A Few Questions About That Terrible Day.

It was a beautiful late summer morning, a lot like today. 

Here on the west coast, it had already all gone down by the time most of us found out. The news slowly infected us, one human at a time. A nation that began the day flush with post-Cold-War hubris, slowly blanketed itself in a murk of fear and grief. It was a black cloud as undeniable as the one unleashed on the canyons of lower Manhattan when the towers finally collapsed. 

Where were you? I learned about it as I switched on the car radio after dropping off my six-year-old daughter at school. That’s ridiculous, I remember thinking. Planes don’t get hijacked anymore, not since, like, D.B. Cooper in the Seventies. Both towers collapsed? From two planes? Is this some kind of Orson Welles-type radio bullshit? 

Doesn’t seem like it. And how does a plane fly into the Pentagon? How could a lumbering jetliner strike the nerve center of our military? I must be getting bad information.

To wit, some of it was bad. Remember the rumors of mysterious packages outside Camp David, terrorist activity at the Brooklyn Bridge, our streets jammed with celebrating Arab Americans?

Who was the first person you called? Did you have a spouse at the time? Kids? Were you stuck somewhere distant, unable to find a flight or rental car to get back home?

Then there were the substantiated peripheral events. On September 18, when the first anthrax-laced envelopes arrived at the offices of media and congressional members, the scales really seemed to tip. All factors pointed to the most effectively planned and executed conspiracy against America in our history. 

What else do the terrorists have in store? How deep does this go? I can vividly recall my wife and I being about one exploded Amtrack from whisking the family away and getting all Green Acres-like as a gentleman farmer and bead maker in the Idaho panhandle. Did you have similar thoughts?

Were you glued to your TV? Were you suspicious of strangers? How did you sleep?

So much happened on that horrible day—My Pet Goat, Cheney hightailing it to his bunker—loaded-down firefighters scurrying into the inferno as soot-soaked New Yorkers ran from harm’s way.

I’d really like to hear your story. What happened with you that horrible day and how has September 11 affected your life’s trajectory these past thirteen years?

As brutal a place as the world can be, I’m glad we’re all still around to talk about it.

September 11, 2011: How do you feel now?

Can you believe it's been ten years?

The sun has risen and set on three thousand six hundred and fifty days, yet my memory is as clear as the sparkling azure sky on that morning I dropped off my six-year-old for her fifth day of first grade. She slammed the door of the Ford Ranger, I waved goodbye and, as usual, flipped on the news radio station.

Five hundred and twenty weeks ago, I listened as anonymous reporters and eye witnesses recounted the young day's events as I drove. Before even speeding up enough to shift the stick into third, I had learned that three jet liners had been hijacked.

What? Planes aren't hijacked anymore. They haven't been hijacked for thirty years—not since the days of D.B. Cooper.

Two had been flown into the World Trade Center towers, one into the Pentagon.

Okay, that's impossible. No pilot would do that, even at gunpoint.

Both towers subsequently toppled, killing thousands, perhaps tens of thousands.

That's ridiculous. It's impossible for two passenger aircraft, no matter how large, to completely destroy a pair of hundred-story skyscrapers.

And that's when my brain ceased processing data, when the shock response in my amygdala engulfed all emotion in a scratchy, woolen blanket of disbelief.

Do you remember the little details which transpired in the following days and weeks? Were you harnessed with an invisible bungee cord, long enough to reach only the bathroom and kitchen before snapping you back to witness the macabre, commercial-free spectacle on television?

Do you recall the haunting quiet in the skies above? Did you attempt to shield your young children from the news? Did you lie down at night wondering, "First the planes hit, then the anthrax...what's next?"

Were you afraid?

I wasn't a child when those planes hit, but a massive bubble of naivete and innocence which had previously enveloped me like a womb, burst that sunny morning. It's cold out here, I thought.

So very cold.

I became suspicious, as the terror alert bounced from yellow to orange to red back to orange. I spotted an unattended lunch cooler in a work elevator which prompted a hasty call to building security. Any loud jet noises over the city elicited an involuntary neck jerk, forcing my focus skyward.

And now, we're one hundred and twenty months removed from the seismic paradigm shift that was September 11, 2001. How do you feel about things?

Do you feel safe? Has your life changed the way you'd anticipated it would?

Have you sacrificed? After America was thrust into World War II on December 7, 1941, "sacrifice" entered the household vernacular. Rosie the Riveter and victory gardens, rationing tickets and war bonds contributed to a united effort for a world on the brink.

I have not sacrificed. Unless you care to count arriving at the airport half an hour earlier than before and removing my shoes and putting my shoes back on before I boarded that plane to Vegas.

The one percent of our population which comprises our military has assumed one hundred percent of the risk. Our nation remains as politically divisive as ever; pettiness prevails on both sides of the aisle and "patriotism," in word, rather than meaning, has morphed into a polarizing weapon of the right.

The world needs healing, yet America has turned inward and lashed out at the same time. George W. Bush famously ended every speech during his presidency with the words, "May God bless you. And may God Bless the United States of America."

The problem was that he stopped there.

September 11, 2001—a journal entry

It's been nine years... unbelievable.

During the summer of 2001, I began writing a journal, just to document my family's lives at a time when the brood was still quite young. I'd always been told, "You need to write this stuff down or you'll forget it." The kids were constantly doing and saying cute and crazy things, so every couple of days, beginning in August, I jotted my thoughts down on a yellow legal pad. 

A few days ago, I dug the pad out of a pile of papers on the lower shelf of the bookcase and sat down with it. My writing style was a bit choppier and less edited, but it's nonetheless a record of that slice of time. 

Tomorrow is the ninth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, and here's what was going through the mind of a 39-year-old husband and father to six-year-old and sixteen-month-old daughters, on September 12, 2001:

It's been an incredible last couple of days. Yesterday started out great. The weather was beautiful, Terri and I had the day off and I was just done dropping Zoe off at school on my way to the gym. I switched on the radio and seemed to have tuned in during some sort of special report. By the time I arrived at the gym approximately ten minutes later, the story had unfolded: four jetliners had been hijacked. Two flew Kamikaze-style into the World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon and the fourth crash outside of Pittsburgh. The reporter emphasized that the Twin Towers were completely gone—toppled.

As I drove, I looked at other drivers, most of whom had the same zombie-like expressions on their faces as I'm sure I had. At the gym, every TV showed footage of the WTC disaster. It looked like the special effect ending of some Tom Clancy movie starring Bruce Willis. The second jet seemed to have been swallowed whole by the enormous building, only to transform both entities into a separate, flaming monster. It was beyond words, as I'm sure these words can't describe the event in any way.

As I sit here, it's still sinking in. I think this is the most profound event that has occurred during my lifetime. Nothing will ever be the same again. It's almost as if the last particle of innocence has evaporated from the planet. If people are willing to resort to this kind of  barbarism, how can our borders pretend to protect us?

Right now, I really don't think our government knows what to do. It's all set to fight a war against a big, visible enemy with planes and tanks and guns. How are they going to fight faceless terrorists without a country? Time will tell.

Indeed, time will tell.