Ten Years Later – What We Remember and What 9/11 Means to Us

Like most Americans, we at Delaware Liberal were witnesses to the attacks on New York and D.C. ten years ago. In remembrance of that day we have decided to do a group post would look back on that day and what has happened since.

MJ:

I will never forget this day. I was still living in DC. I was outside of my building (a Federal government agency) talking with a colleague from the Department of Treasury. She was in town from San Francisco and was getting acquainted with my agency. She needed a cigarette break. As we were talking we heard a very loud explosion. At first we thought it was a dump truck going over one of those steel plates that litter the roads in DC. But then we felt the shock wave. I’d never felt anything like that before. You’re pushed like a giant wind gust had just hit you, but there was no breeze. We then saw dark smoke rising above the tree line over the Mall. At first I thought that a plane had crashed at National Airport, but I looked closely and could see the control tower clearly. I looked to the left and thought that something had crashed on I-395 or the 14th Street Bridge.

I ran back into the building. We had been glued to the television all morning watching the scene unfold in NYC, not thinking that it was related to what I was watching a few miles from me. The evacuation order came and I made sure my co-workers had left. Since I usually rode my bike into work, I changed into my cycling clothes and left. For some reason, my cell phone was working. My dad in Denver and my brother & sister in California called to see if I was OK. I assured them I was fine and on my way home. Strangers asked to use my phone and I let them call their families. Traffic was at a standstill, but since I was on my bike, I was moving without any problem. I got home and just sat all day and watched CNN. Even though we were given the option to take leave the next day, I was back in to the office. Actually, I was the only one in my office that day.

I finally understood what my father had gone through when Pearl Harbor was attacked. A sense of vulnerability. What was happening to us and how would we respond? Instead of going after the perpetrators of this attack, our government decided to avenge an alleged assassination attempt against the sitting President’s father some 10 years before and dragged us into a needless war in a country that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks, a war that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and maimed hundreds of thousands more. We went from having budget surpluses to record deficits, all the while giving tax breaks to those who needed them the least. We have become more polarized politically. I lived through the Viet Nam War and what it did to our country. My only hope is that we don’t travel down that road again. But those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.

nemski:

I first heard about a plane crashing into one of the Towers via email from my wife. We had just spent the prior year in Jersey City and the lower Manhattan skyline was a very familiar sight. My first thought was, “Why hadn’t it happened sooner?” You see airplanes and helicopter flying just above the New York City skyscrapers was a familiar sight prior to September 11th. So Mrs. Nemski watched the grainy picture on our cableless TV and soon we all knew it was a terrorist attack as another plane struck the other tower. A lot happened that day but our family had some decisions to make. Our boy was turning 4 in a few months and we made the decision not to hide it from him. Other friends hid these terrible days from their kids, but instinctively we knew that if we were affected so would he. For days afterwards as the skies were free of airplanes, we watched the TV and tried to make sense of it all. 9/11 brought out the best of our country and, sadly, it brought out the worst. I believe we are still healing as a country and maybe this horrible political rancor we are having is just one of the symptoms. But what I do know is this: my son and his generation have lost something very dear.

pandora:

I had dropped my son off at school and my daughter at pre-school when my husband called to tell me about the first plane. I turned on the TV and watched the scene while talking with Mr. Pandora. While we were on the phone the second plane hit. That moment will forever be with me. In a heartbeat, a horrible “accident” revealed itself to be deliberate. I remember telling Mr. Pandora that I had to get the kids and hanging up the phone. All I knew was that I wanted my family together – and that having my family intact was now a luxury denied to so many.

The images and memories of that day remain crystal clear to me. I avoid 9/11 documentaries, specials, etc. I’m not ready to relive that day.

Delaware Dem:

I was a new associate at a small law firm in Wilmington. I was working, when I heard my secretary exclaim “What!?! A plane hit the World Trade Center?” after hearing it on the radio. It was the first plane. So she came into my office as I was checking CNN.com, but the page was frozen, probably because everyone else in the country was trying to access the page at the same time. I then received an email from a friend in Midtown Manhattan about seeing a plane just crash into the tower. So we go into the conference room to turn on the TV, just in time to see the second plane. The next hour was spent hearing rumors over the radio and TV, and frantic calls to my family. I actually had the operator break into a phone call my mother was having with my Aunt Ginger. Both of them were just talking away blissfully unaware of what was going on. And does anyone else remember hearing on the radio that a bomb exploded at the State Department?

