Anniversary time to search national soul
It happened 20 years ago, but the hurt will never go away. It may dull, at moments, or shift in perspective and understanding with the passage of time. But it is an attack that changed this nation and, as our withdrawal from Afghanistan shows so poignantly, continues to shape our place in this world.
Known by its calendar assignation, 9/11 is one of the most horrific days in U.S. history, a day when death and destruction upset the serenity of a clear, sunny morning in New York City.
It was the first of three attacks, the others in Shanksville, Pa., and Washington, D.C., all perpetrated by terrorists commandeering airplanes and turning them into missiles.
In all, almost nearly 3,000 people died, with hundreds more injured; this death toll included 343 firefighters and 71 law enforcement officers. President Joe Biden will visit all three sites. There was a moment, however fleeting, after these terrorist attacks when our nation rallied as one and responded with what then-president George W. Bush called “the best of America.”
“Today, our nation saw evil — the very worst of human nature — and we responded with the best of America, with the daring of our rescue workers, with the caring for strangers and neighbors who came to give blood and help in any way they could,” Bush said at the time.
As the World Trade Center collapsed, eyewitnesses described the shrill, blood-curdling screams. Firefighters arrived; so did police officers and emergency medical technicians, all of them heroes, running into the towers as people ran away. They struggled for hours, trying to save the thousands entombed in the very complex where they had been working, quietly and peacefully, only moments before.
Let’s remember Brian Sweeney’s poignant voice message to his wife, Julie, as Flight 175 veered toward the towers.
“Jules, this is Brian. Listen, I’m on an airplane that’s been hijacked. If things don’t go well, and it’s not looking good, I just want you to know I absolutely love you. I want you to do good, go have good times. Same to my parents and everybody, and I just totally love you, and I’ll see you when you get there,” Sweeney said.
With the two towers bursting into flames, men and women jumped out of windows, preferring the peril below to the peril above. They were burning already, many of them. Arms and legs aflame, they looked like matchsticks carelessly tossed to the ground. For years, we agnoized over “the Falling Man.”
Dust and ash arose from the streets, a dark cloud of death. The smoke was so thick that people 20 blocks away started coughing, tasting the grit of destruction.
Along busy avenues in Manhattan, pedestrians huddled in front of electronic stores, transfixed by the images on the TVS in the display windows.
Twenty years later, the horror remains vivid, but there is a countervailing dynamic we must also remember — the response of all the men and women involved in the rescue efforts. They acted with the valor and selflessness of heroes — the best of us.
Along with the horror and courage, we remember the anger — an emotion sure to resurface with the recent declassification of information collected during the U.S. investigation of the attacks.
This anniversary opens the door for a more profound reflection. Something that goes beyond the assignation of a calendar date — 9/11 — to deeply mourn the loss of nearly 3,000 lives and the profound direction the attacks took this nation — to war in Afghanistan and then to Iraq.
It also should give us pause to remember the brief national unity we shared in the aftermath of these terrorist attacks and the deep fissures we cling to in this present moment. What has happened to this nation over the past 20 years? Has our response to 9/11 been a success? Is the world a safer place from terrorism? Have we fully honored the victims in this tragedy?
Search deep inside for the answers as 9/11 is so much more than a day of remembrance.