Cross posted from The 10,000 Things
It was Sunday, Sept. 9. My sister had called to tell me that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. My family has been blessed with generally good health and this was the first serious illness to strike one of my siblings. She was scared. She remained on my mind the rest of the day and through the next. I woke up on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001 thinking I needed to call her and arrange to go see her. A phone conversation wasn’t good enough. Face to face time and hugs were required.
I arrived at the office just about 9:00am. I work in what my son likes to call “cubicle hell.” I saw several concerned faces sticking up over the wall in the cubicle next to mine. Generally that means one of our systems is down. That’s what I thought so I asked, “What’s up?” The answer was that the World Trade Center towers had just fallen. I said, “You’re kidding, right?” Somebody saying, “He doesn’t know.” A very serious head shaking no. “You’re not kidding. What’s going on?”
I was told that airplanes had hit both the Trade Center towers and that the Pentagon had been hit as well. Someone said the Capital Building too. I looked out the window across the river where I can see the Empire State Plaza and New York State capital office buildings. They were still standing. I think I asked if we were under attack. It was obvious that we were. I don’t recall wondering with whom. I guess the use of airplanes and the attack on the World Trade Center had me sure it was Islamic Terrorists. I kept looking out that window all day.
I asked if anything had happened in Europe. Puzzled faces seemed to be wondering why I asked. This was clearly a coordinated attack. I’d wondered in the past why Europe seemed to get more terrorist attacks then we ever did. Why didn’t they happen here? However, the reason I asked was that my parents were on vacation in France. I knew they were supposed to be returning home sometime soon. No one knew of any other attacks but web sites were down and information was sketchy. A cell phone rang and it was my colleague’s brother calling as he ran down the street away from the towers. He had gotten out of the first one and didn’t stop running until he reached midtown. By then the towers had fallen. He didn’t know since he had never stopped running and never looked back. Adrenaline is a good thing sometimes.
I sat down and looked over my email trying to find my parent’s itinerary. I called my sister. She had the note from Mom. For the return flight it said Sept. 11 but it also said Thursday rather than Tuesday. My sister speculated Mom probably had the day right and the date wrong. We didn’t know what to think.
I told her I loved her and had woken up wanting to come see her, that the phone was not enough. She said yes, we should do that. In the meantime there were other concerns and our family crisis had to wait. We set about contacting other siblings and to see if we could determine the location and status of our parents.
As the day unfolded my other sister took charge of tracking down flights. It turned out their flight was scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 11 and it was the day of the week Mom had gotten wrong. At first Continental said their flight never took off. Sign of relief. Then we were told that the flight had taken off but then been turned around and sent back to France. Later we were told that they had taken off but not returned to France. In the meantime there were stories of unaccounted for planes still in the air and the U.S. airforce with orders to shoot them down. Later still it became clear that they had taken off, not returned to France, but that their flight had been diverted. We didn’t know where.
Eventually we learned that flights had been diverted to Gander, Newfoundland, Canada. At some point in there, late that night I think (my sense of time around this is a little fuzzy) my sister managed to get a number and a call through to Gander. A very nice woman on the other end of the phone confirmed that their flight was on the ground, that they had opened up the school gymnasium for people to sleep in and that right now they were on a nature walk that had been arranged for them. Huge sign of very grateful relief.
The people of Gander and the surrounding towns that opened their homes, their lives, and their hearts to the thousands of stranded travelers that arrived that day are a story unto themselves. They are the lesson the world should have learned from Sept. 11. They showed us all how life is supposed to be lived, how neighbors are supposed to treat neighbors and strangers alike. That their story has been drowned out by all that has happened since is a tragic loss for us all.
The next several days were full of fits and starts around when and how they would return home. The borders were locked down. All flights were grounded. My sister and I discussed driving to Newfoundland and bringing them home that way. Each day brought a new story and a new letdown about how to bring them home.
In the meantime, my oldest sister wanted nothing more then for her Mommy and Daddy to come home. We had decided not to tell them about the cancer diagnosis until they got home. I was left in the role of comforting my older sister. As best as I tried I was a poor substitute for her parents. Dealing with our family crisis continued on hold.
Eventually the airline decided to return their plane to France. Some stranded passengers had been able to get on with their travels others had not. Remaining passengers went with the plane back to France. So my parents ended up in Paris were they attended a service at the American Cathedral. There they joined people of all nations in tears over this international tragedy. It was very moving for them. Try as they might they were unable to get a return flight home from Paris. They managed a flight to London and after some finagling managed a flight from there to Newark were they rented a car and drove to Logan Airport in Boston where their car was.
They had been over the Atlantic 2 hours out of Newark when the attacks occurred. It took them a full week to finish that 2 hour trip.
