Nunca Olvidaremos: Musings on 9/11, 2002

This is sort of a web log, in that it's time stamped, and all entries are from one day, September 11, 2002. The topic remains the same, though; how did the terrorist attack change me? As a log, I'm not going to spend as much time editing as I normally do (it takes me three passes and 3-5 hours to write a standard page) so the grammar and syntax will likely be less refined than usual. Maybe you'll like it that way.

2:50 AM, Central Time

About an hour ago, I started gathering the pictures and articles I had collected for this little project. I saw what I thought would be useful on 14, 15, and 21 September when I got them. But that approach, a historical one on the many forms of city distruction, seems rather impersonal for this format. Sure, I can talk about Dresden and Tokyo and Rotterdam, and maybe I will, but the history lesson can better be served by someone else.

So I'll talk about what I did a year ago today. As you might expect, I was up later than this, though back then I was trying to memorize hypothesis testing formulae, or something like that. On Monday, the 10th, my classmates and I had taken the probability portion of the qualifying exam. There were no easy questions, no heavy computationals that I'm relatively good at and prepared for, so I knew I did poorly. After moping through the evening, I knew I needed a good score on my better part, statistics, so I started on my review sheet. About 4 I went to bed. Just after noon I heard the phone ring, which woke me. The answering machine message kicked in, with my mom talking about how she wasn't involved in the plane crash, and they were alright. Because she should have been working, I first thought of a single plane crash near Johnstown, and flipped on the TV to CNN to check before going back to studying. Well, well then. I don't think I even touched my books until about 4. Through the day and night I watched, and studied some, seeing the raw ugly footage that wouldn't be seen again. Combined with the memorization, I got about ninety minutes of sleep that night, and didn't do so well on the Statistics part either. Then I came back and started searching the nets again.

For a while before that, I had the following signature line on my email, generally attributed to Nietzsche: "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that he does not become a monster. When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you." Quite appropriate in those heady days, huh? Actually, it was originally a private fillip to a very close friend who knew of my readings on torture and the like. My mom suggested I keep that line for a while, though I was going to change it for the restart of school. So I did.

8:03 AM

Dragging myself out of bed, there's a memorial Mass at 9, but I'm not in the mood for that so much. Instead, I have CNBC, which is trying to list everyone on chryon as they're read. The concept of names, looking at each individual, seems uniquely American to me, with the greater emphasis on each person. Am I wrong about this? CBS goes one better, with little pictures, and the age of each person. Let's pick one of the pictures: Michael S. Costello, age 27, with a black and white picture. That's my age, huh? Somewhere earlier in the C list, I cried a bit.

I'm surprised by how strange seeing that much blank space is in Manhattan. I can't say I knew the Trade Center area, but I did walk through at least a few times. Just dirt, and a few walls. Even Central Park isn't that bare; there are hills and softball backstands and the like. I'm quite glad that the sparse and quiet look, the Vietnam Veterans look, has become popular. Sparse looks better to me. Pictures like this are plenty.

2:09 PM

I used TiVo to hold onto President Bush's speech from the Pentagon, as I went back to sleep for a while. It's about ten minutes, and nothing too special. Bush doesn't have the full command of speaking that say Jesse Jackson does. And now they'e back to reading names on my tape, with a pause for the first tower collapse.

Now's as good a time as any to post a couple of responses, for memory's sake. From Andy Crouch, editor of Regeneration Quarterly: "Who we are, and who we become, in this moment will disclose whether turn-of-the-millennium American Christianity was made of gold or straw. Because a desperately searching world doesnÕt care how hip you are. They want to know which way you were going on the stairs." Sadly, the full piece is no longer available. Overwrought? Well, yes. Perhaps American evangelicals had forgotten the idea of evil, and from the reactions his assertion is true. But not all of us.Read about HIV in southern Africa sometime; try AllAfrica, though this is not for the faint of heart. Or as a reminder, I'll repost from the power page.

3:25 PM

The two speakers on my recording have finished the names, and Taps is now being played. I watched CNBC mostly through those few days, because of the confusion. Their staff, especially Ron Insana, was lost, less pure, less pristine. And better. Today, their list included hometown as well. So thanks guys.

Here's an article of pain, the famous Ann Coulter article on National Review Online: "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war."

Let's look at that record. One can say the Allied action was a response, as the first instance of mass civilian bombing was the Axis, Germany's bombing of Rotterdam on 14 May 1940, killing 30,000 inhabitants. Rotterdam's guns were still firing, though. The Allies took this to new levels.

