I was in Manhattan that morning. It was a lovely early fall New York day, and we’d just gotten back to school. I was 56 years old, a veteran of the Vietnam era, and since my army discharge and my last year of an interrupted college career, a sixth grade American history teacher near east 72nd Street two blocks from Central Park.I remember the Assistant Head coming around to my classroom at the end of my first morning class and quietly telling me to go down to the library where there was a TV. The Head had decreed that we were not to tell the kids anything at the time. I was in time to see what must have been the first video repeat of the second tower hit. At first it was as if someone was showing a teaser for some soon-to-come fall movie blockbuster. But the illusion was short-lived.
I was not altogether surprised. Given what had been happening in the world for some years, I’d been half expecting some kind of attack on us for some time although this particular kind was nothing like what my imaginings had been.
Getting home to Brooklyn that afternoon was nothing like ordinary. I had to use a subway line I seldom did, and as we topped the Manhattan Bridge, everyone in the car (and it was packed to the max) was able to look back and see the smoke rising from where the towers had been.
But what I remember most was the equally lovely weekend that followed except that the jets overhead were fighters, and not the usual airliners. There were little knots of people circling through the streets and around the hospitals and churches looking for any sign of people they knew who’d been in or near the towers. Fences were hung with all sorts of handmade posters asking about friends and relatives. There was a kind of anticipatory silence in the air as if there was something unfinished about the attack.
When I went back to school early Monday morning, it was raining, as if the city was finally coming out of shock and weeping for its dead. As we topped the Brooklyn Bridge on the way into Manhattan still in the dark of early morning, we could see ahead the great miasma of dusky, almost pearly gray light where the towers had been and where now they were searching for survivors. The car, usually pretty chatty even at that hour, was silent.
That day I also saw for the first time a wide scale photograph of the ruins. All I could think of were those grainy old photos of European cities bombed to rubble during the war. Looking carefully, I could see tiny figures among the giant jumble of crumpled concrete blocks. It seemed to me that the ruins could not be cleared up in the labor of a thousand years. And for days afterwards, my subway rides were often shared with dusty and grimy relief and cleanup workers, often with that thousand yard stare of exhaustion and disbelief.
I remember thinking on that first ride in of all that would follow - all the books and TV dramas, the scams, the revenge, the endless reviews of what had happened and what might have been done to prevent it, the blaming and the shaming. Already some on the religious right were blaming our 'decayed and decadent culture' and saying the attack was God’s will.
I thought of Pearl Harbor. Until the death toll steadied up, I also often wondered if it would top what was up until then the worst day in our history - that other September day along a creek in Maryland. I got to school and set up for my first class of the day, and I wondered where we would go from here.
I have always questioned our war with Iraq. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz all wanted a war with Iraq. BUT, of the 19 terrorists who attacked the United States on 9/11/2001 15 were from Saudi Arabia, 2 from the United Arab Emirates, 1 from Egypt and 1 from Lebanon and a big FAT zero from Iraq. Osama bin Laden was from Saudi Arabia. All trained in the Taliban run Afghanistan. The 4 aforementioned white males tried to say Iraq was building, stocking, holding weapons of mass destruction with which to attack the United States or where ever. And W bemoaned that Sadaam Hussein verbally attacked his Daddy following the Gulf war in Kuwait.
No weapons were found after thorough search surprise! surprise! I said this in 2002 and wrote to State Senators and Congressman. Senator Barbara Boxer and Robert Matsui both responded that they would vote no on authorizing invasion of Iraq. Diane Feinstein said she knew things I didn't know and she was voting yes.
What she knew were the same bloody lies being promoted by Cheney and Rumsfeld regarding the debunked claim that Sadaam was trying to purchase yellow cake Uranium from Nigeria. Bullshit - they wanted the oil and poor W was such a dimwit he believed them (He's still smarter than than trump slime).
🇨🇦🇨🇦Thank you for your heartwarming post. It brings us back to what our priorities are and what’s important. I am so disgusted, actually horrified, at what MAGA is saying about Democrats and Trans people. Now bomb threats and shootings! OMG 🇨🇦🇨🇦
Well said! I was on a DC bus going from Falls Church to the Pentagon Metro Station. The bus stopped on Columbia Pike and the driver told us he could not drive any further. All the passengers exited and walked up the road where we could see the Pentagon and the smoke from the crashed airplane. There are moments in one’s life when you know intuitively things have changed. Thank you for putting that moment into perspective.
Thank you for this tribute and for highlighting the need for strategic clarity. I ask every day what is the purpose of this administration, what is their end game and for what. It’s sheer madness and moral failure. Every damn day.
