What Does This Date Mean To You?
September 11 is one piece of a puzzle that got me to move to Portland, to come back to the Pacific Northwest to be closer to family, to live in a place where I could get more involved in the community and hopefully, in however small a way, help to make the world a better place. I’m sure I’m not the only one who did some reexamining of what was important to them on that date.
But more than anything, this date actually reminds me of September 12, 2001, a date when this country, and the world, were united in grief and sorrow and even hope that this would be a turning point, in a good way, for the future of the United States, and also the rest of the world. There was so much promise and rhetoric about what it meant to be an American, an emphasis on bravery and freedom and being united in the best sense of the world. We, as a country, could have done just about anything at that point in time to really make a change in the world and how we interacted with it.
And then I look at us now, only five years later, and I wonder how all that sand slipped through our fingers, how much of that promise has been squandered. The only other time in recent history when I started to feel that potential again was just after Hurricane Katrina, but even that was fleeting. This is a rhetorical question, but why is it that we’re only drawn together to do (possible) great good in the face of tragedy? We’re still living in a mild state of fear, we’re still petty and rude, and seemingly, in this era of red and blue, more divided than ever. And I’m not trying to lay any blame at anyone’s feet for any of that, not today. But today of all days, I’m going to try to put all that aside and just remember what it felt like, through the horror and reality of what had happened, to walk down the street and feel connected to everyone I saw, to get waves from complete strangers, to find some comfort in the faces of the people around me. And if I can get that to last for even half the day today, it will have been a good day.
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My husband was in the hotel right next door to the WTC towers at the time of the bombing. What he saw and what he was a part of shook him up pretty well - but also as he has said himself (he wrote an amazing blog entry over the weekend about it) it made him stronger in some ways - and brought out the good in some and the bad in others.
He also credits a realization that life is too short for us meeting and getting together about a month later. So even though I was lucky enough not to have lost him before I even knew him - for us it’s a very personal day as well.
you didn’t link to it, so i won’t either, but what a great piece by your husband.
a local dj @ wfmu has a map up online where people are encouraged to post the stories about where they were on this date in 2001.
http://platial.com/edshepp/map/2968?title=Where_I_was_When_9/11_Happened
I have to say that I am trying to unite by bringing up this topic, but all of us do know by now that the Towers couldn’t have been topled by the airplanes, right?
The explosions from those planes do not generate enough heat to *melt* steel buildings. It’s a physics equation.
And even if the planes could have reached the necessary high temps to melt steel, the buildings would have crumbled from the sides that were hit by the plane–they would not have imploded from the bottom which was tens of stories away from the impacts.
The only way we would have seen the *three* World Trade Center Buildings implode from the bottom and then free-fall straight down would be through planned explosions accomplished by detonated bombs that could reach temperatures hot enough to melt steel.
(And if you didn’t know there were three WTC buildings that were demolished that day, you’re in the majority. But do a little research and see what you’ll find…)
And isn’t it odd that we saw the Twin Towers videos played again and again while the only video released showing the Pentagon “plane crash” is a short clip that doesn’t show a large passenger plane at all? The Pentagon has many video cameras positioned on its exterior walls. Further, there were videos taken by a nearby gas station and a nearby hotel. Why have those videos from that crash been kept hidden from public viewing?
Okay, so how is this post uniting instead of dividing? Because all of us as American people need to unite together in the face of this tragedy. We need to stop looking for solutions from a government that was at best incompetant and at worst implicitly involved in 9/11. We need to vote with our voices and our letters and our phonecalls and our pocketbooks. And we must support the truth–all together united.