looking back

Well, we all know what today is. And most of us know exactly where we were and/or what we were doing when we first heard the news. I still remember how pristine the weather was on that day: sunny, clear, temperatures in the 70s. It’s such a cliché, but it really was a perfect day. I was 27 and working in Bethesda, 10 miles from the Pentagon. I had only been at work for a few minutes when the news broke.

My journal entry from that day:

11 September 2001, Tuesday

Christ, it is a waking nightmare. I don’t even know where to begin. That’s why I am following up this entry with scores of printed-out pages from CNN, MSNBC, and BBC News. Plus, it is sad to say, but I have to keep in mind the historical implications of this day, and how important it is for me to capture this story in my journal for posterity.

Today has been completely dominated by what the news sources are calling “America Under Attack.” I have scarcely done any work all day long. This day—which is being ranked as containing the worst terrorist activity on US soil since Pearl Harbor—will be the kind of day about which people ask, “Where were you when terrorists attacked America?,” just like they ask, “Where were you when the Challenger exploded? Where were you when the Oklahoma City Bombing took place?”

I hadn’t been at work very long this morning when I heard Barbara talking on the phone and saying something like, “Oh a second plane hit the World Trade Center?” I went over to her office and asked what was going on. She told me that news reports were saying that a plane crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers, but a friend of hers had just informed her that, in reality, two planes hit the towers. I told Janet the news (she had been half-listening to our conversation) and I was going to tell Carolinda the news as well when Marsha got on the loudspeaker. I’m not sure, I think she told us flat-out that two planes (believed to be hijacked; later this was confirmed) struck the World Trade Center (one crashing into each tower). She definitely invited us to go to the conference room and watch the unfolding news story on TV.

A good chunk of the staff gathered around the TV, watching live CNN coverage. The second plane had already struck the second tower by that point, but the towers were still standing. In slo-mo they repeatedly showed video footage of the plane crashing into the tower. There were gasps all around. People came and went; I stayed for maybe a half hour, awestruck. Actually, I ended up spending most of the morning in the conference room, minus a break to grimly celebrate Dawn’s birthday in Pubs, and to periodically check my voice mail and email messages. I sent a group email to everyone initially, too, because I wasn’t sure who had yet heard the news. Both Gates and Angela left voice mail messages for me, and Missy emailed me to say that she had been trying to get through to me but all the circuits were busy. I phoned Mom at work, because I wasn’t sure if she knew what was going on, since they are so absorbed in transcribing medical reports. I was so worried about Dave—it was announced that the Sears Tower had been evacuated as a precautionary measure, and I was convinced that it was going to be bombed before he could get out. Fortunately he emailed Angela and me later and told us he was fine.

Oh yes, and not long after a bunch of us returned to Pubs from the conference room for the first time, Lynda emerged from her office, looking stunned, and announced that a third hijacked plane crashed into the Pentagon. We stood around her office, listening to the news reports on the radio. Rumors began flying that there was a fire on the Mall, too, and we returned to the conference room.

As the news unfolded throughout the morning, things got worse and worse. Namely, the second WTC tower to be hit collapsed in a massive implosion. This was several minutes after the plane struck it. Maybe a half hour after the tower collapsed, the first WTC tower to be hit by a plane also collapsed. We were watching the news as it fell, and there were universal gasps of horror. Carolinda and Dawn were blowing their noses and dabbing their eyes. News reports were saying that people had been spotted jumping from the towers prior to their collapse, because they were so desperate to escape. There were actually a lot of false news reports in the beginning—a car bomb exploded outside of the State Department; the FBI was keeping their eye on a supposedly hijacked plane that was circling Dulles and heading for the Pentagon, even though the Pentagon had already been struck; there had been an explosion at the Capitol; various planes were unaccounted for. In the end, the terrorist attacks were limited to the two WTC towers, the Pentagon, and another American passenger flight that crashed near Pittsburgh. Rumors are now flying that someone on that flight called 911 on his cell phone and reported that they were being hijacked, and the US subsequently shot down the plane. I’m not sure if that’s true or not.

At 1pm [the office] ordered pizzas for the staff and many of us gathered in the conference room to eat and watch continuing footage. By then things had calmed down a bit…the news wasn’t filled with the initial chaotic frenzy of the morning, when rumors were flying (even CNN was reporting some of the false rumors as fact) and when the tragedy kept compounding. I haven’t watched the news since our pizza lunch, although you can be damn sure I’ll be watching it tonight.

What a horrible, devastating—and horribly memorable—day…

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This morning, on the news, Hilary Clinton said that in this post-9/11 world, we are safer but not safe enough. I couldn’t agree more. And this creates such a paradox, because although I want to be safer, I also don’t want my civil liberties to be peeled away. The Patriot Act makes me flinch. The wiretapping legislation that Bush was trying to push through makes me queasy. I hate the idea of the government monitoring my library records and my phone calls. I hate the idea of being considered suspicious because I work for an animal protection organization and because I’ve done three staunchly liberal marches on Washington. I have nothing to hide, but that doesn’t mean I want Big Brother peeping into my life. I worry about the slippery path between plucking away one or two civil liberties and stripping them all away. Because, you know, terrorism can come just as easily from your government as it can from suicidal fundamentalists.

Backtracking a bit, it is both interesting and disheartening to think about how things have changed since 9/11. The US really can divide life into the categories of Before 9/11 and After 9/11. I mean, things are fundamentally the same—it’s not like we’re all walking around in biohazard suits and using retina scanners to enter buildings. We don’t have barcodes tattooed on our foreheads just yet. But 9/11 opened up a whole new landscape and language, and I marvel at the fact that my 2-year-old niece will never know a world without those changes.

Five years ago, there was no Department of Homeland Security. There were no color-coded threat alerts. People didn’t take off their shoes when going through airport security. If air marshals existed at all, they were few and far between. Guantánamo Bay was just a nondescript US Naval Station. Terrorism fears among the general American public, if they existed at all, sure didn’t include the outrageous scenario of using a passenger aircraft as a missile. Not even Hollywood thought of that one. Hate crimes against Muslims were low. Abu Ghraib? Hmmm? What’s that?

Back then I worked across the street from the National Institutes of Health and the National Naval Medical Center, both of which were essentially wide open to the public. I would stroll over to the National Library of Medicine whenever I needed to look up an article for work. It was a lovely stroll through a wide grassy lawn speckled with weeping willow trees. Donating blood meant simply driving up to the Clinical Center, parking my car, giving blood, and leaving. Coworkers and I would sometimes casually grab a bite to eat at the McDonald’s on the grounds of the Medical Center. After 9/11—no more. Giant fences now encircle both properties. Checkpoints must be passed through. You must have an ID and a reason for being there. It’s understandable, but still sad, because whenever I start to trick myself into thinking that things are back to normal, there it is: proof to the contrary. Proof that five years ago there was a shift in our culture, our government, our fears. Things became darker and stayed darker.

About three weeks after the attacks, I finally made it to the Pentagon. A tornado had struck my apartment and I was crashing with Angela in Arlington as I waited for my insurance company to find me a temporary apartment. We had errands to run and decided to drive by the Pentagon, which was still black and crushed, still wielding an enormous American flag over the damaged wall like a Band-Aid on a necrotic leg. Sobering, to say the least. As was Ground Zero when I visited there in February 2004 and April 2006.

Today all victims of terrorism—those in Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Belfast, London, Bali, America, India, Madrid, Afghanistan, on and on—remain in my thoughts.



song heard most recently before posting: Caoineadh Cu Chulainn—Davy Spillane