9/11 is upon us again.
The generation that was born that year graduated from college this year. One wonders what it is like to always grow up and have your elders speak of a world that seems behind a glass door, a day before "The War on Terror" was a commonly used phrase, where people traveled freely and people were sent off or greeted at airport gates instead of at the curbside. On the other hand, to commemorate a day which you have no recollection of at all, only pictures and videos.
To be fair, I never went to The World Trade Center while it existed and I was of an age to go. There was a good 10 to 12 years I could have gone; for me then (as me now) urban centers held little to interest me. That the World Trade Center existed was within my knowledge base; that I needed to somehow see what the world looked like 100+ stories up, not so much.
(Source)
My concern - both with myself and those that were born then, and even those that were alive before and during, is that we get dulled to the reality of what happened.
It is not just that it was a terrorist attack. It is not that the system was used against us. It is even not that people died (as horrible as that it is). It is that people came to a point that they willingly chose death rather than take their chances.
(Source)
A great deal was lost on that day, a real sense of national innocence and invulnerability. For a time - if briefly - the country was united in a way I cannot remember before or sense. Yes, that unity spun off into a lot of directions it probably should not have - but for a moment at least, we were all Americans.
But some of our fellow citizens died to get us there. And for at least some of them, they consciously chose to end their own lives in a single plunge when faced with almost no other alternative.
(Source)
We forget such days and things at our own peril, as that seems too high a price to pay.
Never. Forget.
I'm glad to see this reminder of something we should never forget. And you are point on that the crux of the tragedy is what the individuals in its midst experienced. That's the heartbreak.
ReplyDeleteLeigh, I think if anything what we found out is that it did not necessarily have to happen, at least the way it did. The clues were there but were either not picked up on or failed to be taken seriously.
DeleteI acknowledge that at some point this will not be remembered; likely the cohort that is 10 years younger than I am will have a real connection to it. That is a shame, really; even in its horror it remains instructive. And like most instructive things at a national or state level, something that will be forgotten and have to be relearned.
More people died on September 11th than at Pearl Harbor and as these photos show a few chose their manner of dying because of the circumstances they were trapped in. NEVER forget!
ReplyDeleteNylon12, I can cognitively understand what that choice would look like. I cannot fathom making it - nor should they have been forced to do so.
DeleteI experienced my first Hammerfall the week before 9/11 and so I had a front row seat so to speak in my living room easy chair. I remember watching the videos in a state of stunned awe but when they showed the videos of those bodies hitting the nearby roofs, it was like hammer blows to my heart. I can't imagine making that choice.
ReplyDeleteEd, I had the same thing happen to me when we dissolved The Firm in 2005 - in August, a few days before New Orleans was hit by Hurricane Katrina. I had the same sort of front seat.
DeleteI cannot imagine making that choice either; I can only hope or imagine they received a special grace at that moment.
Talked to son night before as he complained about having to catch a plane out of Logan the next morning. Hubbys dad called to tell us to turn on TV. No one answered at the main switchboard or his private office. I paced and cried till almost 4 when his secretary called and said he's on the ground in New Orleans and has a rental to drive back as no flights. Those were some of the worst hours of my life and I can't imagine pain, horror and loss so many experienced that day. I pray every day for those lost and those left behind. And I also believe this day means zip to college age students.
ReplyDeleteWow - What a story. I cannot imagine how nerve wracking that must have been - or the relief you felt, at least for your son.
DeleteI think it certainly means less and less. I also think unless we as a society make it means something and commemorate it, it will die without a whimper.
My cousin's friend on Long Island was a NYC firefighter. He swapped shifts with one of his coworkers and was at home when this happened. His entire fire company's shift that day, aside from my cousin's friend, was lost in the collapse of the towers.
ReplyDeleteMy commanding officer's brother worked in the WTC, and died that day.
Growing up on Long Island, I'd been to the WTC a couple of times. There was a sign outside the elevators to the observation deck that said "As close to Heaven as some of us will ever get." ...How prophetic... My dad worked there for several years and was at work during the first bombing of the towers. His office was up around the 77th floor. He had to take the stairs down to escape. He said it was a panic party, that the stairs weren't designed to handle the volume of people a mass evacuation drove into the stairwells.
The prospect of being burned alive is infamous for causing people to jump from burning structures. Do a search on the "Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in NYC. The employees, mostly women, couldn't escape the building because the fire escape doors were locked. Most of the women jumped. A few survivors reported seeing a well-dressed young man moving through the smoke and flames, encouraging the women to jump and telling them how to do it...
Pete, if it had been me, I am sure I would have been wracked by survivor's guilt.
DeleteI have heard the 1993 bombing revealed a host of issues, none of which seem to have been resolved, or at least resolved completely.
I vaguely remember the Triangle Fire from American History. Reading the firsthand accounts on Wikipedia, it reads as awful as it sounds.