• 13 February 1945. That night, however, RAF Bomber Command despatched 796 Lancaster bombers and 9 Mosquitoes from the UK. These attacked Dresden in two waves three hours apart, dropping 1,478 tons of high explosive bombs and 1,182 tons of incendiaries which started a firestorm.... In all, some 50,000 people, including many refugees, are reckoned to have lost their lives and much of the city was devastated. At a SHAEF press briefing two days later it was revealed in 'off the record' comments that the aims of THUNDERCLAP were to bomb large population centres and prevent relief supplies from getting through.
• 9 March 1945. In a massive air raid on Tokyo by 334 US B-29 Superfortresses 100.000 lose their lives, injuring 1,000,000, in the firestorm created among the wood and paper-built houses. The B-29s, stripped of guns for greater bomb load, carrying 2000 tons of incendiaries. 15.8 square miles of Tokyo burn. The word conflagration was invented to describe the scene in Tokyo that day.
• 6 August 1945. Hiroshima.
• 9 August 1945. Nagasaki.

I don't know, and am not in a position to know, and likely never will know, if these tactics were necessary. But like the descriptions of the Great War, or War to end all Wars, I'd never want to visit them again. Yet I need to never forget. Though I have fired weapons, I've never fired at anyone, unlike my grandfather and uncle. Without these thoughts, I might fail to see the cost. So here are two pictures; if you can't guess from where, look at the alt tags. Neither is beautiful.

9:43 PM

In an act that might please my father, I'm voluntarily listening to classical music, in this case Requiem on PBS. I spent the afternoon looking at old photos: my family at Niagara Falls in 1986 or so, Harrisburg for Mathcounts in 1987, my Eagle Scout ceremony in 1993, my arrival at Harvard in 1992, and commencement day in 1996. I also reread an old novel by Pat Frank, Alas Babylon, ISBN 0060931396, for it seemed fitting. I had read On the Beach just over a year ago, the week before the exams, since I tend to do better on exams when angry and introspective. I didn't think, though, that some Saudis and others would step in like that.

PBS is now playing patriotic music, and I could write a bit on the strange effects of patriotism. Whoop de do. I'd rather write about heroism. The term had fallen into disrepair for a while, at least in general conversation, so it needs a definition. Instead of the pornography definition, I'll know it when I see it, my thesaurus gives three concepts: repute, courage, and nobleness. The societal definition had been the first; she scores a penalty kick, making her great. While the NYPD and FDNY achieved the first, to call that the goal of going into the buildings would be foolhardy. Sometimes we had thought in the second way as well; for instance, a basically blind person climbing Mount Everest. That challenge does nicely, a better concept, and in a country where a large percentage of people are afraid to drive through certain areas at night, we can be pleasantly shocked by a renewed emphasis on bravery.

The final one, though, is the key. A two buck word would be magnanimousity, the fifty cent one generosity. That concept, extremely important to the uniquely American society, was in the process of being stolen by forces unknown. I'd guess avarice and greed disguised as "Capitalism" and Economics, but that's not for me to rant here. Just say it was gone. And that's what the firemen, firewomen, police officers, site volunteers, evacuation leaders (almost a million people escaped lower Manhattan that day), and others brought back. Someone, maybe Toqueville, said that America is great because it is good. Well, then it's greater now. The enemies made a huge mistake. Dominant powers fall from within, via corruption and laxity. A little over a year ago, a strong case could be made that the United States was slipping that way. An attack, though; that galvanizes folks. If I recall correctly, the Red Cross had more blood than places to put it, when before elective surgeries had to be postponed. Real brilliant, Mr Bin Laden.

11:40 PM

A final quote here (as I see I've slipping into the 12th), from C. S. Lewis about the Lord of the Rings. It applies to a lot more times of bravery and heroism, and I thought about this as a new signature. "The real life of men is of that mythical and heroic quality. ... The imagined beings have their inside on their outside; they are visible souls. And Man as a whole, Man pitted against the Universe, have we seen him at all till we see that he is like a hero in a fairy tale?"

Someone I talked to last week was surprised when I said that I try to deal with everyone I meet under the intention to help them. Our heroic firefighters did, at least one year ago. Maybe some of them cheated on their taxes, or were mean to their spouses, or thought ill of their neighbors; when the time of trial came, their actions met the criteria of Matthew 25. Lord, when the trial comes, may I have the strength to stand that way.

Good night, all.

Written September 11, 2002.