Never Forget

I’m warning you right now, you’re not gonna like this one. I won’t be upset if you click away right now. This is not what you’ve come to expect from me. There are no funny captions for pictures, it’s not uplifting, and there’s no witty commentary. It’s not what you wanted from me after I took last week off, and it’s not what you need to brighten your day. It’s what I needed. More than anything this blog has been a refuge for me the last couple months. It has allowed me to feel that I’ve contributed to the world in some meaningful way, despite the fact that I’m single, unemployed, and living at home. Once again, I’m going to use this space to throw my thoughts into the internet, and hope that simple act proves cathartic.

9/11 blows. Whenever we get close to that specific date I get bummed. It was unequivocally the worst American tragedy in my life time. No single event, aside from my birth, has affected my life so thoroughly. The worst part is that I’m still not over it. At this point, I don’t think I ever will be. In fact, it’s like I’m not allowed to; the slogan for one of the worst days of my life is “Never Forget”.  I HATE that, I don’t know what sentiment I’d prefer the nation had adopted for 9/11, but “Never Forget” seems ridiculous. How could anyone old enough to remember that day ever forget?  People in my parent’s generation talk about how they know where they were when JFK was shot, or Lennon, but is their location all that they remember? Every second of that day, since the moment we were told, is burned into my brain.

It was 11:35 in the morning on September the 11^th 2001, and I was sitting is Mrs. Outland’s 7^th grade math class at Rachel Carson Middle School. If it was any other day at 11:35 I would probably have been pissy just knowing that I was sitting in Mrs. Outland’s room. She was this comically fat black woman that I really hated because she couldn’t remember my name to save her life. In fact, she gave me detention once for ignoring her, even though the reason I wasn’t looking up when she asked me a question was that she kept asking Doug to answer it. For those of you unaware, my name is Joey, or Joe back in 7^th grade. But on September 11^th, at 11:35 it suddenly didn’t matter to me where I was. The principal had just come over the intercom and asked the teachers to turn on the TVs in their rooms. While Mrs. Outland waddled over to the corner with the TV, the disembodied voice told us that earlier this morning there had been terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City, and the Pentagon in Washington D.C.

A lot of kids had parents that worked in the city with Fairfax County being so close to the District, but I was especially concerned. For the past few months my dad had been working on a government contract, and he was stationed in the Pentagon. At first I wasn’t too scared, the Pentagon is a gigantic structure. But when we saw the first images of the damage, my heart started to pound. A few other kids and I tried to leave the classroom to go to the office and call our parents, (2001 was as simpler time, a time before middle school kids had cell phones) but Outland wouldn’t let us go; she had been instructed by the principal to not let kids leave the room. At this point I started getting angry. I was angry that they wouldn’t let us make a simple damn phone call. As the reporter started to run through the timeline of the events, I got angry that they hidden the news from us for TWO hours. They had no right in my mind to keep this from us. I understand now that they were trying to keep us from going into a panic for as long as possible, but at the time I was just furious. Then I had a sinking feeling in my stomach, if it had happened over two hours ago, why hadn’t I heard from either of my parents?

One of the teachers with a free period came through the classrooms and got all the kids with parents in the city to follow her to the library. From there we took turns trying all the numbers we knew to get in touch with our parents. It was very slow going, one of the scarier effects the attacks had on the country was the way our communication system got overloaded. I sat for what felt like days trying to keep my composure and rationalize how my dad must have survived. In reality it could not have been more than half an hour before the school finally got a message from my mom telling me that my dad was ok. The wave of relief that crashed over me was so powerful that I hugged the librarian and smiled until my face hurt. I walked down to the cafeteria and ate the best tasting french fries of my life. A short while later, my neighbor Mrs. Hirsch showed up at school to bring her daughter Allie home, and my mom had asked her to take me with her. The whole trip home I was euphoric, convinced of the presence of God, and reveling in my personal miracle.

When we pulled in front of my house I saw my dad in the front doorway, and I ran up to him so fast I don’t think that I remembered to thank Mrs. Hirsch for the ride. The moment I reached my dad, I succumbed to the most powerful emotions I have ever felt. I hugged him, buried my face in his chest, and bawled for ten minutes. Physically holding the man I thought I had lost forever brought back the fear that I had felt ten times over, and that gut wrenching fear alternated with a sense of relief just as strong. Just typing out the sequence of events has my hands shaking and my throat clenched. For awhile he just hugged me back and let me cry, but he finally got me to calm down by saying “I’m ok pal”. We went into the house and just sat on the couch watching the news for five solid hours. When the footage of the burning wall of the Pentagon popped up, my dad pointed to the area less than ten windows from the hole and said, “That’s my office”.

In the following days the news would tell all sorts of miracle stories about people who decided to go in late, or went a different way to work, or happened to be in the bathroom instead of being where they were supposed to be, inside the fireball. I didn’t have to watch the news though, my Dad had his own story. He was about to head to a conference room for a meeting but decided to check his stocks before going down. When he pulled up the website, he saw the news about the World Trade Center. Instead of going to his meeting he clicked around to get more details; that’s when he heard, and felt, the plane hit. Everyone who went to the meeting was killed; the conference room was damn near the center of the blast.

The news played the footage of the plane crashing into the second tower on what seemed like an infinite loop. With each repetition, I got angrier and more confused. I will never understand how the men who attacked us justified their actions in their minds, but back then there was an extra level to the confusion. I didn’t understand why. What were they trying to prove? What did they think they would gain? How did they think we would react?

Of course, the one positive that came from 9/11 was our reaction as a nation. We were galvanized by the tragedy, united in a way that I had never seen up until that point. Physical, financial, and emotional support flowed from the country to New York City, and our wounded capital. Pride, reverence, and love flowed to the field in Pennsylvania where one group of hostages managed to take back control, offering their lives to save thousands more. American flags hung from every home, and our government worked efficiently and effectively to help those in need, and to start searching for those responsible for the damage that was done.

I guess when people say “Never Forget” that’s what they’re talking about, the great “American Spirit” that was reborn that day. But what I can’t forget is everything we lost. The thousands of people, and the thousands more affected by their loss. Our sense of safety, and everything that went with it. I’m not talking about the extra two hours it takes to get on a plane now, I’m talking about all the soldiers we’ve lost fighting two different wars in the hopes of killing an idea. Not to mention the destruction of our economy thanks in part to our massive defense budget. Also, even though it may not matter on a grand scale, I lost my innocence that day. From then on I could no longer believe that we were invincible, that America had some sort of aura that kept us all safe. Finally, I had learned first-hand that sometimes evil wins. And honestly, that’s something I’d really love to forget.

My thoughts and prayers are with those affected, always. Source.

Machak’s Six Mix:                                                                                    

I’m going non-traditional on this too. All six things are in this one link, the Huffington Post put together a list of “Comedic First Responders”. These are the first editions Letterman, The Daily Show, Conan, The Onion, SNL, and South Park put out after 9/11. They’re all inspiring and funny, so pick the one you love the best and enjoy.