We were amongst the lucky ones. Our parents made it home. The father of a friend of my niece and nephew died in the towers that day. He went there once a month for his job. For September it happened to be that day. Being only a few hours north of New York City there are many stories of friends, neighbors, relatives that were in the towers that day.
My father is an Episcopal Priest. My mother, an organist and choir director that was raised a Quaker. My preschool and after school hours were split between my Dad’s church and my Mother’s office at the Seminary she helped run. I am not quite a pacifist but do not believe in violence as a solution to problems. Violence begets nothing but more violence. It is a sure sign of a failure to find solutions to problems.
But I also grew up on the streets of the south side of Chicago. There are times when we are left with no choice. My wife was amazed to hear me say that we needed to hunt down and kill every member of Al Queda. If it meant a knife in the back on a dark street corner then so be it. If it meant launching Cruise missiles into training camps then so be it. If it meant poison slipped into their drinks then so be it. This would not solve the root causes of terrorism but it was clear that we had an enemy intent on killing us and when it comes to kill or be killed you damn well make sure it is the other guy that dies.
Like I said, I am not quite a pacifist.
Sept. 11 was one of those rare opportunities to change the world. Virtually every nation was ready to follow our lead. NATO invoked its mutual defense agreement for the first time ever. We were all Americans those days. We were all New Yorkers for a few days there.
The President of the United States could have used this great tragedy and great opportunity to bring the whole world to the table and craft real solutions to the problems that beset this world and cause the great depth of despair from which terrorism springs. Instead, he issued TV platitudes like “dead or alive.” Would that Al Gore had been President that day instead. The world is a lesser place for George Bush and the Republican’s inability to think outside the box, learn from history, and try to craft real solutions to very real problems. A great opportunity was missed and the world is doomed to decades more of such violence as a result if this administration.
When we went into Afghanistan I supported it completely. That was were the enemy was and the enemy needed to be killed. I read accounts of our preparations and was dismayed at some of it. Dismayed that we weren’t sending in half a million men. Dismayed that we weren’t bringing along NATO, the UN, and any other allies that wanted to come along. Dismayed that we weren’t taking a hard line with Pakistan and Iran. Dismayed that we weren’t allowing them the opportunity to join us in the effort and prove their sincere desire to disassociate themselves with terrorists and associate themselves with the responsible nations of the world.
Dismayed that we failed to capture and kill the enemy. Dismayed that this administration was so arrogant and incompetent that they let the enemy get away.
My dismay has only increased since them.
And turned to anger.
Iraq had nothing to do with the attacks on this nation on Sept. 11, 2001. This administration let the real enemy get away and instead went on it’s own agenda. It lied and deceived the nation. It has been criminally negligent in its failure to pursue the enemy and its diversion of our military resources to pursue it’s own agenda instead of allocating them in defense of the United States of America against it’s real enemy.
How dare they!
It was obvious every step of the way through their build up to the invasion of Iraq. We knew it. We said it. We were derided and dismissed. The various reports and commissions since then have proven us right. The Downing Street Memo’s have proven it beyond a shadow of a doubt. This administration lied and led us falsely into an illegal and unnecessary war. This administration doesn’t care about Al Queda, Osama Bin Laden, and the 3000 that died on Sept. 11. They care only about their own profits and those of their friends. They are only about power, obtaining power, consolidating power, and keeping power.
How dare they!
And how dare the likes of Karl Rove, Dan Bartlett, Scott McClellan, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and George Bush lecture or deride Democrats and liberals for our position on the defense of the United States of American when they have proven themselves to be so criminally negligent and incompetent in that role. How dare they open their mouths to speak even a word that does not begin “I beg the forgiveness of the people of the United States of America.”
How dare they!
Thank you for an excellent rant. “How dare they” – it cannot be asked often enough, or loud enough, until the very halls of power shake with the echo of the roar of the multitude asking that very question.
I was especially moved by your comments on the people of Gander, Newfoundland. It would seem appropriate that somewhere in the memorial being built on ground zero, a plaque should be erected so that their part of the story of 9/11 is also remembered for future generations.
This nation is blind when it forgets what a blessing it is to share a border with neighbors like the Canadians.
… the first time I’ve been able to write about Gander without tearing up myself. There was once an excellent web site up with pictures and the stories of so many of the thousands of stranded travelers. Unfortunately it has since been taken down. I think some of the individual stories can still be found. A fellow wrote a book about it which I bought but haven’t been able to bring myself to read yet. One of these days.
Heartfelt and beautifully written, Andrew. Thank you for your eloquence.
BTW it was very nice to meet you in Austin. — franster
Franster!
