Thursday, September 12, 2024

Am I forgetting 9-11?

 About a decade and a half ago my father-in-law had an interesting conversation with my niece who was in junior high at the time.    The conversation was about a paragraph in her history book about the Cuban Missile Crisis. [i]  For those of you who may have skipped that paragraph in your history books the Cuban Missile Crisis was an intense 14-day standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union over the fact that the Soviets were putting intercontinental nuclear missiles that can travel 5k miles in an instant on the island of Cuba which happens to be only a mere 426 miles from the Florida peninsula.   My father-in-law is a Baby Boomer who no doubt had to practice duck and cover[ii] drills in school, and no doubt saw film footage of nuclear mushroom clouds the size of skyscrapers knowing full well those warheads would instantly destroy actual skyscrapers[iii], was shocked this moment of terror in his life was reduced to a mere paragraph in his granddaughter’s history book.   Any Boomer who lived through that crisis feared US wouldn’t be around by Halloween.   Luckily some quick behind the scenes negotiating by then President Kennedy’s brother Robert who told then Soviet Premier Khrushchev the US would get our nuclear warheads out of Turkey, which was about 410 miles away from the Soviet Union’s Crimea peninsula, with a similar instant travel range of 5K miles, if Khruschev agreed to get the Soviet missiles out of Cuba. [iv]  Then tragically the Baby Boomers, who loved JFK, would morn his sudden death on November 22nd, 1963, and the US was never the same for them.

I am writing this post on September 11th, 2024, 23 years after 2,977 people [v] died living out pretty much an ordinary September day.  I was inspired to write this as I saw several of my friends post a passage about how no one knew the terrorist plot was coming and was suddenly alive one day, but dead the next.   Of course, we must “Never Forget 9/11” I know I haven’t.   My memories of 9/11/2001 are as follows. –

The news of the plane hitting the World Trade Center’s north tower literately woke me up. (1st plane crashed at 8:46 am EST/7:46 am CST)  I had an alarm clock radio at that time and I just remember Eric from Eric and Cathy on 101.9 The MIX stating this.  The morbid curiosity part of me raced to get out of bed to turn on the TV to see this spectacle on television where I learned it was passenger airplane that had crashed.   At first, everyone thought it was just some tragic accident, until the 2nd plane hit which I saw was deliberately flown into the south tower at 8:03 am.    At that time, I was living with my parents in my childhood home and held a part-time job as a service clerk aka bagger at Jewel.  I kept my eyes glued to the TV as I watched and prayed the towers would stay up only to see them collapse.  Eventually I had to get to work my short 5 hour or so shift at Jewel and I figured one of two extremes would happen that day. Either we would be mobbed as people in panic mode rushed out to shop for food to last them who knows how long, or we would be completely dead.  Luckily for me it was the latter.  I remember going out into the parking lot to retrieve shopping carts, a task I know where I frequently overheard airplanes flying overhead as they head to Midway or Ohare airport, suddenly being silent.  I remember the commuter buses, who pick up people who need to head to downtown Chicago around 7 am and usually come back around 6 pm, suddenly showing up around 1 pm.   At that time, I was part of an organization that had a fundraiser every Tuesday.  Since 9/11/2001 happened to fall on a Tuesday I was getting calls on my Nokia phone wondering if the bingo hall would be open.   The owner of the hall defiantly opened it up knowing he wasn’t about to let the terrorist stop him or scare him from living life.   I don’t know if we did that much business that night since I think everyone was staying at home watching the non-stop coverage of the events as lead by CBS’ Dan Rather, NBC’s Tom Brokaw and ABC’s Peter Jennings who each lead nearly a 48 hour marathon of coverage.   I remember how stunned everyone was, how we were all shocked at the enormity of the situation and lauded those heroes of Flight 93 who crashed the plane rather than see it be used as a weapon against more innocent lives.   I remember how US flags started to fly everywhere.  Maybe it’s appropriate this day is called Patriot’s day, because everyone American patriotic heart around the world broke for us that day.  

Anyone alive above the age of 6 will probably never forget this day and the enormity of the tragedy of September 11th, 2001.     The world and the US were never the same.

However, even though an event is world shaking for one generation, doesn’t mean its world shaking for others.

