Remembering

Today, the 10 year anniversary of the 9-11 attacks upon our nation, is a good time for remembering.

I had just gotten out of the shower that morning 10 years ago.  As I was drying off, I turned on the TV in my bedroom.  This TV was old and the sound came on before the picture.  I heard the news anchor say that a plane had struck the World Trade Center in New York.  I looked at the screen and as the picture came on, I saw smoke and flames coming from both of the Twin Towers.  My mind did the arithmetic before the anchor could repeat the facts.  One plane could not have hit both towers.  Two planes could not be an accident.  Someone had deliberately attacked the United States.

As I continued to get dressed, the news reports came quickly.  When a preliminary report came that there were reports of an explosion inside the Beltway in Washington D.C., I said to someone in my home, "My God, how many of them are there going to be?"  This was before the news media had confirmed the plane crashing into the Pentagon. 

As I ate a quick breakfast, I continued to watch the unfolding events.  I observed and commented on the collapse of the first tower before Peter Jennings could stop pontificating long enough to tell us what was happening right before his eyes.  As I left to go to my office, I asked the person staying at my house to call me when the second tower collapsed.  Not if, but when.  The damage to both buildings was identical; to my mind, the collapse of the second tower was inevitable.  That phone call came while I was meeting with my bankers to go through the annual review of the office retirement plan.

When I arrived at my office, I told my office staff what was going on.  Most of them had left for work and arrived at the office before the first plane had struck, so they were completely unaware of what was happening.  It took me a bit of convincing.  They all thought that I was pulling some sick practical joke on them.  It was only when we got a radio on (the only station we could find covering the event was of all things NPR!) that they really believed me.  It was on the radio that we heard the first confusing reports of the explosion in southern Pennsylvania that turned out to be the crash of Flight 93 and its heroic passengers.

At noontime I managed to get a TV brought to the office and was able to watch the reactions of my employees as they saw those horrible images for the first time.  Throughout the day, my patients (and unbelievably, I had no cancellations or no-shows that day) could discuss almost nothing else.  That afternoon, as I left the office, I looked up at the clear blue sky and saw two parallel, curving jet contrails arcing across the southern sky.  By that time all the commercial traffic was on the ground.  Those jet trails could only have belonged to the sky cap being flown around Houston.  After completing my evening hospital rounds, I came home and watched many hours of the TV coverage that had been recorded for me, repetitive scene after scene of the aftermath of this vicious attack. 

That is my 9-11 story.  As such stories go, it is not much.  I am fortunate to have not personally known anyone who was killed on that day. A couple of the doctors from my community were in Washington and were on their way to go on a tour of the Pentagon that morning. But for the grace of God and timing, they might have been in the building when the plane crashed into it and my connection to the attacks could have been more personal.  These events remain ingrained into my psyche nonetheless, and I doubt that I will ever forget them. 

But even more than the events themselves, I remember how they made me feel.  I was angry -- royally pissed off -- that someone, anyone, had dared to do this to us.  Late that evening, when President Bush finally got the Secret Service to let him off Air Force One and make a statement to the nation, I was comforted by his statement that those who had done this to us would be brought to justice.  I was comforted because I then knew that we had a President that understood, who was just as angry, and would be resolute in his response, something that I felt his predecessor would not have been.  This has taken a lot longer than most of us wanted it to, and that task is still not finished.  But I suspect that President Bush and his advisers knew then that we had been forced onto a path the end of which would require decades to reach, but wisely kept this to themselves.

And now we have reached the end of the first and the beginning of the second decade of that journey, and many American are already weary of it.  I did not get to watch much of the coverage of the anniversary memorials today, though I expect that I will see parts of them over the coming days.  I don't need to have seen much of them to know that they were heavy with remembrance and memorialization of the innocent dead and the heroes who died trying to save them as well as the heroes who followed who have died or been permanently injured in defense of our country and all of her citizens.  And that is as it should be.  I am equally sure that they were not heavy at all in recalling how we all felt on that day and the days that followed, and that is not how it should be. 

Already the horrors of that day are being glossed over so that we can remember the dead but not the anger, and that is not right.  We should be reminded regularly of that anger, we should be shown regularly the horrors without editing of the most gruesome parts, so that we can never forget that anger.  Not until all of those who did this to us or would do something similar are either apprehended, killed, or so overwhelmed by our resolve that they abandon any further attempts.

For it is when we stop remembering this that it will happen again.  And 12-7-41 and 9-11-01 will have a new date of infamy join them.