Remembering 9/11 — Were You at Work When You Heard?
I’m inspired to write a brief post remembering 9/11/01 on this sixth anniversary of that fateful, terrible day. My inspiration is a post at the Monster Blog entitled “Workplace Memories of 9/11.”
And I better hurry or it will be after midnight and I’ll be a day late!
Thinking about 9/11 as a personal experience immediately brings to mind that it was with my “work family” that I first shared the news, anxiously kept up with the increasingly terrifying developments, and speculated about who did this — and why.
We share so much of our lives with coworkers — often much more, at least in terms of hours, than we do with family.
So my “I will always remember” story of that day starts with sharing the experience with coworkers and law firm partners. Someone immediately suspected “Arabs.” I cautioned not to jump to conclusions — after all, lots of people besides Arabs have a lot of violent hatred. I just hoped against hope that it wasn’t a jihad “clash of civilizations” — but “just” a plot by some Timothy McVey types.
Next major memory is about family: the “what do you say to a four-year old and an eight-year old” moment. A few days later, in a group discussion with a preschool teacher, I met someone whose solution was “say nothing and hope the kid hears nothing (and if you told your kid you better tell them not to tell mine!)”
My solution, without hesitation, was to tell the truth, without gory details, and with emphasis that this would be a day they should and would always remember, just as I remember the day JFK was shot (when I was five).
Then to church for a special talk-and-prayer vigil with the “church family,” people with whom we have shared so much of our lives over the past 20 years.
I quite quickly felt this was a Pearl Harbor moment that would lead to some kind of war. You just don’t take an attack like that lying down if you’re the U.S. (Forget about that “turn the other cheek” business. We’re not that kind of “Christian nation”; we just use Bible verses we like, not those that challenge us to make difficult changes in our ways of thinking and living).
Obviously many mistakes have been made since — big ones. One smaller one — but one with symbolic importance — that has always bothered me was this “war on terror” characterization.
The enemy may not be easy to identify, and is not a nation-state, but that doesn’t mean we can’t call it like it is — war on radical Islamic terrorists, particularly, but not exclusively, those with allegiance to Osama.
But perhaps even “war” is a bad term to use — as it was with the “Cold War.” The struggle is religious-ideological, and the response called for is primarily defensive and preparatory. Characterization as “war” made offensive blunders inevitable.
Perhaps I’m not so articulate on this whole subject. I’m sure others have done much better with it today, and I promise to return to my usual subjects tomorrow. But I wanted to at least take the time myself to remember and reflect — and writing this helped.
UPDATE: My story seems bland in part because, well, I was in MISSOURI. Penelope Trunk, on the other hand, was right there when the towers fell, and has written an absolutely spellbinding remembrance: “My 9/11 day. My husband. The meaning of my to-do list.”
