9/4/01

I’ve been working on this post for the last week or so, but I’ve neglected to polish it off and finally post it. I feel as though I need to post something in remembrance of September 11th, so please allow this to suffice.

Here it is:

Today (9/4/04)marks the third anniversary of my start date at my current job and for me, it’s inextricably tied to the events of September 11th, 2001.

I had just passed a hard summer after being laid off by the startup firm I had been working for. Newly married, I had wanted to spend more time with my new bride and less at the office, which apparently displeased the higher-ups to such an extent that they fired me. C’est la vie, I guess. I tried not to be bitter and to carry on.

The job search that followed my firing was largely fruitless until a good friend got me an interview at my current place of employment. Although the money wasn’t anywhere near what I had been making at the startup, the interview went well and I seemed to “click” with the guys I would be working with, so I gladly accepted the offer when it came in.

I started off with high hopes and a renewed fervor for the working world that Tuesday three years ago. I spent the first week largely acquainting myself with my new position and new surroundings and generally getting settled in to my new office. I was excited and extremely glad for the chance to work again.

Then, on that beautiful, clear, cool September morning, my world fell to pieces again. I was the first one into the office that morning, arriving at roughly 8:15am. I sat down at my desk and began reviewing the email I had received overnight, checking my regular round of websites, etc. A little while later, one of my coworkers popped her head into my office and asked if I knew where the remote for the TV in our lobby was. Being new, I told her I had no idea and asked “Why? What’s going on?” She said that someone just told her that two planes had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York. I said “Oh, you mean like Cessnas?” The thought of terrorism hadn’t even crossed my mind. I actually thought that it might be another weird occurrence in a summer that had been filled with shark attacks and Chandra Levy stories. “No,” she said, “I think it was two airliners.” I met this statement with disbelief and she then thanked me for trying to help and set off in search of the remote. I tried to surf over to Slashdot and noted that it was loading extremely slowly. I then tried CNN and Fox News, neither of which would even render at all. I began to suspect that my coworker may have been correct.

I wandered out into the lobby and noticed several of my coworkers huddled around the TV. “They must have found the remote,” I though to myself as I attempted to get a look at the screen. Before I could even get a glance at the TV, the looks on their faces told me that something was tragically wrong.

The sight of smoke pouring out of the Twin Towers almost literally took my breath away. I have no memory of what the newscasters were saying, nor which channel we were watching (I’m assuming it was CNN) – I only remember not being able to process the images. I had to will myself to think, to move, to tear myself away from the TV.

I ran to my phone and called my father and asked whether he had heard the news. He replied that he had. I asked after an old family friend that had worked in the WTC – he told me that the friend had transferred back down into Jersey the year before. We both agreed to pray with all our might and as I hung up the phone, I silently wondered whether I might ever see him again. The CNN news crews had already begun labeling the attacks as terrorism and I wondered whether Philly might be next. The Liberty Bell, Independence Hall and all the other patriotic symbols seemed to me ideal targets.

I called my wife at home and asked her to keep the news on and told her I didn’t know when I’d be home, but I would come as soon as I could.

I next called one of my best friends who was working out in Oregon at the time. I woke him from a dead sleep and asked him to turn on the news. He expressed extreme (if sleepy) shock and thanked me for alerting him to the news.

Then came word of the strike on the Pentagon. The Capitol was evacuated and the reports of a carbombing at State also began to flood in. Due to our proximity to Center City Philadelphia, I honestly began wondering how long we had to live.

I again wandered out into the lobby, as my mind was spinning but unable to gain any traction on anything. My coworkers and I watched in horror as the towers came down, one by one. I shuddered at the images and had to keep myself from laughing out loud at the footage of people fleeing from the dust and debris clouds. It just looked so unreal, it seemed impossible to take seriously. It looked like a bad disaster film, yet the blood was real, the ashes were real, the screams of terror chillingly heartfelt. I prayed for the safety of as many New Yorkers as I could but despaired in my heart as I knew the loss of life would be catastrophic.

The rest of the day is largely a blur. I recall coworkers coming and going in the lobby area, shaking their heads in disbelief, some nearly in tears, most with mouths wide in disbelief and horror. I recall hearing Newt Gingrich being the first on-air commentator to label this as an act of terrorism and to finger Osama bin Laden as the likely perpetrator. I remember watching the towers come down, over and over, as more video clips streamed in. Eventually, when it seemed as if the reports of other potential attacks had trailed off, I got back in my car and made the three hour trip back home. I don’t remember much of that first night other than the long, incredibly firm hug that my wife and I shared when I got home.

The days that followed served mostly to clarify things. I learned of further details on the attacks themselves and I mourned with the rest of the country as the casualty counts began to come in. I learned that Dave Suarez, captain of my high school wrestling team and all-around gentleman was among the dead. I cried, I raged, I battled with God, asking Him “How could you let this happen?” I recall almost having to pull over on my commute home one night, I was so overcome with emotion – I had just seen house after house with people, young and old, standing on their front porches with lit candles held aloft in remembrance of those who died. Above all, though, I resolved in my heart to do what I could to support my country and go after those who had hurt us so grievously.

The spontaneous fits of tears largely faded within a couple of months, although I am still forced to choke back a welling in my throat every time I see footage from NYC from that awful day. Unfortunately, the dreams and daydreams haven’t faded. I walked into the restroom at the movie theater my church uses last week and was suddenly frozen by an awful image of a suicide bomber strolling into the lobby and detonating his hellacious cargo and it was all I could do to not cry out audibly at the horror. I’ve dreamt of scenes that wouldn’t have been out of place in The Siege, I’ve seen visions akin to those horrendous images broadcast from Beslan last week, only they didn’t take place in far-away Russia – they took place in Topeka, in Billings, in Philadelphia.

I wonder how I will speak to my children about the events of that September morning. How will I describe to them the feelings? How can I explain the world as it existed on 9/10? Will they ever be able to comprehend? How can I explain the contrast between the different emotions that I experienced watching a wall in Germany fall and watching two towers in New York go down? Will the War on Terror be largely a boogeyman of their childhood, as the Soviet Union was in mine? Will we have sufficiently beaten back the forces of evil, at least in this realm, to allow my descendants to look upon Osama bin Laden as another Hitler – an evil man, one long dead whose ideologies were proved to beso abhorrent that no serious person can now hold them?
I still struggle with my reactions to those atrocities. I hate, hate those responsible for them, and yet I am commanded to love my enemies and pray for those who persecute me. I am commanded to turn the other cheek. I just don’t think I’m there yet.

May God bless the families who lost someone that day and may He bless the loved ones whose sacrifices in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere have worked and are working to keep us safe from another such day.