9/11 Remembered- From a Distance

This event will be one of those where we always remember where we were when we heard the news. Even though I was only in the 3rd grade when we were told of JFK's assassination, I still remember the event, and all the details of my movements, as if it were yesterday. So it was on that Tuesday morning as I was driving to work before 7:00 a.m. our time. The second plane had just crashed into the South Tower, and word was just coming over the car radio that there was a blast at the Pentagon. The news was coming at a frenetic pace, but it was clear this was an event like no other.

I got in to work and immediately went to the Internet to search CNN.com. I was still trying to figure out what just happened and who was behind it. We had staff meetings on Tuesday mornings, so we gathered together at 8:15 in what was the most somber of meetings. No company business today- in fact not much conversation at all as we spent a lot of time just looking at each other. Our Director had family in New York, though not in Manhattan, so she was trying to reach her daughter. Then something was said by a physician on our staff that sticks with me to this day. She just said, "well, there goes our civil liberties". It wasn't meant to be snide or callous. We were all trying to see what tomorrow would look like after this unique tragedy. But it was strangely prophetic.

As the day went on more news kept coming, all of it bad. The towers collapsed. There was no recovery of surviving victims in the buildings. ER's sat empty- no wounded, they were all just dead. The count had not begun, but we knew there would be thousands dead, many firefighters among them. Another hijacked plane had gone down in Pennsylvania. The government was in disarray and no one was even sure where the President was. There was growing fear of additional attacks, all transportation stopped, and we froze in place. Even the weather here went from being a calm sunny morning to being a blustery, dusty day with a haze in the air to match our moods. The country was on edge, stunned with grief, anxious with fear, and somewhat paralyzed by the unknown.

Ten years have passed now and I, like so many others, have tried to understand what this all means for us and the future of our country. The attack revealed a great many things about us as a people. Extraordinarily great things about our culture and our people were revealed- and sadly, some very dark parts of our character were revealed too. I could never cover all that this event means to so many people, but I will look briefly at those aspects that strike me now. I know this for sure: September 11th, 2001 is a date that was the beginning of undeniable change for all of us.

Among the things that we experienced on that day was a sense of unity. This is critically important to remember. It is critical because it seems the loss of unity, in purpose and spirit, is what tears at us most today. But, in the immediate days after the attack that sense of unity was so profound. I think the nations of the world sensed it too. It had been a long time since there was an outpouring of good will towards this country from nations around the globe. Unfortunately, we squandered those feelings instead of building on them.

The events of 9/11 also revealed incredible acts of individual and group heroism and courage. There are literally thousands of stories of Americans coming to the aid of each other. I can't recall another time when we as a nation came to revere and respect the public employees who protect us and rescue us without question everyday. I don't think any of us have viewed firefighters, paramedics, or police the same way since 9/11. Now we call them "first responders" and they are seen so differently than the day before 9/11. They haven't changed- but the way we see them and appreciate them most certainly has. To some extent our feelings about those who serve in the armed forces has changed too. I remember in the days of the Viet Nam war, soldiers could not return to claim the respect and gratitude of the nation. Today we see it differently. We respect those who wear our uniform in ways we did not only a generation ago. We respect the work and the sacrifice, and we don't hold them responsible for the political decisions of others. This is a good thing.

The worst thing about terrorism is, that it works! Tactics like these generate terror. Another word for terror is fear; and fear is a powerful thing that usually results in behaviors we wouldn't ordinarily engage in. Fear reveals things about ourselves we might try to hide deep down, or keep at bay. Fear causes us to be reactive, instead of reflective and measured in our responses. The last ten years have been a study, a text book example, of how to demoralize a people. Our fear led our leaders to direct us into seemingly endless wars. Immediately after 9/11 we went into Afghanistan and promptly liberated the capital city, installed a government and then neglected the rest of the country while off on other missions. We were attacked so we had to attack back, and I would agree that needed to happen in Afghanistan. But then we kept using, in fact embellishing, the images of fear to engage in yet another war in Iraq. This one was all about fear and, as it turned out, deception.

In more reflective times we would never attack a country that did not attack us first,because it would be below the dignity and status of the world's only super-power and greatest democracy. But we did it this time. Our environment of fear permitted us to permit our leaders to wage a war, commit lives and limbs and enormous amounts of money to an endeavor that was based on lies. That war revealed that we would tolerate inhumane treatment of prisoners, rendition of prisoners, and torture. We even waged war in civilian areas, then never bothered counted the dead. At home we trampled on our own civil liberties, with illegal wiretaps, searches, and detentions. When some objected, they said: "if you're not guilty, what do you have to worry about?" But our Constitution was what we needed to worry about. We allowed it because we were afraid. We were so wounded by the attacks of 9/11 that, in many ways, we forgot who we are and what we stand for. Even today the architects, The Cheney's, the Rumsfeld's, and the Bush's still try to justify those actions we call atrocities, when done by others. Instead of holding them to account, we buy their damn books and put them on talk shows.

Another casualty was "the common good" and our civility in the political arena. Politics became about being "with me or against me". If you're "against me" it became normal to question one's loyalty and patriotism. Foreign policy became about "being with us-or against us". In less fearful times our ability to reason, compromise, and be statesmanlike, would have ruled the day. This cost us the compassion and support of other nations. In less fearful times we would have not risked our entire national treasure borrowing the money to fight these wars, then come back in following years to blame the new President because he just put them on the books, instead of pretending like these war debts didn't exist.

I believe the troubles we face now, domestic and foreign, economic, social and political, are a direct result of what happened ten years ago. It was the beginning of a decade of decline, and changes in our national character. Even the hopeful events, and there have been some since 9/11, have been overshadowed by the fear, and our lost sense of what is best about us. We now view this from a distance of ten years. But these events will only be truly understood by historians who examine this period many generations from now. We will need a far greater distance than ten years to understand this one. That's because we are not healed yet- we have not stopped reacting yet- we have not regained our footing and our true character yet. Some of you may see my thoughts as too critical, perhaps even unpatriotic. They aren't. They are meant to be a plea to reclaim our true values. They are meant to remind us that the best of us is reflected in the heroism and humanity among Americans on that day, not the wave of fear that took hold of us in terrorism's wake.

Thanks for looking in.