I agree with Bricker and ivylass and anyone else who realizes that this is something we should never forget. It would be foolish to do otherwise.
This should be more than just a note on a history page, what, a mere two years later?
Maybe it’s too difficult for some persons to take in just what happened and grief is not something that has touched their lives very often. But I don’t consider facing grief, even on a very deep level, unhealthy in any way. Grief stretches your heart allowing you to love more.
Healing is embracing it, accepting it, then recognizing how it changed you. Then you can go forward. It doesn’t mean you won’t look back or ever forget.
You approach such loss, AmericanMail, somewhat like my mother. As I told her, “putting it behind you and forgetting about it” as soon as you suggest is not the healthy way to handle grief. Of course, I don’t know you or your reasons, but hers is because she’s afraid to handle such emotion, even briefly.
World Eater, you probably can find a copy at Amazon. That’s where Lib and I purchased ours. It’s titled 9/11 and another one we have is In Memoriam. The DVD of 9/11 is better than what was originally presented on network tv. It’s a witness of character of those directly involved that we just don’t see very often.
It’s too soon to put 9/11 in the same category as Pearl Harbor, etc. Considering that the fallout from the attack is still underway and that the wounds are still fresh, many people will want and need an observance. If you find it painful, avoid it. I for one will chose to reflect on the most enduring image for me from that day. The passengers of Flight 93 fighting back. If I could somehow choose the manner of my death, it would be just like that.
Not to sound callous, but I was over 9/11 by 9/18. I don’t want to diminish the way anyone else feels about it, especally people who lost friends or loved ones in the attack… but I didn’t. I don’t know a single person who died in the WTC. I don’t even know anyone who knows anyone. And, much as I hate to say it, there have, are, and will be much worse tragedies in the world. Should I care more about a bunch of people I don’t know who died in New York than I should care about a bunch of people I don’t know who died in Rwanda?
That said, I don’t begrudge anyone else their media grief. Looks like 9/11 is going to be another movie night for me this year.
I think I was over ‘9/11’ much faster than I put away the grief over the deaths of individual friends.
But I still don’t want to see videotapes of them dying over and over again. I mean, if they had died in car accidents, I wouldn’t have wanted to watch that on tape on the anniversary of their deaths every year forever.
For me 9/11 has several important reasons to be remembered. I did know some of the victims. Other friends and relatives who worked in the WTC or commuted by PATH escaped harm, but I didn’t know they were safe for hours or even days. Our parent company is right across the street from the WTC. I heard many first-hand reports from co-workers who saw people jumping to their death and other horrors. Fortunately nobody from my company died or was injured.
On a more general note, 9/11 (and the President’s reaction to it) marked the end of viewing terrorist attacks as unrelated, criminal episodes. From that point forward, we acknowledged that an international group of terrorists have declared war on America, and we had no choice but to declare war on them. Until we win that war, 9/11 will remain a crucial symbol.
december, out of interest, what did the Bali and Jakarta Bombings represent? Who was that a war on? Or does it not concern you seeing as how Americans aren’t involved?
9/11 was an attack on American soil, but it was actually an attack on the brightest, shiniest symbol of the Western World, but the USA is hardly the sole target. Consider the Moroccan bombings of 4 months ago - French interests were the target there. Al Quaida are said to be responsible for that too.
New York was a glorious target because of the incredible symbolism and TV coverage it was going to get, but the assertion that 9/11 was, and is, a uniquely American affair is a disingenuous one. Hence, the Bali Bombing of October last year. The goal is to terrorise the entire Western world and it’s way of life, not just American’s alone.
I don’t think it’ll be as bad as last year-they almost HAD to do something, since it was the first anniversary.
However, I hope it doesn’t get as maudlin this year. I think we should remember that people died, but I think we have to stop exploiting it. It gets gratuitous and morbid.
I also don’t want to remember how fucking SCARED I was that day.
I think there’s a difference between genuine remembrances and hand-wringing don’t-know-what-else-to-do “tributes” that seemed to permeate television in the year after 9/11/01. Honestly, how many “tribute to the victims of 9/11” halftime shows did we really need?
It’s one thing to remember a national tragedy. It’s another to exploit it for any kind of gain, be it political, financial, or whatever. Exploitation cheapens the event, and it also cheapens the memory of those who died as part of that event.
I agree with you. I didn’t mean to imply that the War on Terror is uniquely American. The terrorists are threatening many Western countries, including Europe, Australia, and Israel. The threat against Australia is particlarly severe, according to articles I recently read. Western countries are now responding against the terrorists in a fairly unified way, as they should be.
Can I ask you, Boo Boo Foo, whether the 9/11 attack and Bush’s declaration of a War on Terror changed Australia’s POV of the conflict from a law enforcement effort to a war?
