[note] This was posted on 12 September 2003, 2 years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. It was my first post 9-11 musings that I bothered writing down, and to this day, the events of 11 September still bother me.
I swore I was not going to do this. I swore to myself that while so many people were remembering the events of Sept 11 2001, I would not. I swore that I would let it rest, that I would not reflect, that I would not dredge up old memories. I swore that I would not do this. But I did. I couldnt help it.
I remember driving to work that day. I had left my apartment in Durham at about 9am or so, and headed to my office at Red Hat. I tuned in a local station for the morning show to find a rebroadcast of a televised news show. I wasnt sure what to make of it, so I changed channels. Still the same show. That in itself was weird... we are not used to hearing the same voice on all channels, yet there it was. So I drove on into work, only half way paying attention to the news droid on my stereo.
As I pulled in, I saw several co-workers standing outside, smoking, talking, crying. What was going on? All I had heard was "airliner...crashed into World Trade Center..." I remember thinking to myself that that was a pretty shitty thing to happen... really bad way to start the day... but tragedies happen. I had missed the important part.
The first thing I noticed when I entered the building was a strange silence. Everyone was there, but no one was really talking. Phones were not ringing, keyboards were not keying, geeks were not playing the usual cacophany of music from their workstations. Instead I found that every dept had a television set up, and most people were huddled around that set, or huddled around someones cube, watching a net feed of the news reports from around the world. That was when I realized fully what had happened.
At that point, I really didnt know what to say. All I knew was that two planes had hit the Twin Towers, and that there was fire, smoke, and a lot of casualties. I sat down in my cube, and got an address from a friend of mine that linked to a live feed from one of the very few news stations in NYC that was not overloaded with people trying to get their webcast. I remember watching in morbid fascination as the talking heads reitterated the same things over and over about the planes.
Then I saw it happen. Smoke. Fire. A massive cloud of derbris and dust. In that one instant, the full effect hit me like a hammer, stopping my heart, choking the very breath from my lungs. In that one instant, I witnessed several thousand people die, several hundred of which were FDNY, people I had admired for years back home when I was in Volunteer Fire and EMS. FDNY was practically worshipped in my station, and they, and I were part of the same family of people who gave of themselves, so that others may live.
The rest of the day is a blur. I remember calling my wife, and the only thing I could say to her was, "Honey, turn on the TV, NOW. Turn it on. Dont talk to me, just do it!" And all I remember her saying was something like "My God." I sat in my cube in silence the rest of the day, watching looped video of the planes crashing into the towers over and over. Furiously searching the net for any news, any reports, anything at all I could find. I remember that within seconds the internet came alive, and for the first time in history, average people were learning things almost as fast as the authorities and news outlets were.
The days and weeks following were a haze. I dont really remember much more than being glued to either a television, radio, or video feed on my computer. I ate, slept, and worked in front of one of those, watching with rapt attention as the rescue efforts wore on. I would sit out on the patio and listen to the BBC reports on the radio, and thats when the second wave hit me. Silence. Abject silence.
Its funny how people tune out daily noise. In fact, the closer you are to a noise source, the less likely you are to hear it after a while. That was me. I lived in the flight path of Raleigh-Durham International at that point in time, and had become so accustomed to the planes arriving and departing at all hours that I tuned them out. Now, sitting on my patio, I noticed for the first time that there were no planes in the air. No roaring jets climbing for altitude, nothing. Only the sounds of cars, and birds, and occasionally, a person.
Weeks later I realized that I was more deeply affected than I thought I had been. I was depressed, anxious, paranoid, fearful. Even after planes returned to the sky, I looked to them with suspicion. When I went somewhere public, I looked at everyone around me, sizing them up as potential threats. My temper shortened, my anger grew. It was my boss, Pete, who finally sat me down, and over a half a pack of smokes, we talked. We talked about his feelings, my feelings, and what we were going to do. Pete helped me out more than he can possibly imagine. He helped me to feel again something other than the numbness that comes from seeing great tragedy.
In the end, I think the thing that upset me most about my reaction was that I was a medic for 5 years. I had seen death. I had seen violence. I had seen rotten corpses, but I had never seen anything on a scale of 11 Sept. For months I had nightmares about falling bodies, burining buildings, and hijacked planes. Any time I saw images of the events of that day, I would break into tears and sob uncontrollably. Even today, images from that day make me cry. Even today.
Its now been two years, and we are only now really getting over it. Life has moved on, and America has really gotten into recovery. We still have the suspicions, the paranoias, the fears, but they do not affect us as they did in those first few months. We still go to parties. We still laugh. We still play. We still work. We still love. We still shop. We still do everything we used to do. We are strong. We are resiliant. We are Americans.
I realize its pretty stupid to make open ended statements, but I have a statement to make. It may seem like we are losing interest, but remember this you fucking cowards over hiding in the deserts. We will not forget. Americans hold a grudge like you would not believe. We may move on to other pressing issues, but we will not forget. And one day, we will find you. And we will kill you. And if I had my way, you would all be paraded out to the sites of the Towers and the Pentagon, shown off to the world, adn then have greased spears rammed up your asses, and you would be left there impaled and on display for the world, dying a very slow, and painful death.
Das Aggregator!
Post new comment