A longtime friend and blogger related feeling reluctant to write about 9/11 on this anniversary. “Everything just feels so tense and uncertain,” this person wrote, “I’m having a hard time focusing on the anniversary, and hasn’t everything that could be said about 9/11 been said?”
I confessed to a similar feeling. On one hand, one wants to write, “never forget, and never again,” on the other hand, one is almost tired of feeling the pain and the anger. It’s almost like remembering my brother’s deaths; I’d rather think of the good times. Or, perhaps more accurately, it is like remembering a past victimization that has scarred me, but which I cannot allow to own me.
I have received a lot of emails from bloggers saying, “don’t forget to write” about this or that aspect of 9/11. But I feel disinclined to join in. Not because I do not respect what they are saying or appreciate their efforts, but I have never been much of a joiner, or a lock-stepper; this 9/11, I’m feeling the urge to turn, a little, from the crowd. I don’t want to show pictures of the day. I don’t want to show President Bush consoling a family member in the tent. I don’t want to replay the video of our Congress people standing on the steps of congress and spontaneously breaking into song, singing “God Bless America.”
This 9/11 Anniversary, it just feels like too much. Or not enough. This 9/11, the day feels huge, too big for sentimentality, almost.
I honor all of those who have worked, or fought or died to have kept us safe thus far, and all of those who “stand the guard” every day, either in the military or in another capacity, and I pray for our leadership.
But I do that everyday, just as – every day- I watch planes fly across my line of vision and remember.
Perhaps it is because I live in New York, and have FDNY friends, but the truth is, I remember 9/11 every day. When airplanes take off or land at the airport and I note them cresting, or dropping, I remember.
I step outside into glorious weather, temperate and blue-skyed, and I remember.
I stroll through a near-empty grocery store and its spaciousness reminds me of grocery shopping that day, with the grocer’s PA system set to the radio and breaking news, and the people walking through the aisles like ghosts, picking things up and putting them back onto the shelves, in a daze.
When my husband leaves on a business trip, I bless his head and always, always remember that he was in an airplane, in the air, when the WTC and the Pentagon were hit, and what it felt like to wonder and worry.
When my kids -now grown men- wear puzzled or questioning expressions, I note how much they suddenly resemble themselves, from 8 years past.
Peggy Noonan writes about the people who were kids on 9/11/01:
A young man who was 14 the day of the attacks told me recently that there’s an unspoken taboo among the young people of New York: They don’t talk about it, ever. They don’t want to say, “Oh boo hoo, it was awful.” They don’t want to dwell. They shrug it off when it comes up. They change the subject.
…
I’d never fully realized this: 9/11 was for America’s kids exactly what Nov. 22, 1963, was for their parents and uncles and aunts. They were at school. Suddenly there were rumors in the hall and teachers speaking in hushed tones. You passed an open classroom and saw a teacher sobbing. Then the principal came on the public-address system and said something very bad had happened. Shocked parents began to pick kids up. Everyone went home and watched TV all day, and the next.
My sons don’t talk about 9/11 at all. When I bring it up, Elder Son more or less shrugs and turns toward his computer. He is philosophical. Terrible things happen. Terrible things will happen again. Such is life.
My oldest is a very placid and cerebral sort who accepts that the world is what it is, that good and evil live side-by-side, that there are complexities and mysteries, and that perhaps the best we can do in the world is be sweet to each other and reject aggression.
This is not a bad way to live, of course. It is admirable, in fact. Until someone tries to kill you or the people you love.
If you ask Buster about 9/11, you get a similar shrug as from Elder Son, and a quick, “I don’t think of it.” But Buster will brood, and sooner or later, we have a conversation similar to this one:
“There is nothing I can do for those people,” one young man said. “I can feel bad for them because they’re in a world of hurt, and if I were there, I’d have done something, or if I were a cop, an EMT worker or something, I could do something. But I can’t. All I can do is sit here and feel bad for them, which I do, but I can’t wallow in it. That would be like making porn of it.”
“Yeah,” another one said, “the truth is, these people, it’s horrible, but all you can do is kiss them up to God and then hope when it’s you turn to face something horrible, you can deal with it.”
Wallowing in it can be like porn, yes. But more interesting is the other comment, “when it’s your turn to face something horrible.”