I was in Manhattan that morning. It was a lovely early fall New York day, and we’d just gotten back to school. I was 56 years old, a veteran of the Vietnam era, and since my army discharge and my last year of an interrupted college career, a sixth grade American history teacher near east 72nd Street two blocks from Central Park.I remember the Assistant Head coming around to my classroom at the end of my first morning class and quietly telling me to go down to the library where there was a TV. The Head had decreed that we were not to tell the kids anything at the time. I was in time to see what must have been the first video repeat of the second tower hit. At first it was as if someone was showing a teaser for some soon-to-come fall movie blockbuster. But the illusion was short-lived.
I was not altogether surprised. Given what had been happening in the world for some years, I’d been half expecting some kind of attack on us for some time although this particular kind was nothing like what my imaginings had been.
Getting home to Brooklyn that afternoon was nothing like ordinary. I had to use a subway line I seldom did, and as we topped the Manhattan Bridge, everyone in the car (and it was packed to the max) was able to look back and see the smoke rising from where the towers had been.
But what I remember most was the equally lovely weekend that followed except that the jets overhead were fighters, and not the usual airliners. There were little knots of people circling through the streets and around the hospitals and churches looking for any sign of people they knew who’d been in or near the towers. Fences were hung with all sorts of handmade posters asking about friends and relatives. There was a kind of anticipatory silence in the air as if there was something unfinished about the attack.
When I went back to school early Monday morning, it was raining, as if the city was finally coming out of shock and weeping for its dead. As we topped the Brooklyn Bridge on the way into Manhattan still in the dark of early morning, we could see ahead the great miasma of dusky, almost pearly gray light where the towers had been and where now they were searching for survivors. The car, usually pretty chatty even at that hour, was silent.
That day I also saw for the first time a wide scale photograph of the ruins. All I could think of were those grainy old photos of European cities bombed to rubble during the war. Looking carefully, I could see tiny figures among the giant jumble of crumpled concrete blocks. It seemed to me that the ruins could not be cleared up in the labor of a thousand years. And for days afterwards, my subway rides were often shared with dusty and grimy relief and cleanup workers, often with that thousand yard stare of exhaustion and disbelief.
I remember thinking on that first ride in of all that would follow - all the books and TV dramas, the scams, the revenge, the endless reviews of what had happened and what might have been done to prevent it, the blaming and the shaming. Already some on the religious right were blaming our 'decayed and decadent culture' and saying the attack was God’s will.
I thought of Pearl Harbor. Until the death toll steadied up, I also often wondered if it would top what was up until then the worst day in our history - that other September day along a creek in Maryland. I got to school and set up for my first class of the day, and I wondered where we would go from here.
I have always questioned our war with Iraq. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz all wanted a war with Iraq. BUT, of the 19 terrorists who attacked the United States on 9/11/2001 15 were from Saudi Arabia, 2 from the United Arab Emirates, 1 from Egypt and 1 from Lebanon and a big FAT zero from Iraq. Osama bin Laden was from Saudi Arabia. All trained in the Taliban run Afghanistan. The 4 aforementioned white males tried to say Iraq was building, stocking, holding weapons of mass destruction with which to attack the United States or where ever. And W bemoaned that Sadaam Hussein verbally attacked his Daddy following the Gulf war in Kuwait.
No weapons were found after thorough search surprise! surprise! I said this in 2002 and wrote to State Senators and Congressman. Senator Barbara Boxer and Robert Matsui both responded that they would vote no on authorizing invasion of Iraq. Diane Feinstein said she knew things I didn't know and she was voting yes.
What she knew were the same bloody lies being promoted by Cheney and Rumsfeld regarding the debunked claim that Sadaam was trying to purchase yellow cake Uranium from Nigeria. Bullshit - they wanted the oil and poor W was such a dimwit he believed them (He's still smarter than than trump slime).
Thanks for your clarity. I hope you will decide to run for office. You are greatly admired.
🇨🇦🇨🇦Thank you for your heartwarming post. It brings us back to what our priorities are and what’s important. I am so disgusted, actually horrified, at what MAGA is saying about Democrats and Trans people. Now bomb threats and shootings! OMG 🇨🇦🇨🇦
Thank you for your service.
Well said! I was on a DC bus going from Falls Church to the Pentagon Metro Station. The bus stopped on Columbia Pike and the driver told us he could not drive any further. All the passengers exited and walked up the road where we could see the Pentagon and the smoke from the crashed airplane. There are moments in one’s life when you know intuitively things have changed. Thank you for putting that moment into perspective.
Thank you for this tribute and for highlighting the need for strategic clarity. I ask every day what is the purpose of this administration, what is their end game and for what. It’s sheer madness and moral failure. Every damn day.