I remember 9/11 with extreme conflicting emotions and the rapid gauntlet from one extreme to the other. I remember talking to my daughter on 9/10 as they were taking my grandson who only 9 months old to a Yankee baseball night game. I am not sure how much of the game he understood at his age but I remember hearing that he really enjoyed the crowd doing the wave which was big back then. The game went into extra innings. I don't remember who they played or who won the game but I remember being very thankful that the game lasted a long time so they got home late.
They lived on Union Square which became the Memorial site for 9/11 filled with flowers and pictures of victims who were lost or missing. Union Square was the closet limit to WTC site that people could approach after 9/11. My daughter and her husband had worked at the World Trade Center as traders and she planned to go in early the next day when he went to work to pick up some pictures at her office that she had order to be developed (this was before photography went digital) and to then take my grandson out to buy some new shoes he needed due to his rapid growth at the age of 9 months. Her husband would work his usual day trading.
But because of the late night they decided to let him sleep in a bit and to go in to work later. I got to work around 8 AM and the first thing I heard from a patient was "Doc, they blew up the World Trade Center." The TV was blaring out the news of the devastation and my heart either stopped or fell to my stomach. My hands were shaking as I dialed home to wake up my wife who sleeping in since she worked a later shift. She wondered why I was waking her up as I urgently told her to call our daughter and find out if she was OK. Fortunately she was able to connect with her before the lines became clogged up and calls were impossible for a long while due to over use after the tragedy. Our daughter wondered why we were calling so early. Her reply then was something about hearing a strange loud noise and they then went up on their roof top just in time to watch the second plane hit the towers. Later they could heard the screaming as people ran by and and they saw the heavy dust from the towers falling.
When I heard my daughter and her family were still home and OK, I felt enormous sense of relief. I was still anxious since they were trapped in Manhattan and no one knew what was happening next. The plane attack on the Pentagon news and the heroic efforts of flight 93 were yet unknown. Phone calls in and out of Manhattan then became impossible due to over loaded lines. Maybe some towers were also knocked off line by damage to the WTC or shut down as a safety measure. It was many hours later before we got another update about her family and a couple days more until they could leave the island for a safer location.
I flew in a couple weeks later to visit and went with her to view the devastation. In a time of crisis one often has strange thoughts and reactions. my daughter was upset about losing her pictures that she wanted to see. My son-in-law was worried about being able to get pizza to eat so he went to nearest shop and ordered a couple right away. It was probably some days later when the loss of many of their friends and co-workers who were trapped on upper floors really hit them along with guilt and gratitude for being lucky to survive. The juxtaposition of two such strong feelings was shared by many including myself.
I also had such feelings later when I learned the terrorists had trained in Afghanistan. I spent two years there in the Peace Corps teaching students and was very sad about what happen to that country after i left. Then the Shah was trying hard to bring his country into the 20th century and to make it a better place for its citizens. I was also very upset about what happened to that country afterward and the role our country played in creating the haven for Taliban that contributed to creating the terrorist training camps for the fanatics who attacked us on 9/11. But that gets into a political discussion so I won't go there.
The events of 9/11 were not the first attack by Muslim fanatics upon America. Several years earlier they had tried to blow up the World Trade Center when my son-in-law was there but the explosion only destroyed a lower level parking area. But 9/11 was the event that crystallized the struggle that Western civilization has with Muslim fanatics that seek to destroy it. It also transformed America's view of this conflict and that impact has transformed the world. Unfortunately terrorist attacks upon the western civilized world have become rather frequent and more widespread along with enormous violence and deaths in the Arab world.
There is a monument in the Peace Gardens in ND and Canada border that also symbolizes the dissonance of conflicting emotions from 9/11. It is a beautiful peaceful place but there is also the monument constructed with debris from the WTC with this plague:
“This cairn, composed of steel rescued from the devastation of the World Trade Center in New York , ensures the memory of this tragedy will not be lost and reminds us to cherish tolerance, understanding and freedom.
Some people feel it is out of place there. There is also navy ship made from the steel of the WTC debris which most think appropriate.
Anyone else want to share their 9/11 memory?
Last edited by drz; 09-11-2016 at 10:24 PM.
Knowledge is power! Wisdom is using it to make good decisions!
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