I’ll never forget how scared I was that day. I’ll never forget wondering if they were going to hit Times Square or the Empire State Building next and we were going to die, too. I’ll never forget waiting for our temps who were assigned to 2 WTC to call and assure us that they were alive (they were, thank God, although several of our clients didn’t make it out). I’ll never forget standing in the middle of the street watching the NBC News feed at 30 Rock while the woman next to me sobbed. I’ll never forget going home on the one subway running that afternoon and praying that we all made it home alive. I’ll never forget talking to my friends that night to reassure them that I was okay and bursting into tears at the sound of their voices. I’ll never forget standing on my fire escape with my roommate in Brooklyn and looking across the river to where the towers should have been and seeing nothing by smoke. And I’ll never forget the three days we waited to find out if two of our friends would ever come home again. They never did.
I don’t need memorial services or tv specials or documentaries to remind me of these things. There’s rarely a day that goes by that I don’t think about these things. My nightmares help me to remember. And I hate the people who exploit it for political gains or monetary gains.
I can’t explain to some of you why I, someone who knew no one that was lost in the attacks, am still incredibly physically affected at the thought of what happened on that day. Just reading this thread, remembering it all, I get sick to my stomach. My head reels. But I in my grief want nothing less than complete understanding of what these people went through, as morbid as that may seem.
Honestly, I don’t feel there’s been enough coverage. I don’t think this mass amnesia that seems to have swept over the country in the past year is going to do anything but prolong the process. Sure, there has been talk of the attacks in the media, but only when they are tangenitally related to some other topic, and it’s always masked in neutral language. I want to see the towers again. I want to feel whatever emotions are naturally brought on by the thought of them falling. I want to let my grief run its course.
It’s only been two years. Does a widowed wife forget the touch of her loving husband in two years? Does an orphaned child forget the call of her mother’s voice in two years? Is the pain of loss yet so brief as to be swept aside in two years’ time? No. The pain lasts a lifetime. As it should. It grows more subtle every year, but it remains.
I respect the viewpoints of those who feel they have had enough, but I would respectfully ask them to show some respect for the dead and find a way of politely excusing themselves from whatever form of tribute they may find issue with. I’m not done grieving, damnit, and I never will be.
The words “War on Terror” are rarely used down here. They tend to be seen as being quite jingoistic. On September the 11th, the entire nation of Australia went into mourning for our American cousins - as did the entire Western World.
Australia sent some very, VERY crack troops to Afghanistan - and a lot of those same guys have gone onto Iraq as well. In some respects, this is a very good thing - we now have some incredibly battle hardened and worldy servicemen who can talk on a first name basis with similar men of rank in Armies from the USA to Britain to Germany to Poland. This is an invaluable thing - in terms of co-operation and cameradie in the face of the tasks at hand.
But at a far more important level, that is, the intelligence and federal policing level, the same thing is now taking place as well. FBI agents are now entering into mutual interchange positions with Australian Federal Police etc.
What I’d LIKE to see is a situation where the crackest of the crack policing and military dudes in the entire Western World were all kind of stationed together at least 6 months of the year. This would allow a practical interchange of knowledge and empathy far, far beyond that which has happened in the past.
Certainly, down here, American servicemen have always had an unusually close and mutual respectful relationship with their Aussie comrades - and it needs to be widened - the charter needs to be broadened.
My personal opinion is that any country in the future who insists on “going it alone” in terms of military and police and intelligence protection - by extension - opens an innate weak vector of attack by terrorists.
Conversely, to have a permanent military/police anti-terrorist team of say 3000 people, from about 15 different countries, with a constant flow of people into and out of that team would be incredibly powerful and efficient. If I were a senior office in the Australia Federal Police say, it would be a great thing for me to be able to ring an old friend from the German Federal Police and to ask for one of his men to help regarding a possible terrorist threat with German connections for example.
This sort of inter-service exchange needs to be ramped up exponentially it seems to me.
Sadly people from Afghanistan and Iraq are feeling the same way… Arabs all over are shocked by the violence done to fellow arabs too. They are saying the same things you are… but they are willing to strap on bombs…
The re-election campaign has already started… and much more than 5$ is in Bush Bank now.
People should be more shocked that Bush is using the horror of 9/11 to push his agenda and help his friends.
I think Americans should pray not only for the people of 80 countries that also died in the Twin Towers… but also for civilian victims in Afghanistan and Iraq.
I don’t think I need to worry about picking the scab off until I think my wounds have scabbed over, and they haven’t yet, at least not completely.
I won’t be watching the media hype because I feel it diminishes the very event they are attempting to memorialize, and because I still find much of it too painful to watch. But I don’t want to put it behind me; until the day I die, I will remember and, in my own quiet way and within the confines of my own experience, I will bear witness.