On the morning of September 11th, I was on the threads, when someone asked if I had seen the plane head into the World Trade Center tower. I didn't have the tv on, and so I rushed over to the tv in time to see the first replay. As the newspeople were talking, the camera stayed on the towers, and I watched with horror as the second airliner crashed into the other tower. I then knew for certain that it was a deliberate set of attacks. Awhile later, as I was watching a correspondent at the Pentagon, he mentioned hearing a crashing noise, and the next thing I knew, there was pandemonium, as the Pentagon was evacuated, and the damage assessed.
Both my wife and one sister- in- law work in Washington DC, not too far from the general area of the White House. My brother popped up on MS Messenger, and I agreed to pick them up if the city were otherwise closed down. We then sought to find out if Metro were being shut down, and to consult with our wives on whether they should come home early. It turned out that the Metro was open, and that the traffic was horrible, so driving in was inadvisable. I urged my wife to leave, before things got worse, and she did shortly thereafter.
She takes a commuter train at Union Station, and called to tell me it had been cancelled, and there was heavy security on the platform. I advised her to take the Metro into the suburbs. There is a station less than a half hour from us, by highway, and I could get her there. She went, and it turned out that they decided to provide a bus into Annapolis, so I didn't have to enter the heavy traffic. It took her hours to get home, after the initial decision.
Meanwhile, I watched the towers of the World Trade Center disintegrate in turn. The last time I had been to the WTC, I had been with a school group. We couldn't go up to the observation deck, because of a bomb threat. The time before that, also with a school group, I was talked into taking the catwalk on the roof, which is a very frightening thing to most people. I remembered the insecurity of the platform swaying in the wind, and wondered how I would feel to have the floor give way beneath me.
I have never visited the Pentagon, although I have driven past often enough. I have had friends who worked there, although I do not believe any were currently there. I thought about my father- in- law, who was in London during the Blitz. He was Eisenhower's chief clerk, and earned a Bronze Star for his excellent organizational work. During the Blitz, there was some warning, and one could seek shelter. How different, to awaken one day, go about one's routine, sit in the office, and suddenly have a big jet rammed into you. Did most of them even know what had happened? Did the passengers anticipate the end, or was there a sudden turn and then crash? There were several children from DC schools on board, on their way to a special National Geographic program on the West Coast. I thought of my first commercial flight (to New York), and how nervous I was, but how adult I felt. Did their chaperones have a chance to comfort them?
But there were also the policeman and firemen, the medics and doctors, and those who were just on the scene and helped people down stairs or carried them out of rubble. There were those in the last plane, who seemed to have overcome their captors, but who were plowed into the earth, nevertheless. There was the outpouring of grief and the desire to help, as people left candles and flowers at firestations, brought food and soda to help relieve those working on the scene. There were the sights of people gathered throughout the world, women crying in Britain as a man played dolefully on his bagpipe in front of the American Embassy, the 200,000 who showed their solidarity at the Brandenburg Gate, people in Moscow, people in Holland, a large crowd at the base of the Eiffel Tower, looking somber. People throughout the world, it seemed. But then also the more disturbing images, of Palestinians having street parties, and anti- American demonstrations in other parts of the Middle East.
So much evil, so much goodness, visible and juxtaposed. Rudy Guiliani helped to hold the city together, as President Bush held together the country. There was a sense of steadiness and determination, we somehow knew that we could get past it. We began preparing to rebuild and to retaliate, we had the eerie spectacle of politicians burying the hatchet in an extraordinary show of national unity. The President and his advisors moved methodically to put together a coalition, position troops and materiel, as the FBI scoured the country for clues and conspirators. Heroically determined crews from around the country supplemented the personnel in New York and Virginia, as they sorted through rubble for signs of life. America was showing that it was not thrown into hysteria by these events, but rather, that it could handle things, that there were still reserves in the American character that could carry us through.
America was showing the world how a great power responds to crisis. But more than that, it was showing that its character was not an abstraction, but lived in the hearts and minds of its people, people anyone would be proud to claim as countrymen........... |
