In memoriam, 9/11

I have just spent a little time over at this September 11 victims’ memorial website, clicking through to some of the names and learning more about the people who died.
Here, picked out almost at random, is the page devoted to NYC firefighter Lt. Paul Richard Martini.
I don’t think I knew any of the nearly-3,000 people who were killed that day. My sincere condolences to any of you who did.
This page on the site tells us that 2,902 of the victims were US residents (including a number of foreign nationals). It also tells us about all the other nations that lost citizens in the attacks. These nations each lost five or more citizens:

    Britain – 67
    Colombia – 17
    Filipines – 15
    Germany – 5
    Jamaica – 16
    Japan – 23
    Mexico – 15
    Peru – 5

I remember the day very vividly. I opened my computer screen and saw the AOL newsfeed about the first plane attack in NYC. So then I went immediately downstairs to the TV and turned on CNN. Within minutes I watched as the second plane went into the towers there… And then, over the minutes that followed there were flames; then the horrific collapse of one tower– people rushing terrified in the street– then the collapse of the second tower…
Soon after, my editor from the CSM– then, it was Linda Feldman– called and asked if I could write a special column for Thursday’s paper. Since it was already Tuesday, I’d need to have it with her by later that evening. I said yes.
How do you write a column with a necessarily 36-hour-long lead-time in a situation like that?
I did what I could. Four years later, I’m still pretty pleased with what I wrote that afternoon. You can find it here.

8 thoughts on “In memoriam, 9/11”

  1. Helena
    Being able to look back at a piece you wrote in middle of the shock and disbelief of Mid September 2001, and say, “Got it right, It still stands up to scrutiny”, is commendation in itself.
    The question it raises is “What is the difference in Education, Philosophy, Values and Character between Roosevelt and Truman and the present occupant of the White House”
    One suspects that Europe’s long history of political and military folly, has, as a reaction, provided a decision making framework for governments of the wiser states to avoid the temptation to join in the rush to disaster in Iraq.
    The presentations at last weeks conference at least offer us some hope that the next two years will produce a viable mechansism to extract the Occupation Forces without setting off the equivalent of the Thirty Years War in the Middle East and Central Asia.
    We Europeans, who get invaded from the East every hundred years or so, would have to live with the consequences if people get it wrong.

  2. Don’t forget to add Canada to your list who lost about 26 people. Canada welcomed tens of thousands of stranded air passengers after US airspace was closed. They were billeted in private homes where public facilities were lacking. What was worse, when W. thanked all those countries who helped the US in its time of need, Canada again was missing from this list. Actually, I’m happy about that because Canadians, as a result of what they considered a snub, refused to go along with the invasion of Iraq.

  3. I knew a person murdered by radical Islam on the 9/11 attacks. His family does not have a grave, and all I can tell them really is what I tell myself every other day: You know who to thank.
    David

  4. 2,902 of the victims were US residents (including a number of foreign nationals
    Helena,
    I heard a report today from US correspondent the number kills in the attack is 2749…
    David,
    I remember that on the day of the attack, in the news reported that an oldery US woman called the police telling them there were a car (van) across the road with a group of men laughing and taking photos or filming the attack, the police moved and arrested these guys then reported they are Israelis from Mosad they entered US as student with fake documents after three day they released and sent to Israel!!
    Do you have any idea why these guys happy for this savage attack?

  5. Salah,
    You’ve really hit a low spot (or a high spot, in your case).
    First you point out that the number of deaths in 9/11 was actually 153 less than Helena quoted. My, my. As if that made a difference. And you bring this up while referring, in another thread, to Fallujah as “one of the great slaughters in history”.
    Then you drag out that stupid story of the moving van. “Don’t blame me. It was like that when I got there. The Israelis did it!” This, along with the “art student” charge is just another loony conspiracy theory without any substantiation or apparent basis in fact.
    However, what really gets me is that absolutely no one will call you to task on these ridiculous charges that you’re making. Why? Maybe someone else can answer.

  7. Thanks for the link to your contemporary column. I remember on 9/11 being very afraid — afraid as much of what my government was likely to do as of the terrorists. Unhappily, I was right to be afraid. The slogans some of us adopted then are still right: “Our grief is not a cry for war” — “Enough Killing.”
    We put a sign with the latter in our front window. Almost immediately there was a tap on the door. We were frankly a little afraid to open it. But there was a woman crying — thanking us for the sign. There were many of us who needed someone to say “Enough!” as there still are.

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