For kids who watched 9/11, and the Columbine and Virginia Tech massacres, there is not much to say, and much to be on-guard about:
“…I’ve thought about what I would do, depending on where in the building such an attack were to take place. I’ve sat in class thinking about how the windows open, what structures would make the best barricades and how to go about taking the bastard down rather than simply cowering in fear while people are shot to death. I’ve thought of it. We’ve all thought of it, my friends and I, we’ve devoted hours to thinking about it. If you think we’re being cold or cavalier, I think we’re simply aware of the fact that this is what the world is, that no one can ever guarantee our safety – not schools, not governments – nothing is going to absolutely and 100% protect us from what is out there, what can come into our lives in an instant, and change everything. All we can hope is that when stuff like this comes our way, we can do the courageous thing.”
When my sons were young, I was still very much the pacifist-mom. My plan was never to buy then a toy weapon, but then they just created them out of Lego-type blocks, and so:
I taught my children. . .that fighting was bad, that there were better ways to achieve peace and understanding than through fisticuffs. I remember being appalled one day to learn that a neighbor had taught my Elder Son – who was being bothered by an older, bullying, boy – how to punch someone in the solar plexus. “You make sure you hurt him and get him down on the first punch,” she had instructed him, “because you don’t want him getting up.”
I was appalled until the day my son needed to use exactly that technique to save himself, and he did well. After that we invested in a punching bag and training gloves, to good effect. And curiously, the day of the bully never again did dawn. But had it…we all would have been ready.
That’s kind of what I am feeling on this terrible anniversary – that the Day of the Bully may yet dawn again, but I am not so sure how psyche-scarred America will handle it. I know our first responders, our military, our Protector lads and He-men (and She-ra’s) will do what they always do; they will never let us down. But this is a very different -much more divided and thus weaker- country than we were 8 years ago. Our trust in each other has been shaken. I believe we would weather another attack and come together, as before, but is that simply because I want to believe it?
The other day, I awoke thinking of the these lines:
“Everything” is about nothing.
Everything ended with the sacrifice of the Lamb.
All is consummated.
We are forever and always at the Last Supper, at the Crucifixion, at the Resurrection.
Time ended with the tearing of the veil and the rolling back of the stone.
The rest is illusion and catching up.
There is nothing to be afraid of.
Having no answers, I offer that; it is, increasingly for me, all there is to say.
And on that note, maybe a little sentimentality is okay, after all:
Last year I did an early (and very nervous) podcast of the Office for the Dead. You can also find it alone, here
Related:
What do YOU remember about 9/11
Michael David Garvey, FDNY, USMC
The Rest is Silence
Most awful to hear
Others writing:
Gerald Vanderleun: The Missing (A must read!)
Blackfive: Another must-read
Allahpundit: Was there and remembers on Twitter – it’s gripping, but you have to refresh back about five pages and read backwards
James Lileks: Just read it
Malkin: Remembrance and Resolve
Ed Morrissey: Project 2996
WSJ: 9/11 and the Good War
Tom Elia: If the 9/11 attacks had been thwarted
Andrew Klavan: Remembering on Video
Deacon Greg: On this Day
Uncle Jimbo: First Hand Account from the Towers
Bill Whittle: “Never Forget” means never forgetting
Jimmie Bise Jr: He wished to have a few more children
Melissa Clouthier: “I’m still angry”
Bookworm: Never Forget
Chris Muir
Krauthammer: You can’t have a truther in the White House
Spirit of America: Names and Faces
Happy Catholic: Just keep reading!
Doctor Zero: Falling Through the Fire
Pierre LeGrand: The Men who Saw it Coming
Lorie Byrd: Never Forget 8 Years Later
Maggies Farm: Video: From then to now
Rudy Giuliani: 9/11 is present, not past
Sobering. So much to think about. Our world changed so that day 8 years ago.
I would love to read some of your writings about 9/11. I will have to search–can’t remember when I began reading you regularly, but it was after 9/11.
As some of you may be aware, The Won is seeking to desecrate 9/11 as a “Day of National Service” instead, with the excuse that “We need to move on”.
I recall, years ago when we were toppling the Taliban rule in Afghanistan, the Taliban leader Mullah Omar whining to some journalist that we should “Get over it!”.
To which my response must be not only “No!”, but “Hell No!!!”.
Like many, I was at work on that day, learning of it when co-workers told me to check out CNN on the internet, and watched it play out, watching with horror when the buildings collapsed with so many still inside.
