Remember that the more personal and detailed accounts make the most interesting reading.
Remember that the more personal and detailed accounts make the most interesting reading.
I had so many thoughts this morning, but the one that stood out to me was the importance of memory itself as an act we humans are capable of by divine grace. yet along with that the sheer difficulty of remembering, and especially of remembering that which is most important.
I happen to catch CNBC this morning on the morning run and the 8th anniversary of 9/11 made the sixth story in order from the top of the hour. That said so much about how easy it is to let memory fade.
I’m far more concerned about the effort put into redacting the facts surrounding what happened that day. The educational textbooks have already been revised so that there is no mention of “Islamic terrorism” or noting that this is one giant piece of a worldwide problem with enormous barbaric implications. And let us not forget the sick conspiracy theories that claim that these were self-inflicted events.
This is no better exemplified than the way the Twin Towers memorial is being handled. Don’t underestimate the level of deliberate minimization that is currently in play. Politics and ideology always tries to trump reality, when it serves a purpose to do so.
I miss, personally, so many in both cities who were killed that day. Remember the air passengers and flight crews, too, especially the children.
I remember that I was visiting Nellie in hospital, who was dying. She was a great old lady, much loved by parishioners. After anointing her and giving her communion I turned round and was shocked to see the entire ward staff clustering around the TV set. They told me what was happening. People and then in the aftermath felt immediate and instinctive sympathy with what was happening in the United States. I long sometimes to recapture that sense of shared sorrow and shock, not for the sadness itself but for the sense of unity (I write from the UK). For whatever reason (some ideological) there are those who would seek to drive a wedge between the US and Europe. We have been together in adversity before. We share a common faith. On this anniversary I find myself thinking, the dividers must not triumph, and we must continue to forge friendships that bring our peoples together. I assure you all of my affection, respect and prayers for the United States.
I watched the towers burning from across the river at the Newark Airport Sheraton hotel where I was attending a meeting. I was lucky to get home that day and not be trapped in the hotel for days as so many others were when they locked down the airport . As I drove home on the southbound lane of the NJ Turnpike (they had closed most of the exits and entrances so I was one of the few cars on the road) I saw hundreds of ambulances streaming northward on the northbound side. Many NJ towns had responded to the call for ambulances for the thousands of casulties that it was believed were going to need to be transported to hospitals. In fact, the ambulances weren’t needed. Almost everybody either got out before the towers collapsed and was OK, or didn’t and died. The main casulties as far as injuries were the rescue workers.
One of my kid’s songs was playing over and over on the tape player and I’ll never be able to separate my memory of those events from that song. It had a chorus that went “If we only could live in peace and love, what a great world it would be.”
On the fifth anniversary I heard someone being interviewed on TV say “It can’t have been five years ago. It will always be just yesterday.”
My husband and I were in the car driving from our hotel in Crystal River, Florida to Tarpon Springs. The plan for the day was to eat lunch at one of our favorite greek restaurants. Upon arising that morning we had not turned on the tv or radio. A few minutes into our drive I turned on the radio and someone was praying. Upon listening for a few minutes we realized that something of great consequence was happening so we switched to another station and heard of the plane going into the first tower and that the president was somewhere up in the sky flying from Florida to some undisclosed location. We immediately turned around and went back to the hotel and turned on the TV in time to see the first tower go down. We did not leave the grounds of our hotel the rest of the day. Rumors among the guest abounded. We were near a nuclear power plant and there was fear that it might be attacked. Guests went back and forth to their rooms watching tv reports and then regathering under a shuffle board pavillion to touch base with others, our voices never raised much more than just above a whisper. It was a surreal experience, with a silence throughout the day that was unnatural. There were no sounds of boats on the river and very little traffic. The guests and staff at the hotel huddling together and forming a temporary community in the midst of the fear and uncertainty.
I am afraid my thoughts are how quickly we turned back to partisan politics and how quickly politicians worked to turn it into their own personal political advantage.
I am a retired American Airlines pilot, and was scheduled to be working that day. Due to a nasty case of poison ivy, my first in in 40+ years, I had called in sick. While shaving, the first confused reports started coming in, mostly wrong, about a plane striking the WTC. As did most pilots with a sense of history, I thought of the B-25 which hit the Empire State Building in 1945. A few minutes later, over tea, I saw the second plane hit. At that point, it was obvious something was seriously wrong. After a few minutes, I called a cousin in the DC area telling him to stay out of Washington, and heard the report of the Pentagon impact while talking with him. The rest of the day was spent watching the coverage, and on the phone and computer inquiring about the safety of coworkers, and getting inquires from others about my safety. Though I did not know the total for several months, 6 people I knew personally, 2 unconnected to the airline, died on that day. For this and many other reasons, I do not plan to devalue this day with redefining it as a “Day of Service.“
I was heading up to a long range radar site when I heard the news of the first plane. I watched the second plane hit on CNN. I watched the order to ground all aircraft being carried out on the maintenance scope. I remember running up the tower with a pair of binoculars when a single plane was still flying in the immediate area, straining to see the aircraft and figure out it’s intent. (It landed without incident, but long after it should have and after military precautions had been initiated.)
