We Will Never Forget

Seven years ago today, our world was forever changed when a handful of self-aggrandized, deranged lunatics boarded four planes in the U.S. and proceeded to turn them into scaled down versions of weapons of mass destruction by slamming them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. A fourth was headed for…it has been generally surmised…the U.S. Capitol in Washington when a group of extremely heroic passengers aboard United Flight 93 “took charge.” And though they ultimately lost their lives in a valiant struggle…countless others were doubtlessly saved.

The events of Tuesday, September 11, 2001 will forever be one of those “do you remember where you were” moments. You know, like Pearl Harbor or when Kennedy was assassinated. I wasn't born when the attack on Pearl Harbor happened, but I was for JFK. I still remember. I was in the sixth grade, standing at the blackboard, waiting for our teacher…Mr. Taylor…to give me a math problem to solve. When the announcement came over the intercom, Mr. Taylor just hung his head…visibly shaken.

My classmates and I were, of course, too young to truly understand the magnitude of this horrendous event, but I remember sitting in front of the television for the next four days, watching the story unfold…thousands of mourners filing by the casket in the Capitol rotunda, the flag draped casket on the caisson in the funeral procession, John Jr. saluting the coffin. Yep, I remember it all…just as I know I will never forget where I was or what I was doing when I first learned about the unspeakable events that unfolded seven years ago today.

I was sitting at my desk at work when Martha buzzed me through the intercom. She asked me if I was on the Internet. (That was back in the day before we were completely up to speed technology-wise and only four people/computers could access the Internet at a time.) I wasn’t, so I asked her what was going on, and she told me her sister had called to tell her that a plane had hit the World Trade Center.

Naturally, I tried to access the Internet then, but the news websites were so jammed, you couldn’t pull them up, so I reverted to that standby technology that has served me well throughout my life…the radio. I switched on WLW and there was Peter Jennings from ABC News, giving a detailed description of the mayhem that had descended upon Manhattan that morning. By this time, the second plane had already hit the south tower and by the time Peter announced that a third plane had hit the Pentagon, I was on the phone to my brother, Harold. It’s times such as these that especially makes one want to reach out to one’s family and friends…reassure oneself that they’re all right…grab hold of some sense of normality.

He and Patty were just finishing breakfast and had not turned on the television or a radio as of yet, so when he answered the phone, I said, “Do you know what’s going on?” It was obvious by his nebulous reply that he didn’t, so I told him that two planes had just flown into the World Trade Center. He didn’t seem to immediately grasp the enormity of the situation. (I am still his baby sister, after all, and he has a tendency to…you know…not listen to me.) By the time I got to the plane that had crashed into the Pentagon, however, he realized something serious was afoot.

After I got off the phone with Harold, I just sat in my office for the longest time, listening to Peter Jennings’s “play by play” account of the horrific happenings in New York. I will never forget his incredulous reaction to the news from the onsite reporter who announced that the first tower had fallen. Peter said something on the order of, “You mean one side of the building has collapsed?” To which the reporter replied, “No, Peter, it’s gone…the entire building is…gone.” Chilling stuff.

All I could think was, “Someone’s just tugged on Superman’s cape, and they have no idea what they’ve done.”

I stayed at work throughout the day, numbly going through the motions. At some point, Dave went home and brought in a television, so we could follow the events more closely. I happened to be in the reception area when he plugged it in and watched with a handful of others in shocked disbelief as they replayed the towers crumbling to the ground…like so much kindling. One announcer stated that as many as 20,000 people could be in and around the WTC at any given moment during the day, and that is when I lost it. (The only time in eleven years that Dave has let his “boss” reserve down…he gave me a consoling hug.)

I cannot help it...that’s just me. I have a penchant for going straight to the heart of the matter. While some may think in terms of planes and buildings and so-called “collateral damage,” all I could think about was…those poor people. The people in the planes, the people in those disintegrating buildings, the people on the ground running in sheer terror from an assailant which…at that moment…had not been identified, and the people left behind searching in vain for loved ones.

When I got home…like the rest of America…I turned on the television and just watched in stupefied silence as the horrific moments of the day were played over and over again until I finally got to the point where, if I saw those buildings collapse one more time, or one more person jump/fall to their death from the burning buildings, I was certain I was going to throw up. I watched as reporters stationed at various triage centers, that had been set up to handle the barrage of wounded they were anticipating, scratched their heads in wonder, bemused by the fact the centers remained empty well into the night. There was, in fact, a very simple reason for the empty emergency centers…I found myself screaming at the television…there were no survivors found among the rubble to bring to them.

So here we are, seven years and two wars later, and I find myself asking…did we, as a nation, learn anything from that day, are we better or worse off for having lived through it, are we better-equipped or prepared to handle another terrorist attack of that magnitude…or worse? I don’t know…I have no answers.

I only know that all of our lives were forever changed that day…some, and I’m referring to those who lost mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers and friends, more deeply than others. The catchphrase for that awful day has become “We Will Never Forget.” I don’t know about you, but I, for one, do not need a “slogan” to remind me of that terrible September morning. The horrifying images are forever burned in my brain and the poignant stories of the survivors and loved ones lost are forever embedded in my heart.

Images From That Day

Photos found on various Google sites.

A poem, not about 9-11, but relevant none the less.

"None So Brave"
Taken one day from their daily lives.
Helping to rebuild a country war torn and still in strife.

Blindfolded with hands and feet tied,
Three brave men in front of their captives sat.
People so evil with no value for life.

Threats and demands were made,
For the two Americans and an Englishman to save.
Days dragged by, while the world waited with bated breath.
Thoughts with the men in the hands of terrorists.
All efforts made for their release were to no avail.
While in the depths of their minds hope hovered.
As right to the end they still reached out to life.

We do not understand how these people can take innocent lives,
But perhaps one day the answer find,
As we travel the corridors of time.

by Margaret H. Mustoe

A timetable of the events of September 11, 2001 as they occurred can be found here.