois really were the first American democracy, and the Pope really did divide up the new world for colonization, only among the Spanish and Portuguese. People in Brazil still speak Portuguese (And some German, FYI). Also, the battle between the two ironclads off the coast of Virginia is based on a real battle between the first ironclads, with the same names (You might know the Virginia better as the Merimack
The scene with Caesar's friends killing the Pope is based on a scene from Skakespeare'd Julius Caesar, only with the line being, "We come not to praise Caesar, but to bury him."
I try to throw in those little historical things every now and then when I can.
I'm working on "Twenty-first Century and Enduring Freedom," and what it covers ought to be obvious. It'll probably be more in-depth, since I saw the whole thing happen on TV.
Stay tuned.

[vovan]

Good stuff, Centauri18.

[Centauri18]

Twenty-first Century and Enduring Freedom

[OCC: Sorry if I get too into this, but it's the only event in the history part of the story that I have real-world experience with. Sure, I saw the whole thing on television, but I have done some research into the circumstances that led up to the events of 9/11/2001. If you are offended, I apologize. I did not mean to do so. If this kind of event hits too close to home for you, you don't have to read it. I won't mind if you decide not to. Now, on with the story.]
[Also, this is fiction loosely based on reality. Loosely. Sorry if there are things I don't get right.]

New Washington Junior High, 2003 A.D.
"Man, I never liked this part of the book."
"Why not? I actually know about this part."
"Tad, buddy, it hits too close to home for me. I lost an older brother in New York. He was a firefighter."
"Oh, man, I'm sorry. I didn't know. You never told me."
"I've only had two years to mourn... okay, I guess that's long enough, I should have told you."
"You know, I heard Mr. Grant's letting kids who lost somebody out of this lesson. I'm sure Mr. Grant would understand. And you, of all people, you know all this stuff. About the attack and the operation afterward, American troops in Persian Afghanistan and everything..."
"No, I want to hear this. I want to know. And I don't see anybody else leaving."
"This is New Washington, buddy. Not many people have real connections to the homeland. Even with the Second White House here in New Washington, we never really have many connections to D.C. or even New York."
"Everyone became a New Yorker that day, my friend. Everybody. Even me."
BRRRRIIIINNNNGGGG!

I'm sure you're all familiar with the events of this next chapter. I'll give you all the opportunity to leave, those of you who were... personally affected by those events... No? Okay then, here we go.
In the days after the Gulf War, America and its allies were on top of the world. America was in many ways the center of the world, the nation that almost all other nations emulated. the Communist movement was coming to an end in China, slowly, as Mao Zedong was treated and began to realize that it was his own mental instability that led to the decline of China. American psychologists treated him, trying to discover what made the great leader tick.
America hosted several Olympic Games - all Summer Games; 1992 in New Barcelona, in the Spanish territories, 1996 in Atlanta, and eventually 2000 in Sydney.
The European Baseball League took off, as the New Washington Liberators took on the Berlin Blitzkrieg in the first true World Series. America also won the World Cup in soccer.

Deep within Persian Afghanistan, the terrorist cartel called Al-Queda fought a guerilla war against Xerxes' elite Immortals and wreaked havok on local towns. They blamed America for, as they put it, 'perverting their religion.' The people of Persia were, of course, moral people. Corruption was almost nonexistant in Persia, but these extremists seemed to hate everything. They blamed America for it, of course. America had brought democracy to the whole world. Even isolated Japan was a democratic nation. Even Genghis Khan had adopted Democracy.
These terrorists went a step further, saying that the presence of the Ottomans 'desecrated' Mecca and Medina and Jerusalem, and they hated the Jewish and Christian population of the latter. They took over the small province of Afghanistan and suppressed al dissenting opinion. The whole region seemed to regress both in technology and in the ways of society itself.
To put it lightly, they were fascists.
Even the Chinese considered them terrorists.
Xerxes was having trouble governing such a far-flung empire, especially just a few years after expending so much military power in the Gulf War. The Persian military was still rebuilding.
The terrorists would also conduct regular raids into Indian Pakistan, often murdering so-called 'traitors to the faith.'
It was like the Inquisition - which the Catholic church had long since apologized for - all over again.

America did not feel the effects until the latter part of the decade, when American embassies throughout Persia and Arabia were bombed and totally destroyed. Some would even find a way into Jerusalem and destroy Jewish synagogues and American churches, often blowing themselves up to do so.
It seems ridiculous, I know, but these misguided souls believed that by destroying themselves and others in the name of their god would get them a ticket straight into heaven. Examination of Muslim scriptures shows that the tactics used - to say nothing of their targets - go against everything Islam stood for.
But of course, the actions of a few shed suspicion on Muslims around the world.
It was exactly what the terrorists wanted.

America and Iroquois-Canada assisted local forces trying to arrest these extremists, but no luck.
For the most part, America did not even consider these terrorists a threat. They were "Persia's problem."
They were no real threat, even as the terrorists began getting bolder and more ambitious. Buildings throughout the Ottoman States would be attacked.
America helped its allies as best it could, but these terrorists had grown too good at hiding. Even with modern identification technology used by police and military, they were all but impossible to find. They knew American tactics - many of them were American-taught to wage a guerilla war in case of an invasion by Communist Egypt, which America considered a true threat. These guerillas had been expected to help America against Sadaam's regime, but instead they joined with him because they shared the same ideas as Sadaam.
They just kept getting bolder.