It was great to meet you too! I am so sorry we didn’t get a chance to spend more time together. Such things are always too short. There is never enough time to spend with folks.
Ah well. Next time perhaps. Maybe we’ll try hosting one her in upstate New York. How ’bout you? You folks have a pretty good central location.
Chicago would be a great location! I’m not convinced DFI has the infrastructure to pull it off. Also, a lot of the people who would need to be involved don’t seem to have a much passion to make it happen. At least not yet.
Upstate NY sounds nice.
Gotta say, it kinda breaks my heart to be having a discussion about next year’s DeanFest here at the Booman Tribune.
If we can’t take our own blog back, how can we take the country back?
Thank you.
Thank you for this beautiful diary. It is people like you who paid my husband so that we live in this house. It is people like you who pay him and train him to protect us all. It is people like you who have been lied to and ripped off and used and abused, now all that you have given is not enough. Money has been squandered, the volunteer forces full of so many who heard a calling to protect their people (just as so many others hear the call to teach their people or to heal their people) and who were the finest most highly trained force protecting any nation in the world has been squandered and abused and now suffers horribly and has in many ways been broken. If everybody could or would sit down and write out their own list of what they have given and what they experienced that day and what has been lost and what has been recovered or healed, and if it was an honest list……Oh how angry we all would be! The heavens would thunder with the RAGE!
And thank you and yours for the sacrifices you have made. We are in this together whether the despicable Republican leadership believes it or not.
It is their cynical use of our shared tragedy to further their own greed and lust for power that galls me more than anything.
I hope that others will sit and write out their own experiences and feelings toward that day… and how it shapes their political views today.
Rove and Bush do not own this country. They do not own the flag. They do not own patriotism. They do not own Sept. 11. They do not own right. They do not own morality. Their weakness, immorality, wrongness, and incompetence shows so clear through all their bluff and bluster, through all their loud proclamations to the contrary.
They are repulsive and their kind should never be allowed in the halls of power again.
for such an interesting angle on that day’s events, and for your righteous indignation at what our leaders have done since then.
If I may ask, how is your older sister now?
Thank you for asking. She is fine. Thank god for good preventive health care that detected it early so that it could be treated easily. Even so it is a long road and the treatment saps so much energy out of you.
If I have time I will be writing a second diary in the next few days that follows up on this and includes/expands on part of that story as well as the political story.
Women… get check ups. Regular check ups. Don’t miss them. Thank god for those of us lucky enough to have health insurance. It is a travesty that at the very least basic preventive health care isn’t ensured and insured for ALL of us.
your sister’s a survivor!
I too preach the importance of everything you mention: early detection, vigilance, preventive measures. My mom has had two radical mastectomies, the first when cancer struck her at 35, and I can tell you (and your sister) that a positive, fighting attitude is crucial as well. My mom flat-out absolutely refused to let the disease kill her before we kids grew up, and she told us so. I think there’s something to be said for the strength that comes from that kind of deep-down anger.
Although it’s always an emotional rollercoaster for me to revisit that day (I was at work on 46th Street when the first plane hit, didn’t attempt to get home to Brooklyn for about 5 hours), reading your diary was worth it. What you went through makes my experience seem like a walk in the park, but I think the entire population of the metropolitan area was going through a very similar emotional process. Beautifully expressed and very true.
I was particularly struck by your references to Newfoundland, a place I have visited, where I found the people, poor and isolated as they are, to be amongst kindest, most open-hearted and generous I have ever met – and wonderful company, too! It’s no surprise to me that they behaved as they did.
Also, you said that your sense of time was a little fuzzy: you mention arriving at work around 9 am and being told that the WTC towers had fallen. They didn’t fall until after 10 am local time, about 1 1/2 hours after they’d been hit – and if I’m reading your diary correctly you were in Albany, on Eastern time. So either you’ve telescoped the timeline (more than understandable given the stress level), or you arrived at work later than you remember. The only reason I bring this up is the memory of my initial inability to process the event during the period immediately after impacts being dwarfed by my later inability to visualize the collapses(I was listening to all this on the radio).
I hope your sister is all right.
And I hope Rove’s statement brings down a shitstorm of outrage on Bushco the likes of which this country has never seen. How dare they indeed.
I lay no greater claim to that day then any other… but very explicitly lay no less a claim then any other either. Especially no less then the likes of Rove. His comments and their behavior is completely unacceptable. I will not tolerate it. Nothing short of abject apology to all of us is acceptable.
What a coincidence that you put it that way – I just explained to a dear friend who considers herself a pacifist, but has a very fuzzy mind politically, why I supported going into Afghanistan: that I don’t consider my life to be worth more than any other human being’s, but I don’t consider it to be worth any less, either.
We really were all in it together, no matter what Rove spews.