My Day on 9/11/01
On 9/11/01 I awoke early and checked an Internet site that had a running set of commentary from experts on stocks. One of them reported hearing an explosion from the area of the World Trade Center. I spent a few minutes checking Drudge and news sites, with no luck. Even then, I was such an Internet junkie that it took me several minutes to think to simply turn on the TV.
By the time I did, it was about 6:10 a.m. Pacific time, and the second plane had already hit. I watched for a few minutes, then went down to wake my wife, and say what so many people said that day: “You need to look at the television.”
Our daughter was nineteen months old, and whenever there was a plane in the sky, she would point to the sky and yell: “EH-pwane!” After we woke her up, she was watching the TV replays of the plane hitting the tower. She didn’t understand what she was watching — but she did point at the TV and smile and yell, with great delight, “EH-pwane!”
It was jarring to see such an awful spectacle delighting her like that.
But it took a while to sink in. For example, it never occurred to me that I wouldn’t be going to work that day. I was in the shower, getting ready for work, when the first tower came down. My wife told me about it and I came out in the middle of it, quickly wrapping a towel around myself but still dripping wet, to look at the TV.
As reports of a fire on the mall in Washington, D.C. came over the television, I thought (like many Americans): My God. How many of these planes are out there?
Even after the second tower collapsed, it had not sunk in emotionally. I knew that thousands had probably died — in fact, as a natural pessimist, I assumed it was between 15,000 and 20,000. But I still got in the car and headed for work.
A block away, someone told me they were turning people back. “Why?” I asked. “It’s not like terrorists are going to fly a jet airliner into the Hall of Records.” It’s a squat building on the outskirts of downtown, far from the skyscrapers. I figured I’d be as safe there as anywhere.
I picked up some work that I thought I would do at home, but never did.
That night, it finally really sunk in. I had nightmares for four straight nights.
I used to jog at night in Marina del Rey, running along the beach to the end of the jetty. When you do that jog, you see planes lined up for miles, waiting to land at LAX. They look like jewels in the night sky.
But for a while, when I would do my jog, I would look in that direction and see only blackness.
Days after the attacks, I told a friend of mine that my job as a prosecutor didn’t seem meaningful any more. I had always found great personal satisfaction in helping to ensure that criminals received justice. But it seemed so trivial compared to the mass murder of thousands. In a great career, I told him, I might achieve justice for at most a few dozen murders. What was that, compared to finding the people who had done this, and making sure they couldn’t do it again?
My friend told me I was being silly. And it didn’t take long before the job seemed meaningful again.
I have read that 9/11 supposedly hasn’t changed our lives. I disagree. Of course, we don’t live our lives as though every day is September 12, 2001.
Why would we want to?
But it has changed the way I look at the world. I understand that there are people out there who want me to die. Who want my family to die. Who want my children to die. Who would dance a little jig if they learned that my son and daughter had been slaughtered.
Last night I watched (again) the 9/11 documentary by the French brothers, one of whom filmed from inside the North Tower of the World Trade Center after the planes had hit — and was still there even after the South Tower had collapsed. Watching that brings back the rage.
And 9/11 has given me contempt for those who don’t take terrorism seriously. Not for those who have different ideas about how to deal with terrorism. But for those who don’t take it seriously — who proceed from ignorance and chuckle at the deaths of good people.
I live in a big city that is a likely target. It’s hard to forget that.
So sure, we’ve resumed our normal lives. But I think we have changed.
I decided, by 9/12, that I see no moral conflict in thinking that I’m basically a good person, while simultaneously thinking that I see no moral wrong or error in wanting to kill those who have decided to kill me before they do so.
Am I a coarser person? Or a better, more realistic one, made more valuable to the survival of my own tribe? And, should I feel bad in valuing my own tribe over other tribes? I don’t now, and so I’m torn, because I always thought I was supposed to . . .
bobby_b (dc23d7) — 9/11/2006 @ 11:11 pmIt’s hard to go about the daily business of pursuing small-time crooks when there’s a global war to be fought and won.
One major criticism I have of the way Pres. Bush has handled the last five years is his resistance to extending the war metaphor to the homefront.
While he says we’re in a war, he also quickly told us to return to our lives, living, laughing, loving, and shopping, because to change the way we live would be handing our enemies a victory.
Which is pure, unadulterated bilge. We didn’t fight and win WW2 by pretending nothing was different. We sacrificed — blood, sweat, toil and tears — in the pursuit of victory.
Why aren’t we having war bond drives to help pay for this war? Not only would it ease the cost, but it would provide an opportunity for the military heroes of this generation to tour the nation, inspiring the next generation with their courage and love of country.
It’s too easy for us to slip back into our daily routines, forgetting that our enemies are working assiduously, ’round the clock, to make the bloodshed of 9/11 look like a dress rehearsal.