The next day, Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts, normally a fairly angry liberal wrote a column ( reproduced at WTC Trbute – We’ll Go Forward From this Moment ) in which he observed…
Let me tell you about my people. We are a vast and quarrelsome family, a family rent by racial, social, political and class division, but a family nonetheless. We’re frivolous, yes, capable of expending tremendous emotional energy on pop cultural minutiae — a singer’s revealing dress, a ball team’s misfortune, a cartoon mouse. We’re wealthy, too, spoiled by the ready availability of trinkets and material goods, and maybe because of that, we walk through life with a certain sense of blithe entitlement. We are fundamentally decent, though — peace-loving and compassionate. We struggle to know the right thing and to do it. And we are, the overwhelming majority of us, people of faith, believers in a just and loving God.
Some people — you, perhaps — think that any or all of this makes us weak. You’re mistaken. We are not weak. Indeed, we are strong in ways that cannot be measured by arsenals.
And concluded with…
So I ask again: What was it you hoped to teach us? It occurs to me that maybe you just wanted us to know the depths of your hatred. If that’s the case, consider the message received. And take this message in exchange:
You don’t know my people.
You don’t know what we’re capable of.
You don’t know what you just started.
But you’re about to learn.
THIS is how I’ll remember 9/11, for a VERY long time to come.
The most awful part of 9/11 was the sense of impotence. I was 17 miles from the WTC when it all happened, but I might as well have been on the other side of the world.
My father lived through both Pearl Harbor and 9/11. The difference is that, on December 8, 1941, he enlisted in the US Navy.
On September 12, 2001, all I did was worry about myself, my aged father, and smell the first bit of smoke from that awful pyre drift over my town.
It was that sense of emptiness that lingers with me still. That, and the awful sight of unclaimed cars at the train station, still waiting for their owners who would never come.
Pray for the repose of the souls of the dead, the 2000+ who died on that day, the 2.500+ who have died since in search of our mortal enemies in order to destroy them, and the unnumbered who were neither our friends nor our enemies and who have died in the crossfire of our lethal search.
Most of the rest of it is fruitless and self-destructive. Hatred, even with the best of excuses, is still hatred and, if human life is unequivocally precious, then the categorical imperative to forgive our enemies makes hatred, for whatever reason, the albatross around our neck. As a theologian, Pope Benedict has been very clear headed and direct about the implication of this: there is no such thing as just war.
This is not “pacifism”. It is simply the realization that self-defense is self-defense solely, not justice.
It is perfectly possible to make your future out of hatred in the name of justice or self-defense. It is the future that Buddhists call the Hell Realm, where your own past hatred solidifies around you as a world of unrelenting and seamless torment. The future personal torment is exactly the same no matter what the reason for your hatred.
Mental actions are still actions. You will not personally experience the results of actions you do not commit and you will experience the results of those that you do commit, unless you apply the antidotes of repentance for them, resolve to abandon them, and application of the remedies [such as praying for others] that purify them.
You have prayed for me as I have prayed for you and we each have prayed for others, both in our own way and with the different words we have been taught. These actions also will shape our respective personal futures. So the best use of 9/11 for the dead, for the living, and for us personally is prayer.
AND DEATH SHALL HAVE NO DOMINION
And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.
And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan’t crack;
And death shall have no dominion.
And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.
~ Dylan Thomas (1914-1953), the great Welsh poet and writer
President Bush said this conflict would be long and hard and asked the American people are you with me. In 2001 some (I’m from MA, a lot of our pols were busy telling us we deserved the hit)were willing to never forget and fight for this country. My parents (father served in the army in WWII)never forgot Pearl Harbor. It is obvious that this group of people now living in the USA do not measure up to what went before…..9/11 is just too hard, drifting into a pleasant haze of let’s just all get along is where we are. God bless those people who died on 9/11, and the people who are strong enough to remember and fight on.
It does seem we are losing our momentum once again. This administration in office would want us to do service instead of remembering. I believe you must fight the bully, else he will just come back and hurt other innocents. I hate conspiracy theories, but a world of the black helicopters coming down to scoop us non believers of the new world and send us to reeducation camps doesn’t seem so far fetched to me. There appears to be groups of overly educated individuals bent on domination, though they would not admit this. No its in the name of saving the planet without the grace of the true God. Take a look at this webpage, Anchoress:
God help us.