New York, under new city Governor Rudy Giuliani, reached a golden age. The New York Stock Exchange was at an all-time high, the city's cultural scene was at a high as well, and it was voted by the United Nations as the best city in the world to live in. The people could hardly argue.
New technology kept the streets clean. There were very few poor people in the city, and almost nobody was unhappy. No one wanted for food or a place to live. New York's skyscrapers stretched as much as a quarter-mile into the sky.
But the envy of them all was the World Trade Center.
Nearly half a mile tall, and built of the latest building materials, the Twin Towers were by far the tallest buildings ever built. Nearly half a million people worked inside or went to the shopping mall inside or came through on the subway system each day.
It was no wonder then, that on September 11 of 2001, it was their first target.
An American commercial jet coming from Berlin and another one from Paris crashed into each of the towers. Thousands were killed in the explosion.
New York firefighters and police worked their way inside, getting hundreds of thousands to safety. Helicopters were even used to rescue trapped people from the roof of the buildings.
It was a day for heroes, and a quarter of a million people were saved.
But that was just before they collapsed.

In the aftermath of the attack, news stations worldwide showed footage of the attack. The world was stunned, and the footage was shown a few more times, as if to illustrate the disbelief felt worldwide. Not even in the attack on Hiroshima had so many people died. Every war AMerica had ever fought had not seen this many casualties.
Debris littered the streets for miles. A cloud of smoke would be seen over Manhattan for months.

In Washington, another plane streaked toward the Pentagon, one of the oldest buildings in Washington. It hit and destroyed roughly ten percent of the structure. Hundreds died.
Another plane was seen streaking toward the White House. Fortunately, Lincoln was in Florida that particular morning talking to a group of schoolchildren.
But that plane never hit the Presidential Palace. It skewed to one side about a mile off, heading towards Philidelphia.
It crashed in a field just three miles from the city.
It was not known until later that a group of men onboard that plane had decided to try and re-take it from the hijackers. Saying goodbye to their families over cellphones and computers, the men decided to attack.
The last words heard from a person on that plane by the outside world were quite simply: "Let's roll."

There might have been more attacks. We'll probably never know, because police and military police worldwide managed to stop Al-Queda operatives from hijacking planes as far away as Tokyo, Japan.
It was discoered that Los Angeles, Salamanca, and even New Washington were among the terrorists' targets.

The whole world was stunned.
People say that the whole world was in a state of stunned silence for hours.
The only other type of activity was in Afghanistan.
They were celebrating.
They wouldn't be for long.

As the source of the attack was identified, America planned for war once again.
Persia had long since pulled out of Afghanistan - the terrorists were running things there now.
In conjuction with the Indian Army, American and Iroquois forces prepared to move in on Afghanistan.
THe Indians were peaceful, but they knew about running a country. They could keep such a rebellion from happening again by paying close attention to Afghani politics in the future.
The operation was first called Infinite Justice, but religious organizations said that infinite justice could only be handed out by God.
So then it was re-named Enduring Freedom. That's what they were protecting, after all.

Troops moved across the country like wildifre. America and Iroquois-Canada fought the enemy, and India picked up the pieces. Civilian casualties were nonexistant. America's military was that good.
Terrorists or sympathizers - and there weren't many sympathizers - were captured and shipped back to old NATO (Now U.N.) military prisons in Australia or the Carribean.
Humans rights activists were angry at the treatment until they were reminded that these terrorists killed a quarter of a million people in one fell swoop.
The human-rigths activists were quiet after that.
As for Bin Laden, the ringleader, he was to be tried on neutral ground where Americans couldn't get to him - in Nuremberg, Germany, home of the U.N. Court of Inquiries. There he was tried for war crimes and sentenced to one thousand consecutive life sentences - I'm not making this up - for murder and the intent to cause further harm to civilians.

After that, America celebrated the fact that justice had been done. India took over Afghanistan, Persia vowed to crack down on possible terrorists, and life went on.
Charities held concerts and other events to benefit victims of the attacks. Musicians and others from around the world came to lend their support.
Life went on. It wasn't good to dwell on the past, and so life continued. Don't get me wrong - people were still mourning well into the next year, and I know people still mourn, but life goes on.
A memorial was planned, to be built sometime within the next few years. The debris was cleaned up, any human remains were claimed, and once Again Americans could sleep well knowing justice had been done.

"And that, kids, is all the major events to take place in American history so far."
"Not a good start for the century, huh?"
"No, I'm afraid not. But then the twentieth century began with a war, and so did the nineteenth."
"What are you saying, that this is supposed to happen?"
"Things like this are never supposed to happen. If it was up to me, all of history would be peaceful. But... we have to learn from the past in order to change the future. If we don't learn from history, we'll make the same mistakes our ancestors did."
"I guess that makes sense."
"I hope so. Anyone who wants to talk with me, I'll be here all afternoon after school. And remember, your reports are due on the last day of class. Finals are next week, so you have until then to study. Good luck, kids. I just hope, for the world's sake, that your generation doesn't make the same mistakes as mine."
BRRRIIIINNNNGGGGG!
Fin

[Centauri18]

Thanks a million to everybody. I plan on writing at least one story set in the Pax America universe, starting with my next endeavor, to be named in the future.
I find myself nominated in the story contest, and if I win I'll be very... surprised!
I wrote it out of boredom, posted it because, well, what else could I do with it? And it was kinda fun, putting a new spin on history.
I am a huge history buff myself, so it was truly fun.
Thans everybody who reviewed and liked my story.
Until next time.

[ChrisiusMaximus]

Centauri I have put my support in the nominations thread and well deserved it is.

[Centauri18]

[ChrisiusMaximus]

Centauri did you see my first story that won round 13, Mikes Story ? well I would like to know what you think if you get chance to read it

I won with my first story and so did Tom aka The Guitarist With his first one. I think this has a good chance also of being a first story winner, its very well written and a great read.