Monday, September 11, 2006

Five Years later

It seems like a long time in some ways and then again a very short time in many others.

I'm trying to recall the time. I'd gone to Lisner Auditorium the night before to hear Carol Burnett speak. It was like an Inside the Actor's Studio type interview and then she took questions from the audience. A very fun and enjoyable evening.

In fact, it had been part of a very enjoyable couple of weeks. I'd gone to my parents for a long Labor Day weekend and Ed and Jennifer had come up Springfield,Mo. We'd all gone to the Labor Day concert at Ravinia.

On the actual day of September 11, I wasn't going into work. I had a physical scheduled for that day. It was a really nice sunny, pleasant morning. I walked up to my doctor's office at Dupont Circle. It was 9ish or so. I stopped in a place that had a TV on. I saw the top of the Trade Centers on fire but I couldn't exactly grasp what I was seeing. I knew I should recognize the landmark but I just could not place it. I couldn't grasp why they were on fire. But I soon found out.

I walked to the office and of course asked if they had heard. I remember telling someone in the waiting room about what had happened. He immediately got on his cell to try and call someone. We hadn't heard about the Pentagon yet. I had a conversation with a woman in the waiting room. We both agreed that New York might not be the last place to get hit. Moments later we heard about the Pentagon. A little after that there was a report that a bomb had gone off at the State Department. Up until that moment the doctor's office had been pretty calm but then people started to get scared.

But my doctor kept the appointment. We started in until the first tower came down. I then said we can do this at another time and my doctor quickly agreed. One of the doctors in the office was talking about going down to GW hospital to see if they needed any help.

I decided to walk back down to my office and see if anyone was still there and to offer a place to stay for awhile incase they didn't want to battle all the chaos going on. In retrospect offering my place at 26th K very much an area that could have been a target, seemed rather silly. I did go back to the office but no one was there. I then walked home.

All you could do then was to watch the news coverage. I also tried to get in touch with people. It took awhile to reach some people. Some friends I just ended up sending an e-mail to saying I was ok. I know several friends from out of town asked if I was scared and I have to say I really wasn't. I was shocked, angry, surprised but not scared. My reaction was one of they(meaning the bad guys) had final struck us.

Later on there would be some scary and unnerving things. Like walking to and from work each day for a month after where there were armed men at each street corner. Or driving past the Pentagon and seeing the surface to air missile battery.

The one thing that scared me the most on that day was something that happened long after the events of the morning. The network news was coming back on after giving local affiliates a break. It was 6 pm. They summarized what had happened and then did reactions from people around the county. They interviews a woman in San Francisco. They asked all the usual questions. How had your heard about it. Where were you and then this one. Are you scared. And without missing a beat she said: Oh no. Because it would never happen here. I almost fell out of my chair. That's what scared me the most that after what had just happened someone thought it could never happen where they live.

I'm not talking about someone living in Peoria or Butte but someone living in San Francisco which has plenty of potential targets. That made me scared and it also made me angry. I wanted to be able to reach through the TV screen and give the woman a swift kick. On that day five years ago, we got to see what evil was. And we got to see it very up close and very personal. But we also saw something else on that day. Something that will remain with me much longer than the horror of that day. It was people doing things to help out. The police, the fireman, the office workers, the ordinary every day people helping each other out.

I also think of the people on flight 93 and there courageous decision to take back that plane. To prevent it from doing any more damage. Because make no mistake, if that plane had reached Washington, the White House or more likely the Capitol would have been hit.

So now we've seen the face of evil. Now our job is to make sure it is defeated. And in the end I know we will do just that.

1 comment:

Arthur Schenck said...

It’s been said that the attacks five years ago marked the first time that mass murder was witnessed by the entire world. We all, regardless of where we live, have stories and memories of that day. I’m glad you posted some of yours to help bear witness to those events.

But one thing kept coming back to me, amid all the remembrances: The way nearly the whole world came together in the aftermath. Here in New Zealand, ordinary people expressed their support for and solidarity with Americans in numerous ways. Many left flowers along the fence of the US Embassy in Wellington. One New Zealand woman told the New Zealand Herald the reason for doing so: "You can't do anything useful, so you do something that's vaguely irrelevant. I don't have any friends or family in the United States but, you know, we're all kind of connected."

As it happened, we were connected for only a brief time. The Bush administration took the goodwill of the world, a level of support that certainly had never been so high in my lifetime, and managed to turn it all around. Where once ordinary people in countries throughout the world spoke out strongly in support of America, now they condemn the country with equally loud voices. Goodwill has turned to acrimony, and support to enmity.

You’re quite right in saying that our job is to make sure evil is defeated. But how much easier it would have been to do so if the current administration had decided to engage the world community, rather than take it on.