I’m in the military, but was in staff college on that day…the very definition of “nonessential personnel”…so we could do nothing but watch helplessly as our country was attacked. For someone trained to “run to the sound of the guns”, it was intolerable.
But on that day…resolve. Never. Again. Not on my watch.
I thought of two quotes…words that have served to return me to moral certainty while my country rips itself apart since then. Like members of the Last Legion, our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, & Marines remain on guard, determined to remain at our posts. What we guard is up to the rest of our fellow Americans.
My thoughts for the day and every 9/11:
Gen Patton’s prayer at Bastogne:
“Almighty and most merciful Father, we humbly beseech Thee, of Thy great goodness, to restrain these immoderate rains with which we have had to contend. Grant us fair weather for Battle. Graciously hearken to us as soldiers who call upon Thee that, armed with Thy power, we may advance from victory to victory, and crush the oppression and wickedness of our enemies and establish Thy justice among men and nations.”
And George Orwell:
“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”
Your Armed Forces will guard the walls…I beseech you all to make our service worth the sacrifice.
Beloved Anchoress,
Yes, you do remember every day. You don’t mention it explicitly all that often, but you do refer to it regularly in such a way that it’s clear you are always remembering. No, you don’ t need to do a sentimental or belligerent piece on this day; you do better every day. Thank you for that.
The young man you quoted said “all we can do” is pray … yes. I think that in the next life, we will learn something astonishing — that prayer is not the least of what we can do, but the best. I don’t feel that way now; I wonder whether any human could feel that way while still walking this mortal coil. But I’m convinced of the truth of it, as I believe you also are convinced. Do your best today; pray. Thank you for that also and God bless.
I remember. I remember Heather Lee Smith who perished on Flight 11. She was the daughter of old friends. Her life was just getting started at age 30. She left behind grieving parents, a brother, a fiance’, uncles, aunts, cousins and friends like us. Who think of her often and will always miss her and honor her on this sacred day.
For it should be sacred today; a day of silent remembrance of 2,996 lives lost, of thousands still living with their injuries – visible or not – and the gaping, yowling void the dead left behind.
Today should be a day of remembrance, not of anything else. If you want to volunteer in your community, do it in remembrance of someone who perished on this date.
It’s not about politics either. No government should attempt to legislate what this date means to this country.
It is our day – the day the sleeping giant was awakened. The day the last of this country’s innocence was stripped away.
Mickey – everyday I try to do the right thing so that the sacrifices of your fellow men-at-arms are not in vain. It’s a shame that our politicians don’t do the same thing.
For Heather.
the truth is, I remember 9/11 every day
Yes, yes many of us do. And the fact that we do, and mean it when we say “never again,” leads us, sadly, to note that some want to remain on 9/10 forever. For some, 9/11 did not change them, and they would rather fight the people that have worked to prevent more and worse attacks from happening, than fight those who did such things. For some, putting a “boot in their ass” is not “the American way.” Indeed, they are working for the release of those who have warred against us. Sadly, we take note of that part of the oath of office that mentions “all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
As for me, the truth is, I remember 9/11 every day.
8 years on and there is still nothing at the World Trade Center site. That’s disgraceful.
Truthfully, 9/11/2001 is not the day that I remember, though it is not a forgettable day for any of us. I am constrained by personal history to place another day ahead of it. 10/12/2000 when USS Cole was attacked in the Port of Aden Yemen.
I have firsthand experience of the reactions to terrorist attack, and the lifetime that it takes to recover from such an event.
My path to recovery began with a pair of verses from the bible:
1) Rom 12:19 Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. — which showed me that I could not afford the cost of revenge in and upon my soul.
2) Rom 12:20 Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.
The morning of 9-11, I was at the Arlington County Courthouse, waiting for a couple of cases to get called. During a lull, I went down to the clerk’s office, where the clerk got a call and mentioned that a plane had just hit the Pentagon. I heard it, but it did not register that it was a full-size passenger plane.
I went up to the circuit court, where no case was being heard, but the judge was saying something about “war.” Again, it did not register.
So, since my case wasn’t being called, I went down to general district court for my other case, when the sheriff’s deputies came running in and went up to the bench to the judge, who then announced that the docket was scrubbed for the day and that the building was being evacuated. Everyone needed to get out NOW.
