Sometime around three in the afternoon Central European Summer Time on September 11, 2001, I was trying to get the key into the front door with one hand while holding on to my four-and-a-half-year-old daughter with the other.
Suddenly our downstairs neighbour – a colleague of my wife and friend to us both – was standing beside me shaking, tears in her eyes.
She was babbling.
There’s something horrible going on, she said. In New York. Planes have smashed into the World Trade Center!
It was the first I’d heard of it, and I looked right into her eyes and said the first thing that came to me:
Weltkrieg. World War.
I pushed open the door and my mother, who was over from Canada visiting, was sitting on the couch pointing at the television.
You’re not going to believe this, she said.
Mom, turn it off, I said. Please, just turn it OFF.
I had visions of having to drag a frightened and screaming child onto planes for the next five years if what was playing out before us got burned into her psyche.
Weltkrieg.
That’s where we’re still at, six years later.
And if you look at the piece of theatre played out in New York today, you have to ask yourself: do we have to do this every year? Can’t we just move on?
Six or 60 years from now, will we still see acted out this same old ritual? Will we still have to watch these ceremonies laid before us, hear these names recited, these stories retold over and over until a solid layer of myth keeps it alive long after that day’s last survivor is gone and buried?
Of course we will. Get used to it. September 11 the tragedy is now September 11 the myth, the 9-11 emotional patriotic emergency code, the story that will now be passed from one generation to the next: we survived, we came back, we went after them.
After whom? The Iraqis, of course. They were behind it, weren’t they? And even if they weren’t, their involvement would have to be invented.
Tell me if you hear anybody in favour of this eternal war on terror saying today that Iraq had nothing to do with the attacks. Because as long as the mistaken perception that it did lives on, these memorials will always have a purpose.
September 11 has taken on the same role for Americans which November 11 always used to be for Canadians.
We call it Remembrance Day. At the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, Canadians stand for a minute’s silence to honour the soldiers who died in the two world wars.
Because November 11 is a statutory holiday, we schoolchildren held the ceremony the day before.
There’d be plastic poppies on pins, poems and prayers and a few bent, grey-haired guys from the Royal Canadian Legion up in front, their jackets pressed clean and chests twinkling with medals. One of the Grade Sevens would have the honour of standing up and reading In Flanders Fields.
I always got the feeling the whole thing was somehow wrong, that we should work toward ending war instead of playing up the heroism, the pageantry, the myths. The Vietnam war was still going on with everyone asking: what was it good for, what was it proving, where was it leading?
Still asking the same questions.
© 2007 lettershometoyou
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There’s also a far more insidious reason for all the pomp & pageantry… fear. It’s what got Bush reelected, it’s what allowed perfectly reasonable Americans to fall for the old Bin Laden/Saddam bait & switch (after all, we had to have something we could win and… damn it… we needed the oil anyway!). It’s what convinced perfectly law abiding citizens to give up civil liberties without blinking an eye. Fear’s a fierce thing- not to mention a powerful tool in the wrong hands.
You think it’s over the top this year? Just wait until 2008 (election year) when we all get to sit back and watch a three-ring circus of presidential candidates sharing ‘touching & heartfelt personal accounts of how the tragedy inspired them to even great heights of public service’. Oy.
Where was I on 9/11? In my bathroom getting ready for work, blissfully unaware of what was unfolding. On the way to the office, I was mystified by the cars with their headlights on, wondering if it was a MADD thing or a holiday I’d forgotten about. At the office, a client called and informed me that a plane had crashed into the Pentagon, two planes had crashed into the World Trade Center, and another plane was missing. I was furious with this client for telling me such a terrible joke, and turned on the television in my boss’s office to see for myself. It was all true. I was stunned. I cried. It felt like the end of the world, and in a way, it was. Weltkreig, indeed.
BTW, “Flanders Field”– epic. One of my favorite poems.
I’m amazed that the families of the dead would consent to going through this painful pageantry year after year. I sure as hell wouldn’t.
brightfeather – i know. it’s not helping them get over it and on with their lives, is it? Do normal people go once a year to gravesides to stand weeping while hugging a framed photograph of the one they lost? Those scenes yesterday made me shake my head. Move ON! i wanted to scream.
T-Bone – check back November 11th for the updated version of Flanders Fields.
The most galling thing is the Bushies didn’t even have to work too hard – people just automatically assumed Iraq was behind it, so it made their jobs so much easier.
Not looking forward to election year, which btw seems to start a year in advance.
election year started last year. soon the candidates will start announcing the day after inauguration I think.
i was in college on 9/11. at the fraternity house, getting ready to head to class. turned on the tv to check the news, eating cereal. about 10 seconds before i planned on leaving, bam. the news hit. over 50 phone calls/texts that morning. tons of people at the house. headed to campus to watch it in the commons with my girlfriend and the campus community. we were all just in such strange awe that day. it was a heavy unnerving fog that settled in.
