Two years gone
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This entry was posted at
17:51 GMT on 10 September 2003
UPDATED at
15:23 GMT on 13 September 2003
I was awakened on 11 September 2001 by a phone call. I was told that the World Trade Center had been bombed. To my shame, I answered with sarcasm: "What, again?"
"No," she said, "they're gone!"
I spent the rest of the day glued to the television in horror, and anger, as did the rest of the country.
Initially I wanted to post a piece of my writing that was influenced by 9/11, as a tribute — the first three pages of a script. However, as one of my trusted advisors pointed out, it isn't really about 9/11, and thus isn't appropriate.
I love my country, but there is much in our culture that is debased. As has been observed elsewhere, compare the endless stories and tributes to Princess Di or Laci Peterson to the dearth of programming memorializing the worst day in our nation's history, which is also the day that proved the cynics wrong about the character of the average joe in this country.
The blogosphere represents, to me, an attempt to break with the media culture of nihilism, to reconnect with what is great about this country, the ideals that this nation is founded upon.
Here are some reasons why I see it that way.
First up, of course, is James Lileks. He's written a number of exceptional pieces about 9/11 and the resultant wars. Here's a few of them:
From the first day:
I am not going to live in fear. They want my freedom, my peace of mind? Come and get it.
The second day:
The men on the plane decided to attack the hijackers. They learned what had happened in New York with the other hijacked planes; they figured their lives were lost already. They fought back. What itıs like to swallow your terror and act is beyond the imagination of most ordinary folks - but the point is, they were ordinary folks.
Yes, that is the point, isn't it. When it comes down to it, when the guns are drawn and there's no hope left, we don't lie down. In the face of impossible odds, we go down fighting.
A warm image from the third day:
The planes are landing again. I saw them fly over the house tonight and I wanted to, and did, cheer. Waved them past. Gnat waved hello as well. Itıs a heartening sight.
And finally, from last Friday:
I had been describing my reaction to the men whoıd kill my daughter for the glory of Allah: give me the gun, show me the cave.
A Small Victory is running a fine project called Voices, which is recording the memories of that day from anyone who wishes to contribute.
The postings include remembrances of entire offices full of people:
Jim — So quietly sitting in your cubicle outside my office. A shy smile. That off-site meeting where you went up to the D.J., twice, to make sure he played that song I wanted to dance to ("White Lines"). I wish now I had taken more pains to say hello to you every morning. But know this — I always thought you were one of the gentlest souls I ever met. I still do.
and poetry:
I looked away for a moment
And came back to find that steel wings had slashed the guardians of my island,
Burying its icon of indomitable strength
Under cloaks of crumbled plateaus
Blankets of concrete nothingness
Layers of still hearts.
and the panic and pain of the shock at long distance:
We knew nothing of his whereabouts. We didn't know which tower he worked in or what floor he worked on or even if he'd gone to work that day. My wife was discussing these unknowns with her brother on the phone when the first tower crumbled before our eyes
It's a noble project.
The scrappy Rachel Lucas is looking for a way to convert her hours of video tape to DVD, so she can distribute what the networks refuse to show on this, only the second anniversary of the most costly foreign attack on American soil.
Little Green Footballs keeps a log of news stories about the radical Islamic world that reminds me, and everyone else who checks it, of one elemental truth: they hate us, they want to destroy us and everything that we stand for, and they will accept nothing short of that.
Read it. Every day. Then tell me how we can make friends with them, how "...the only punishment that works is love."
As counterpoint, Arthur Silber is far more concerned with the potential fascism in our current administration than with terrorist threats from abroad.
[The above is an inaccurate assessment of Arthur's position. He emailed me and kindly corrected me, and also posted the email on his blog. I made an honest mistake, and he graciously took it as such. Arthur is a true gentleman.]
I don't agree with him, but then I still haven't finished reading his multi-part justification of his position, so I am disagreeing at least partly out of ignorance. He's a smart guy, and his thoughts are always worth considering.
Digression: I swiped two terms from someone years ago, I no longer remember whom. I tend to refer to the two political parties in the U.S. as the Thieves and the Dictators. Nobody ever has to ask which is which. The thieves are, indeed, acting without any courage whatsoever, hoping to slink off into the night and wishing that the terrorists will forget about us. The dictators are, indeed, showing dictatorial tendencies with disturbing frequency. But those tendencies seem, for the moment, to be held in check.
And I have zero problem with taking out a tyrant who put children in prison and dropped people into plastic shredders feet first to hear them scream. None. His connections with and support for terrorism are indisputable, whether or not he was connected with al Qaeda. We are at war with Islamic terrorism in toto, and hopefully terrorism in toto, not just al Qaeda.
Christopher Hitchens has a column up at MSNBC, and I think he gets it exactly right:
What is required is a steady, unostentatious stoicism, made up out of absolute, cold hatred and contempt for the aggressors, and complete determination that their defeat will be utter and shameful.
Finally, on this anniversary, I want you to remember Jeremy Glick.
Mr. Glick was 31 years old when he boarded Flight 93 the morning of 11 September 2001. His daughter had been born prematurely mere months before. He was going on a business trip he didn't want to take, because it took him away from his daughter.
When the terrorists took over, he managed to make a 20-minute phone call to his wife, which helped authorities immensely. Along with at least two other passengers (including the more celebrated Todd Beamer), he planned to take on the terrorists who had taken over the plane.
Faced with an impossible situation, he told his wife "whatever decisions you make in your life, I need you to be happy, and I will respect any decisions that you make," took his fate into his own hands, and perhaps saved the nation even greater tragedy on that awful day.
Jeremy Glick was an ordinary guy, who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and he stood up against the enemy. In the moments where there seemed to be no hope, he became a hero.
One of the things that makes this country great is that he could have been any one of us. And contrary to some people's notions in this age of cynicism and nihilism, his story and so many others that day showed that the average joe on the street is good, is trustworthy and, if need be, is a hero.
Two years later, and forever afterward, remember.
Remember Jeremy Glick, an ordinary hero.
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