And the current administration bears a large portion of the blame for this, because of a deafening silence from the bully pulpit, with Press Sec. Tony Snow providing some sorely needed — but ever so late — push back.
The unfortunate truth is that America won’t really wake up until we’re hit again — with a city disappearing in a flash of blinding light or thousands of civilians felled by sarin, VX or some other witch’s brew.
Sorry for the grim comment, Pat, but I see little cause for optimism.
Mike Lief (e9d57e) — 9/11/2006 @ 11:26 pm@mike lief:
did you read where the senate just determined that iraq had nothing to do whatsoever with al qaeda or 9/11? sheesh.
9/11/01 was a beautiful day on the oregon coast. i found out when i looked at the yahoo headlines. it doesn’t seem real right away when you see it on yahoo. major cognitive dissonance, outside here the birds were singing, but in new york…ten minutes later neighbor came over, “did you hear?”…oh yeah. in the local market people were standing around like statues watching planes crash into the towers on tv. there followed defensive shopping, defensive banking (first time for me since the stock market tanked in 1987), identifying mosques in our area as potential trouble sources/demonstration sites, talking to friends in new york to make sure they were ok/find out what was happening, and most of all, the sense that my context had accelerated faster than my consciousness could keep up, threatening to tear loose from its grip.
no nightmares, but unease and disquiet went on for weeks, accompanied by a growing sense that the administration was mishandling the response. imagine if bush had gone back to that same florida classroom three days later, this time on national tv, saying “the citizens of mecca, saudi arabia, have, oh, ten hours to leave before our bombers destroy the city with conventional explosives. this will exhibit to any who doubt that attacks on us are counterproductive.” no war, no quagmire, no casualties, and the whole thing could have been done for under a hundred million bucks. the world would have bitched and moaned for a week before something else distracted it, and we would be freer and safer today.
assistant devil's advocate (0fc32d) — 9/12/2006 @ 12:43 amimagine if bush had gone back to that same florida classroom three days later, this time on national tv, saying “the citizens of mecca, saudi arabia, have, oh, ten hours to leave before our
You are truly an amazing idiot. Have you any idea of the significance of Mecca to Muslims worldwide? Let’s say you were Roman Catholic, and someone blew up St. Peter’s: would you forget about it in a week?
I’ve read a whole lot of dumb in a whole lot of places, but this one really is beyond two standards of deviation.
Dan Collins (208fbe) — 9/12/2006 @ 4:42 amYou’d better reel that back to al-Qaeda’s reasons for attacking us. Iraq had everything to do with it.
Pablo (efa871) — 9/12/2006 @ 6:18 amI was getting ready to leave for teaching in LA, an hour train ride from Orange County and had Good Morning America on. It was a West Coast Edition and Diane Sawyer and Charlie Gibson were talking about what could have happened to the WTC tower. Then the second plane hit and a huge plume of fire came out of the second tower. Diane flinched as though she had been slapped. I got my wife, who doesn’t work on Tuesdays, up and said, “You have to watch this.” I then got dressed went into LA where, of course, we did no teaching.
I saw the United 93 movie last spring and it was terrific. I saw parts of the ABC series Sunday night and thought; A) it was well done, and B) any editing didn’t whitewash Clinton. I was sitting with some in-laws last weekend when one, an older woman who has become very left wing, began to criticize the Path to 9/11 series, repeating the Democratic talking points. Her husband and son-in-law are sick of her politics and dismissed her opinion, as usual. I just happened to have a copy of the 9/11 Commission Report with a bookmark in the page that discussed the disputed Sandy Berger call-off of the bin Laden hit.
I handed her the book and pointed out the page. She sat and read it and got very quiet. After dinner, I saw her pick it up and read some more.
Mike K (416363) — 9/12/2006 @ 7:03 amYes! I had forgotten about my nightmares. The only true nightmares I have ever had. I was almost afraid to go to sleep because I would wake up in the middle of the night scared out of my witnes.
Patricia (2cc180) — 9/12/2006 @ 9:53 am@dan collins:
assistant devil's advocate (2131f7) — 9/12/2006 @ 10:09 amyes, i’m aware of the significance of mecca to muslims. that’s the whole point. attack one of our most important cities, we’ll attack one of yours. you place yourself at a competitive disadvantage when you regard enemy sites with such reverence that you could not attack them. the enemy has no such reciprocal reverence for any of our sites. sure, individual muslims would hate us (but scarcely more than they did before), but they would not hate us enough to burn all their american dollars. judging by the number of people around the world who want to carry his picture (actually, multiple pictures) on their persons, benjamin franklin was a much greater man than mohammed.
if america were attacked by catholics in the name of catholicism, blowing up st. peter’s would be a natural response. as a pagan, it would not offend me, but i hope a neutron bomb would be used, killing the people who have sown such evil for centuries, but sparing the buildings and the art treasures.