Then came word that Governor Minner (shudder) ordered the evacuation of Wilmington. Well, all I think she did was suggest that employers close for the day in one of the larger financial centers on the East Coast, but it seemed like an evacuation as I and hundreds of other employees walked up 12th street to various parking garages. I got home, and spent the next several hours in front of a TV. At some point, I went outside, only to see neighbors in the street all just talking. Overhead, there wasn’t the sound of airliners making their descent into Philadelphia International. It was peaceful. Neighbors were sharing their experiences, and what they have heard. It was a day of chaos, but a day of community, in the end. When I remember 9/11, I chose to remember my reactions to it, and the end of the day, rather than the beginning, and what others did to us.

I am never going to forget 9/11, but I also don’t want to relive it. Yeah, I guess I just relived it a little bit here. But I what I am really talking about is the media coverage of today. Like some years ago, several networks are just replaying their broadcasts from that day. Yeah, I don’t want to see that. I don’t want to relive every second. I don’t want to live in fear and horror. I want to live through a day once, reflect on it, and then take lessons from it. And then it is time to move on.

Unstable Isotope:

One thing I strongly remember about September 11, 2001 is that it was a beautiful day in Buffalo, NY where I was living at the time. Like a lot of people I was at work on the day of September 11. I don’t have any dramatic stories from that day. My technician at the time came into my office to tell me to turn on the radio after the first plane hit. I was listening to the news when the second plane hit. I called my husband at home to tell him to turn on the TV and then I think I made a pretense of trying to work for a while and then we all gathered in a conference room to watch the television coverage.

I remember my co-workers talking about putting together a blood drive. We thought the Red Cross might need the blood. It became apparent within the day that they wouldn’t be pulling victims alive from New York. I remember watching Bush at Ground Zero and his statement with the megaphone. Like practically everyone, I pumped my fist in agreement. I remember the members of Congress holding hands and singing “God Bless America.” I remember Rudy Giuliani breaking down during a press briefing. We were all united as Americans.

My first twinge of unease came during the service at the National Cathedral. Bush spoke and all he seemed to talk about was war, war, war. Not long after there was a national address by Bush where he said Americans can help by going shopping. So my memories of 9/11 are tangled in the response that came afterwards and remind me how much Bush ruined everything.

On this day I don’t want to watch the footage again. I feel like those pictures are seared into my brain. I will never forget. I want to remember the heroes and victims of that terrible day and the sense of unity we all felt. The days where we said “we are all Americans.”

El Somnambulo

I was at a working meeting on nursing home reform at Buena Vista. At some point, someone said that she’d received an e-mail from her daughter that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. Nothing else, nothing about terrorism, we assumed it was a terrible accident. Presumably, the tony people who keep Buena Vista humming were reading up on the phony duPont Family largesse that created this ‘gift’ to the state, and paying no attention to the news.

Heard nothing more about it until I got into my car after the meeting reached its uninterrupted conclusion around, I think, 10:30 am or so. What I heard on the radio was so shocking that I went numb. Headed back to the Carvel Building even though WDEL had reported that the building was being closed and all state employees sent home. Realized it when I got stuck in perhaps the largest 11 am traffic jam in Wilmington history.

Instinctively headed to Wilmington Friends, my daughters’ school. The lower-school principal calmly told me that, of course, if I wished, I could take my daughters home. However, the teachers and staff were spending the day helping these very young children try to understand this monumental event, and he was suggesting that parents let their children stay and be part of that rather than sit in front of the TV gulping down horror in huge doses. That made sense.

I headed home, only to find that, for some reason, many traffic lights were out, and that there was traffic headed north everywhere I went. All I could think of was the ‘airborne toxic event’ in Don DeLillo’s White Noise.

My one thought about September 11 is that it was the Day the Terrorists Won. Civil Liberties? A luxury.  The War in Iraq? A necessity. The obscene human and financial toll? The price we must pay.

Only they weren’t.