There was a concern about another plane still out there. Meanwhile, the deputies and police were needed to be tasked to the Pentagon.
I went to my car and turned on the radio and heard about an attack on the State Department (which was a false report). They mentioned a collapse of the WTC, but thick-headed me, that did not fully register either. I’m thinking maybe a ceiling or two had crashed down, not the entire building. Getting home and seeing it on TV, I wasn’t shocked or angry, only numb.
Meanwhile, going outside, living close to the Potomac, I started seeing this long line of people walking from the District. The Metro was closed by then, and the federal government had shut down and evacuated, so people were walking home.
That night, I was in my room when there was this huge explosion about a block away. Not being sure, I called 911. It turned out to be a blown transformer, but that was the wrong time for that to happen.
I couldn’t get to drive by the Pentagon for a day or two, but seeing that big hole in the side left an impression on me.
My brother-in-law had a last minute change, but he was supposed to be in the WTC that morning.
The truth is, I remember 9/11 every day. The world changed that day.
This is part of what I wrote a few days after –
“. . . as passengers, we’ll need to stay alert during the flights and prevent that from happening. If hijacked, we need to emulate the heroes of the plane in Pennsylvania and retake the plane, no matter the cost. As for me, if I’m hijacked and we cannot regain control — shoot us down. I’ll not allow them to make a low-tech missile out of me.
“At the same time, pray for true peace. Pray for my buddy [in the Reserves] as he gets activated and sent into battle. Pray for our enemy, that God grant them grace and wisdom to choose peace. Pray for us, that, as we destroy that enemy, that God grant us grace and strength to not hate those He commands us to love, that we kill not for vengeance, but to end the violence and the capacity and will of the enemy to make war on us, until the day we again may live in peace with these children of God.”
I don’t know why, but I’m having a harder time with it this year than I did in other years.
On 9-11-2001 I was a firefighter in training for a large city department. We watched in horror and shock the attack that happened to our East. Our Deputy Chief of Training was in tears; he knew the NYFD collapse rescue team, realizing they’d all been killed before our very eyes.
And now, maybe finally my shock is wearing off a bit as that day I stood there wearing the same uniform, preparing to do the same job and make the same sacrifice…maybe even on that day, had our city been on the terrorist’s list.
Now I’m more horrified than ever. Some of that comes from my conversion back to our Faith, a deeper appreciation of human life, a greater understanding of sin, and how far we can fall.
I don’t ever want to lose this sense of horror for it is exactly this sense that makes me realize how much we need to pray, how quickly and how deeply we can fall, the evil we are capable of comitting…and the preciousness of all human life.
I am in tears this morning, even more so than I was on the day it happened. Although I don’t know what makes this year for me worse than other years…I truly can’t articulate. But it makes me pray, because I don’t think this is over. Not by a long shot.
I am with Julie on this matter — I am having a harder time of it this year than others.
Reading your post, dear Anchoress, I was compelled to walk to the church I just joined for mass. I wanted to pray for the souls of the innocent who died that day, as well as for the souls of our military who have died subsequently to ensure such an incident would not happen again. There were prayers directly relevant to 9/11, which was comforting. Chatting with other attendees after mass, most of us mentioned 9/11 as the reason they were also in church today.
I made a portion of this a “quote of the week”, and Rush Limbaugh mentioned it this morning, and I think it speaks to this day more that the proposed “Day of Service” touted by our current president.
“But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
(from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address)
RIP
My sadness remains, only in experiencing the ugly political manipulations of an unethical Party in power.
Thus, the horrid memories are turned even more bitter, as the deceit peddled on a daily basis, serves as such a gross injustice to all, especially those lost.
To know the Lockerbie Terrorist was released with an Obama Administration, including Sec. Clinton, claiming shock and concern, when we know they knew all along – and did nothing but perhaps support the freeing of this killer.
I can only hope more do not die, as a result of this monstrous politicizing of all, in the name of the Democratic Party, for the Democratic Party.
Interesting read; my sons, (out here in CO), were getting ready for grade / high school when I received a call from a friend who is a pilot. We didn’t move from the television. As the Trade Center’s collapsed, through blurry eyes I told my sons that at that exact moment, many were praying and dying, especially firefighters and police.