ADA — what do you imagine the reaction would have been amongst the hundredss of millions of muslims who are not involved with terrorist organizations, had we bombed Mecca?
I think in that case we’d be dealing today with a lot more angry fanatics than we actually are.
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 9/12/2006 @ 11:21 amdid you read where the senate just determined that iraq had nothing to do whatsoever with al qaeda or 9/11? sheesh.
Hilarious.
They said no such thing of course.
You ignorants are an embarrassment to your cause.
The Ace (8154cd) — 9/12/2006 @ 11:50 amno war, no quagmire, no casualties, and the whole thing could have been done for under a hundred million bucks
You mean except for the retalation(s), right?
The Ace (8154cd) — 9/12/2006 @ 11:52 am@aphrael & the ace:
assistant devil's advocate (a18e42) — 9/12/2006 @ 1:13 pmyou mean, like, zillions of muslims don’t hate us right now and aren’t bent on “retalation”? what’s a few more? don’t you see the weakness in “we must temper our response so as not to make the enemy any angrier at us than he is now”? our incompetent leader even bowed to the insistence of enemy officers that our “infinite justice” be changed to “enduring freedom”, a crock which more accurately would have been named “compromised freedom”.
don’t you see the weakness in “we must temper our response so as not to make the enemy any angrier at us than he is now”?
Good luck getting the party you vote for to go along with that.
The political class as a whole would never support this.
The Ace (8154cd) — 9/12/2006 @ 1:25 pmAssistant Devil’s Advocate:
Millions of Muslims may hate us today. That number is tiny in comparison with those who would have hated us had we bombed Mecca; that would be an act for which almost no Muslims would have forgiven us, ever.
I see a weakness in “we must temper our response so as not to make the enemy angrier”, sure. But I also see wisdom in “we must temper our response so as to not turn into enemies people who could instead be turned into friends.” Bombing Mecca would have meant picking a fight with an enormous number of people who are not hostile to us. It would have been an utter disaster.
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 9/12/2006 @ 5:03 pmPatterico, like many others I will never forget precisely what I was doing or how I felt when I first saw on TV what was going on. I was watching live when the second tower fell. I remember flinching when fighter jets screamed directly over my house at very low altitude to intercept some idiot in a private plane who had violated the no-fly rule. I hope to never again feel the helplessness and uncertainty and shock I felt on that day and for a long time afterward. I can’t begin to imagine the suffering of those who lost loved ones.
The country has regained its balance in many ways. As you point out, we have resumed our normal lives, and that in itself is a victory. 9/11 has altered our mindset permanently, but I believe for the majority of Americans, the enemy has utterly failed to make a significant and lasting impact on our way of life. (That’s not true for some people, I know.) I don’t count a longer wait at the airport and having to take off my shoes at the checkpoint as a significant impact. It’s just as great to live in this country today as it was on Sept. 10, 2001. I think our values and our way of life are too strong for them to destroy, and for that reason we’ll prevail, by continuing to be who we are.
Steve M. (a52e6a) — 9/12/2006 @ 7:31 pmada,
Your idea is stupid. End of story.
Patterico (de0616) — 9/12/2006 @ 7:37 pmOkay, then. Take ADA’s scenario about bombing Mecca, and instead of using conventional weapons, use a FAE derived from bacon grease. Better yet, do the WKRP Thanksgiving episode scene with pigs instead of turkeys – that’ll ‘cow’ the Muslims into compliance, tho it might piss off the PETA people a bit…
Seriously, tho – ADA’s idea crossed the minds of a lot of people. It certainly did mine, except I had no inkling of warning anybody – just doing it, preferably during the pilgrimmage.
The difficulty we face is that our enemy and we do not speak in the same language, do not hold the same things dear. Until we come up with a way to ‘speak’ to our enemy in a language that they understand, the GWOT will be kabuki at best, farce at worst.
And eventually, the scenario that ADA presents will have to be used, only not using conventional weapons.
JD (044292) — 9/12/2006 @ 10:05 pmyes, bombing mecca would aggravate every muslim in the world.
assistant devil's advocate (d2f92a) — 9/12/2006 @ 11:44 pmsorta like attacking new york aggravated all the americans i know, even the many of us who don’t personally care for new york.
when you elevate mecca to a standard of inviolability higher than new york, some of us see that as an opportunity to demonstrate the counterproposition.
I didnt hear about 9-11 until someone told me becuase i dont watch the left-wing news media i just dont care for them lying no good vultures SQUAWK SQUAWK
krazy kagu (1f0194) — 9/13/2006 @ 1:13 pm