Prior to September 11th, 2001, there were other days that supposedly would never be forgotten, but let’s face it, subsequent generations do forget or maybe more accurately lack the acute feelings associated with the day.  It’s almost as if the culture of the whole develops PTSD even if they never knew one of the 3,000 Americans who died that day, or was nowhere near and knew no one who lived near New York City, Washington DC, or Shanksville PA.   Everyone who goes through one of these traumatic cultural touchstones can recount exactly what they were doing like I just did.  Every subsequent generation who just read about those events in their history books can only look on as they see the degree of how the tragic events of their forebearers are affecting their lives now.

I’m thinking about my grandparents who heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, “A date that will live in Infamy”[vi] as then President Roosevelt said, was somewhat forgotten by the time I was growing up.  I know so many lives were changed forever as 2,400 servicemen and 1,000 civilian men and women died in the attack.   The US/world was not the same after December 7th 1941. [vii]   It was day that shocked every American as they were sitting down for Sunday Brunch or getting out of church, wondering who would and wouldn’t be home for Christmas that year.    I’m not sure how much space was devoted to Pearl Harbor in my history book, if anything it may have been a paragraph but then several more pages devoted to the Allies verses the Axis powers and how the US felt we had to develop THE bomb that turned Robert J. Oppenheimer into the god of death.[viii] 

I remember growing up many a historian wondered what would by my Gen X generation’s defining tragedy.  Some speculated it was either the Space Shuttle Challenger blowing up in 1986 or the death of Princess Dianna in 1997.    While those historic events did grab headlines, I don’t think either one qualify as a dramatic touchstone moment.   I think in order to qualify that US cultural touchstone moment has to change the US /world forever in some way.    As far as US history goes, I would list October 12th, 1492, when Columbus arrived at the West Indies,[ix] the founding of Jamestown Virginia on May 4th 1607,[x] the Boston Massacre on March 5th, 1770[xi] ,  the signing of the Louisiana Purchase treaty on April 30th 1803[xii],   November 6th, 1860, when Abraham Lincoln was elected president[xiii], the sinking of the USS Maine on February 15th, 1898[xiv],  the sinking of the RMS Lusitania on May 7th, 1915[xv] when 128 Americans died, the stock market crash on October 28th & 29th of 1929[xvi], the aforementioned December 7th, 1941 and November 22nd, 1963, the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9th, 1989[xvii] and yes now September 11th, 2001 are all days that should live in our collective memory because the US was one way the day before, and something completely different the day after.      Prior to September 11th, 2001, the world was talking about the end of history[xviii] as liberal democracy would spread over the globe.

O ye who foolishly fails to understand how hard it is to change the human heart.

About a month after September 11th, 2001, my family took a vacation to Disneyworld.   My mom was a fan of everything Disney and while we were too poor to travel to the Magic Kingdom when I was a child, going to the Epcot Food & Wine festival as an adult made up for it. (Seriously anyone who is a grownup who wants to enjoy Disneyworld should go in September/October).  I remembered my dad getting me a new travel wallet where my drivers license could be displayed along with my ticket so we could get through security quickly.   I remember hearing about an anthrax scare while there in Florida and Disney seemed a bit less crowded, but people were still moving on with their lives and not letting those terrorists win.    The US now has the dubious honor of being a member of the falling empire club of Afghanistan[xix]  that began with the Babylonians in 500 BC [xx] after spending billions of dollars to keep Al-Qaeda out and democracy in in Afghanistan only to have it fall to the Taliban again on August 15th 2021. Not to mention the mastermind behind 9/11/2001, Osama Bin Laden, was actually hiding out Pakistan until he was killed on May 2nd, 2011.      

 And to be honest, it seems like the US has been on a downturn since September 11th, 2001, as well.  There were two economic recessions (Time Magazine referred to the ‘00’s as “The Decade from Hell”[xxi]) and the internet seemed to disrupt our lives more than create a peaceful path for them.  It’s no wonder Donald Trump’s mantra of “Make America Great Again” took hold even though he probably made America worse not better.    Zoomers have had far more day to day tragedies to deal with to try and remember those who lost their lives on September 11th, 2001 and I think to be honest the vast majority of Millennials, Gen X ers like myself and the Baby Boomers who just saw the tragedy as some sort of tragic TV event rather than the reality of loosing two skyscrapers full of people and fire and police officers are detached and moving on with their lives. 

Because while time doesn’t completely heal the wounds we suffer in our lives, it does allow the scarring to form to allow us to move on and proceed with life that is now different.          

 

 


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