Today, my oldest son participated in his 2nd ‘9/11 Firefighters Memorial Denver Stair Climb” a way for firefighters to participate in a special event where they get together and tell each other and the rest of the world that we will Never Forget the 343 lives lost that day. They will climb 55 stories of the Qwest Building in downtown Denver twice in full gear; aka FDNY on 9/11 – each will carry a photo of a lost firefighter in remembrance.
My son ultimately became interested in becoming a fireman because of 9/11 events. God bless them all and their families today.
Beyond our shared responses of grief and anger, I think there are many different ways that people have responded to 9-11 and integrated it into their outlooks. For me, working near the Pentagon on that day, one dimension of my response was that it turned into a kind of personal resurrection.
The country is “much more divided and thus weaker *** than we were 8 years ago.”
I don’t know about that. I remember liberals eight years ago immediately after the attacks criticizing Bush, insinuating that Republicans were responsible, and doubting his ability to respond to the crisis in a manner that made it obvious that they sincerely hoped he would fail miserably in responding to the crisis. Reverse the roles and things do not seem that different today.
You say “But this is a very different – much more divided and thus weaker – country than we were 8 years ago. Our trust in each other has been shaken.”
We have broken up into tribes, as John McWhorter writes today in “Moving On But In A Different World: What 9/11 taught me about human nature”
I republished (and renamed) a related 9/11/06 post today, “The warring tribes of post-9/11″:
Virtual Lamp Beside the Golden Door
I thought when the President was making his 9/11 remarks from the WH this morning that, if it wasn’t for Fox reporting, he’d still be harboring a “911 truther” on his staff….so, yes, I feel like things are worse now than they were 8 yrs ago today.
Why “then” matters “now”
May God have mercy on all our souls.
My sincere prayer goes out to all lost souls and I know that it is very little on this day of American Sorrow but it does come from the heart of a Canadian cousin.
God Bless,
Peace
This year has been unsettling for me, as well. Don’t know why. I was on my way to Target to do some shopping 8 years ago when I heard that a plane had flown into one of the WTC buildings. I imagined that it was a small plane, the pilot ill, or someone who had lost control of the airplane. Once at Target, I needed something in the electronics department and was watching the TVs as the second plane hit. At that point, I knew this country was being attacked. My younger daughter works in DC and she & a friend started walking back to Annie’s apartment as they waited for word that her cousin was safe (he was ~ he got out of the WTC without injury). Cell phones didn’t work, but the phone at home was working ~ by the time I got home, I had at least a dozen calls from friends across the country wanting to make sure I was OK since I’m not that far from the Pentagon.
Elizabeth ~ Buster did have a mention of the day on his Facebook page this morning. Out of all the college age students I know, only 4 of them posted something about 9/11.
I choose to remember BOTH September 11ths just as my enemies, the jihadists did. They think in centuries and when plotting remembered the first September 11th the beginning of a 24 hour battle in which Catholic soldiers would, in 1683, save Vienna and western Europe from attempts at extending old Mo’s evil empire.
Eight years is nothing when you are waging jihad. Jihad is forever. Wish the same could be said of Catholic courage and resolve. This is a 1400 year old world war now raging from northern Nigeria to southern Philippines and yet when I talk with my fellow Catholics too many of them think another verse of “Kumbaya” and another round of ecumania with the local imam prostrating themselves in dhimmitude will change the nature of Islam.
My dear Anchoress
I recently saw Paul McCartney in concert with 50,000 other people. It was a performance that felt extraordinarily intimate and personal. I felt blessed by this experience.
Reading your post, and your referenced post about your earlier life’s abuse – which I had never seen though I have read you for some time – makes me feel the same way. How can it be, on line, that I feel such a closeness to someone I don’t know. Not to exaggerate, but your ability with the word combined with your honesty and religiousity, is comparable, on a small scale of course, to the ability of McCartney in song and his honesty over the years in creating a body of work.
I am moved by you. Thank you so much.
AvantiBev makes a very valid point. Jihadists often refer to Westerners as “crusaders”, but this is a classic case of projection. The West lost its taste for Crusades many centuries ago, but certain portions of Islam never did.
Osama bin Laden and his supporters speak of “reclaiming” the lands they lost the same year that Columbus sailed to the New World. What is that, if not a Crusade? And a one-sided on at that.