I remember checking in with my home unit and wondering if I would be calling my wife and child to tell them “goodbye” for the duration.
I remember standing guard at an airport, wearing kevlar, night vision goggles, and with a loaded M16.
I feel cold fury every single time I see these images. I feel hot fury every time I remember the Palestinians dancing in the streets, celebrating…giving their kids candy.
I will never forget.
Oh Lord, give us justice for our fallen. Their blood cries out from the ground.
The first I heard of it was when I got on the bus to go to work and the bus driver asked me if the second tower had fallen. I had no idea what he was talking about. I overheard conversations from the other passengers on the way in — obviously, nobody was talking about anything else — so by the time I got to work I had the gist of the story. I spent the rest of the morning refreshing news sites; by the afternoon, they’d set up a TV in the cafeteria and I watched the coverage there.
What I remember most is an overwhelming feeling of sadness. For all the people who had just died, and all their loved ones and friends who would have to mourn them, and for all the people who were going to die in the future as a consequence of this.
Looking back on it, what strikes me now is how much the world did not change as a result. Once the immediate shock was over, most people who were not directly affected just… went on with their lives, much as before.
9/11 was a terrible tragedy for the victims, and a terrible crime on the part of the perpetrators. It needs to be fully acknowledged and dealt with in both those aspects. But I think that if we allow it to loom too large, if we allow the empty space where the towers were to cast too long a shadow over us as a nation, then we are granting far too much power over us to the people who committed this crime. They want us to be shocked, and horrified, and infuriated, and to talk about nothing else; they want the actions of a couple of dozen men armed with box cutters to force the hand of an entire nation for years afterward.
I’m not saying we should forget. Never that. Nor that we should not strive to bring the perpetrators to justice. But we cannot let it be, eight years on, the one thing around which everything else pivots.
I was enjoying one last morning in bed before the next day when I would have to return to my college teaching job. I had the radio on and listened in awe (I think that describes what I felt) as local morning talk show hosts reported on what they were seeing in their newsrooms–they were as awed as I was. Remember, for us it was over 3000 miles away. But, we wondered, would we get some such attack on the west coast? I still remember how I felt lying in bed, wondering what this meant for the country.
I strongly object to this becoming a day of “National Service.” It needs to be remembered every bit as regularly and somberly as the Holocaust, Gettysburg (read the Gettysburg address today and see how VERY well it applies!), Memorial Day, Veterans’ Day (as those days SHOULD be remembered.)
I remember wondering after hearing about the first plane, if this was just an accident from a pilot not paying attention. And then I saw the second hit, and heard Katie Couric say, “OMG, there’s another one.” Like everyone, I was in shock and then filled with anger, wanting to go back in the Air Force and go bomb someone. Then my telephone rang and it was my 21 year old daughter – she was crying and frightened, though we were both far away from any of the action. I knew then that it was not for us older generation to be angry and strike out and strike back. It was for us to comfort and reassure the young that we all would be alright and that our future would still be ok, even though we knew in our hearts that life would never be the same for any of us, after that second plane hit.
I happenend to have Springsteen’s song “Rising” come up on my ipod while driving this morning. It is a powerful tribute to the firemen and made me remember the many victims and heroes.
We should also never forget the evil in the world with which we battle
btw, do you remember the song about God being with the people who were dying that came out shortly after 9/11. I think it was to the tune of Silent Night. It was also a powerful song.
At the time I was working at the State Department in downtown DC. My wife called me after the first plane hit. My first reaction was that some Cessna driver (of which I am one) got lost. However, as I was on the phone with my wife I saw the second one hit. At that point we began to close up our safes, secure the office and get the heck out of there. CNN had (erroneously) reported that State had been bombed so my wife was extremely worried. I eventually made it over to her office near the White House. It was surrreal walking the streets of DC– bright clear day with thousands of people in the streets, all nervously scanning the sky. It was like something out of a disaster movie. We eventually found a train out of the city that evening. It passed within a quarter mile of the Pentagon, which was still burning and sending a huge column of smoke in the air. Will never forget that day.
I had a similar experience to Alread Gone’s. From USDA, just southeast of the Washington Monument, my carpool was able to leave town southbound across the 14th Street Bridge at about 10 am. We saw the thick black smoke coming from the Pentagon and had to detour off of I-395, which was closed at the Pentagon. There was no sense of panic, just urgency to get out of town.
The most eerie part of the post-9/11 days was the absence of air traffic.
Beyond the terror of the day, the horror of the planes hitting, and “where I was”, I remember hearing stories of how well Canada took care of diverted air passengers bound for the US after planes were grounded by the FAA. A friend of mine was one of those passengers and told me of the unbound generosity and hospitality displayed by strangers for nearly a week. We have never really thanked our Neighbour to the North for that – President Bush neglected early and often to mention it, and the significance of it often gets lost in the shuffle.
What a lovely comment #17 about Canada. As someone who lived there for two years in graduate school, I was amazed by Americans neglect of, and lack of knowledge about, our neighbor to the North.