You fail to mention Afghanistan – the US and its allies ousted the Taliban first, before going into Iraq.
What is the purpose of all the remembrance? It’s not fear, but to remember one of those very rare moments that the United States (in fact, the world) was united on one issue.
And for my kids anyway, its a few minutes of a day that they see there’s something beyond their world of barbie dolls and video games.
Incidentally, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with celebrating heroism – we need more, not fewer of them.
Mr R:
Afghanistan? At least they could have finished the job. If they were truly going after terrorists at the right place, they should have at least killed ObL, don’t you think? Or why did going after him suddenly disappear off the radar screen?
The world was indeed united on one issue with the USA for a few brief weeks. Then they blew all that political capital in this wrong-headed move into Iraq.
Heroes? I think it’s shameful.
I was at college. A groupd of us were waiting in the hallway for our prof to show up and just talking and then someone came by and said classes were cancelled. We all watched the news on televisions in the hallways and were told everyone had to leave campus immediately. We didn’t really know what happened until we got home and were able to get a complete story.
I also agree that it can’t possibly be good for these people to go over this year after year. It’s just too painful for people to be reminded of over and over.
I was in DC… at work… two blocks away from the White House. And while I’ll never forget the city in chaos after the third plane smashed into the Pentagon… I agree with you. Enough already with the remembrance ceremonies.
I have my own memories of 9-11 on my webblog
As a former military spouse I have my opinions, based on what I saw and heard from the soldiers that are, or have been in Iraq.
It was convinced by the words of my ex-husband who served in Iraq for 1 1/2 years who said, “We did find the weapons of mass destruction, he was found in a hole by our soldiers.
Enough said.
I was eleven years old, in sixth grade. I remember that day so clearly. Playing on the playground during recess, hearing rumors about planes crashing in New York City, in Washington, DC. I feared for my own family. I live in PA and have cousins in NYC, family in DC. Parents of my friends work in NYC. Loads of kids were being called to the front office, going home. It was scary. But, we didn’t find out anything until we got home, all our parent’s waiting at the busstop. Saw the news. Next day in class, we wrote in our journals. A few weeks later, I went to the site with my mom and aunt. It was a hard sight to see, one that I’ll never forget. I may’ve been young, but I will always remember.
I have a guest post at Mindful Mimi’s that goes into some of these issues (written about a month ago):
Two snippets of my memory:
On 9/11, the old-school news anchorman of the Tagesschau (the most important German news programme) was completely out of sync. He had presented very bad and very good news to the German public for decades without showing any emotions – but 9/11 made him lose countenance. This somehow accentuated the importance and the impact of this historic moment.
9/11 was also the day my hamster died. I couldn’t feel sad about the death of my beloved little pet because I kept seeing people jumping out of the windows of the burning world trade center in my mind’s eye.
As soon as I entered the gym to start my workday I knew something major had happened, because the fast-paced music that usually greets me was turned off, and the TVs were blaring. No one was exercising, but rather, everyone was standing dazed around the cardio equipment watching the screens. I got there just in time to see the second plane hit. The images on TV looked like some crazy movie – it’s only in the movies that planes crash into buildings, right? Surreal. It took me a few seconds to register that this was actually happening. Absolutely horrible.
My question is how many more terrorists has the War on Terror spawned? How many innocent people have been killed, injured, or imprisoned wrongfully since? How many have lost family or friends? How many have been emotionally devastated by all that has happened to them? It seems to me that the first step in creating a peaceful world, is for everyone to stop fighting. (Yeah, I know it ain’t so simple, but …)
strangely, I had arrived in new york for the first time on the evening of september 10 2001.
at around 8.45 the next morning I stepped out on to greene street and was walking towards canal street when a spanish construction worker grabbed my arm and pointed to the sky.
together we watched a plane fly into the first tower…….
every time I tell someone that I was there I still get shivers
i was at my parents’ house while they were on vacation, i was taking care of the house and the dog while taking a little private holiday myself.
i had just returned from walking the dog, flopped down on the sofa and turned on the tv.
there was an image of a smoking skyscraper i didn’t recognize, it it must have been quite soon after the first crash and there was no comment yet. just as i started to realise this was the WTC, the second plane arrived and crashed into the twin tower. that was when i knew for sure, yet i couldn’t believe it. my godfather used to work there until a couple of years previously, he had taken me to see the towers when i was thirteen.
later there were pictures of people falling, jumping out of the windows of the burning towers. all i could think of was: i still have a brochure from that visit, with a headline saying “the closest some of us will ever get to heaven”.
in the aftermath of it, i can’t get rid of the nasty feeling that the u.s. government must have had some part in this. i’m not a big fan of conspiracy theories, but i can’t believe that this came completely unexpected. there must have been signs, warnings, maybe there was even more behind it. and it was the best excuse for a war that could happen at that time.