I’m late into this, but here’s my postulation. The nation has been reasonably secure since 9/11 and we have felt that; now we are under attack from within, and a lot of us feel quite helpless. It brings back those feelings of helplessness and despair that were rampant immediately after it happened.
So if the country is under attack from within, does that mean the so-called attackers hate this country like bin laden does? Are they trying to bring it down? How close is the parallel you’re drawing? And who is “we,” since many millions of people voted for the supposed attackers? I mean, don’t your owrds imply this is your country and not ours as well? Or do they merely imply that your understanding of the Founder’s intentions and how to remain true to them 200 years on is correct and ours is wrong?
Bobfan – you win. You are right. I’m just a moron with an opinion.
Yes, the country is under attack. When personal freedoms are put on the line under the guise of some misguided, in my opinion, sense of greater good, that is an attack. When it is more important to advance the cause of a particular group or groups of people, than that is an attack on the rest of us. Paying higher taxes to support socialist agendas is an attack.
Perhaps I’m not as eloquent as most, but I do have legitimate opinions and I think they are worthy of sharing. I am educated, I have a profession, and I really like hearing what people around the country have to say.
So, I learned in the last couple of days that life is short and that adding another stress, like trying to interact with other people on a public site like this only to be shot down over and over for expressing an opinion is just not worth it.
You win. I quit. But I will stick pick you up and carry you if I find you in the gutter.
I will read this blog as long as it exists. I will read the comments. But Bender’s Cheerleader is gone, at least in print. Adios!
“I will read this blog as long as it exists. I will read the comments. But Bender’s Cheerleader is gone, at least in print. Adios!”
Don’t worry, once our hostess reads your comments she’ll probably ban me and then you can post without my irritating questions.
I hardly think you’re a moron, nor did I intend to insult your intelligence, and I’m sorry I sounded that way. If you didn’t sound intelligent and educated, I wouldn’t have responded at all.
“When it is more important to advance the cause of a particular group or groups of people, than that is an attack on the rest of us.”
Fine, but it’s not possible to advance any cause in a pluralistic society without doing so contrary to the will of many others, and “the rest of us” does not a country make. My point is that it might be more profitable for everyone if we would see political disagreements as just disagreements, not attacks.
I think Bender’s Cheerleader should stick around and post! I am an unofficial member of your team
Re: under attack from within – no, “they” don’t “hate” the country – or at least I don’t think they do. But they want to change it in ways that are alien to our nation. And seriously, I just don’t feel the love emanating from DC or the far left.
Victor David Hanson wrote a good article on why the middle / moderates / independents who voted for Obama feel betrayed. It was very non-biased – primarily a listing of facts from the campaign to the actualities of governance. Even discounting 20% of the campaign speeches as fibs (a reasonable number), the list is quite surprising.
VDH’s article
As far as the ‘other side’ being wrong and me being right? If I can narrow down the other so as not to include ‘regular people’ who listen to the news for a total of an hour a week, versus the movers, shakers and true believers… I would have to say that in several cases, yes, I am right and they are wrong. I can easily start with a dogmatic tenet of the Catholic faith such as abortion.
Perhaps in matter of war and defense, yes – we have different and valid perspectives. But I would suggest that a 9/11 truther should NOT be anywhere near power.
While I disagreed with MUCH of what Bush did, I view most of those disagreements in terms of differing but valid opinions. But I never thought of him as an attacker within. I could barely stomach McCain, I believe he puts Country First. My own rep is a Dem, and again – I disagree with her on a lot, but she has different opinions.
I don’t paint everyone with one brush, nor do I think Bender’s Cheerleader meant to either.
I’m sorry not to have responded earlier, prior to your response, My Girl, but my (electric) power went out in the middle of my writing a killer response to Bob. Now that I have my power back, let me do some cheering of my own for the cheerleader. After all, “Save the cheerleader, save the world.”
Please don’t let others annoy you, especially those who go out of their way to take offense and snap back at people.
It is rather telling, very telling, that you did not mention any particular person, but Bob felt compelled to apply your comments to himself. It was Bob that did that, not you, and this after you had shown him kindness.
Such people you cannot engage with, not in any serious manner. Let them say whatever silly things that they are going to say. Let them project till their projector is sore. They only come off looking the worse for it, not you.
There are many of us who have said to themselves, you go girl, but they did not mean for you to leave, they meant for you to keep up the fight. So put the uniform back on, pick up the pom-pons, and start cheering . . . for yourself.
