9-11: A memoriam

To the Editor;

It’s 2016 and 15 years have passed since “9-11”. Fifteen long dreary years of uncertainty, and for some they’ve been punctuated by fear.

Do you remember where you were on 9-11? Just think, there are children in their middle teens who don’t know what our country was like before our homeland was changed for ever. There may even be teachers of history in our schools, barely in their teens themselves, when “Remember 9-ll” became a rallying slogan similar to “Remember Pearl Harbor”. And how about those who’ve been persuaded to believe that we actually brought the events of 9-ll on ourselves?

How quickly we forget! Do you remember the images of dust covered people fleeing those burning buildings; of the selflessly brave firefighters and police who ran toward the danger in an attempt to save others? Are we made of the same stuff today that folks were 15 years ago?

It can all happen again, perhaps far worse, and we must question whether we are prepared? Have we once again fallen back into a sleepy sense of complacency where our capacity of denial has lulled us into the notion that it can’t? Surely it won’t happen again, you say to yourself.

Remembering “9-11” brings to mind the poignant words of a song made popular years ago. Read the three simple stanzas and permit the essence of the words to lodge in your mind:

“Try to remember the kind of September

When life was slow and oh so mellow …”

“Try to remember when life was so tender that no one wept except the willow …”

“Deep in December, it’s nice to remember, although you know the snow will follow …”

I do remember! It was the Sunday after 9-11. The airport in North Carolina fairly bristled with soldiers in fatigues, automatic weapons at the ready. Remember too the silence aboard that flight, one of the first into New York. No one knew what to expect, what they might see, or even what could happen to that plane or themselves.

From the right side of the airplane the Statute of Liberty appeared and there, almost under the wing was the massive black, smouldering pile of what onces was the World Trade Center. Smoke belched from the great maw, only a city block from where I once worked. It drifted southward, out over New York harbor on its way to the Atlantic’s horizon.

Unbelieveable, seemingly unreal and unacceptable, I thought. But there it was, undeniable. Hatred had struck its first blow on all of us.

Since that day you surely have to have questioned, what will come of us as a people? Could it happen again? Yes, we’re still here, living through it, but are we ready and are those who follow us prepared to take on a changed world? We’ve had our warning. Can those of us who remember that fateful day join with those who may not, come together as a nation, and bring our lives to the “point so tender” that no one weeps “except the willow”?

Don Benjamin
Dover-Foxcroft