“I think Bender’s Cheerleader should stick around and post!”
So do I. Thanks for the interesting link, JuliB. I don’t even disagree with everything Hanson says.
It’s interesting to hear that others felt particularly unsettled on the 9/11 anniversary this year. Although I have felt general sadness each year when the anniversary rolls around, I have tended to avoid the television tributes and documentaries, etc.
Not this year. I watched two of them, back to back, on the History Channel, including “102 Minutes that Changed the World.” For some reason, this year, I was very motivated to pay attention to, and reflect upon, the horrific events of that day.
In many ways, I believe our country has rapidly become much weaker in recent months.
And I’m concerned that eventually we’ll all pay a steep price for that.
Our family will always be grateful that one of my husband’s brothers was spared. He commuted regularly to a consulting contract in NY which was unexpectedly terminated early that September. He still had his tickets. The return flight that he no longer needed to board went into one of the Towers.
This year, we went to a memorial service at St. John the Baptizer Ukrainian Catholic Church. It was chanted in English, quiet and beautiful, the homily simple. Horror that this was, there is one event greater than this. The Resurrection, to which we look, knowing that God has defeated death.
Added to the long-standing war against America by Al Qaeda (they were at war with us, but we weren’t at war with them), and added to the long-standing war (1400 years) against the West and other “infidels” by Islamic militants (notwithstanding a certain lull between the Battle of Vienna (1683) and the modern rise of Islamic terrorism), added to these we now have the increasing threat of Iran (which played a huge part in the rebirth of Islamic militancy with the Iranian Revolution) — a nuclear Iran.
A major reason that we went into Iraq to depose Sadaam Hussein was because, after the devastation of 9-11, we could no longer afford to take the risk of the threat that he presented. Well, we cannot afford to take the risk of a nuclear Iran. Unfortunately, thanks to the 9-10 Dems and liberals, of which Barack Obama is one, we are not only taking the risk, but embracing it.
Since 9-11, I have consistently held the belief that, sooner or later, I could very well see a bright flash outside my window and that would be the last thing I see before the heat and shockwave of a nuclear blast swept over my home here, right next to D.C. Today, the probability of that happening is sooner, rather than later.
Bender,
Your specter of a blinding nuclear flash is one that lived with me every day after 9/11. I worked and lived outside NYC on September 11, but took a job in lower Manhattan the following summer.
Each day I would exit the subway at Wall Street, past NYPD officers with submachineguns and Bomb Squad trucks. The outer walls of my office building were covered in a thin layer of grey dust, a constant reminder of the vast crematorium that sat just a few blocks away.
I took to carrying an emergency kit with me instead of an attache case–duct tape, gloves, rubber overshoes, a particle mask.
One day, after about a year of this, my wife said “Let’s move to Florida and stop worrying.”
And so I write now from a small, quiet, obscure, safe place. I miss New York every day, but I wouldn’t move back there for anything. Several friends have admitted since then that similar concerns motivated their relocation. That, in my own, selfish way of thinking, is one of the tiny, tragic outcomes of 9/11.
Well, self-preservation is rarely “selfish.” As for me, I’m not going to let those bastards drive me out. Perhaps it has something to do with all that thinking and teaching I do for CCD about the martyrs, who suffered far worse than near vaporization (the true martyrs — none of this murder people and get 72 virgins and prepubscent boys providing you “delights” and feeding you grapes in heaven crap).
On the other hand, while those bastards might not drive me out, the “Smart Growth” bastards who are imposing hyper-density development around here, building more and more concrete high-rises while eliminating more and more blue skies and true green areas (the contradictions of libs never ceases to amaze), might very well drive me away.
Bender dear, we’ll take you out here in the wild, wild, west!
Wow, you’ve got TWO cheerleaders in the west, Bender! LOL Well, actually I’m in the Southwest.
Maggie45/aka Bender’s Cheerleader #2
Hey, not so fast, ladies — if we are mud wrestling for Bender, I’m throwing my midwestern hat in the pit, too!!!
I think there is enough of Bender’s steel-trap mind to go around for all of us, ladies!
Thanks for making me laugh!! I needed it.
I think there is enough of Bender’s steel-trap mind to go around for all of us, ladies!
That’s right, baby!
There’s plenty of Bender and his Latin charm to go around.