9/11 Horror Must Also Be Recalled
At least 140 streets on Staten Island have the names of victims of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 — including that of a friend of mine, Donald Foreman — posted above their regular signs. In 2003, a City Council member who is now a state senator, Andrew Lanza, noted how Staten Island had suffered disproportionate losses in the attacks, saying: "In some respects, Staten Island was ground zero on September 11."
Next Tuesday is the sixth anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center and, for the first time, a memorial service will not be held at ground zero. Am I the only one who believes that the ground zero services should have been limited to the one held in 2002?
When he spoke in 2003, Mr. Lanza also said he hoped that future generations would pass by, look up at the signs, and understand the story of what happened that day. Unfortunately, they won't be able to because all the memorial services have been commemorating the victims, not the day's horror.
There have been many caveats about what the public can relive of September 11, 2001. The images are just too graphic and disturbing, we've been told. It is true that the attacks left 1,000 children on Staten Island without at least one parent. My daughter recalls a schoolmate at St. John Villa Academy as being one of them. Of the 343 firefighters killed on that day, 78 were Staten Islanders. In the weeks following that day, there seemed to be a funeral every day. Although the sorrow for their loss continues, in most cases, the families have gone on with their lives.
What I find most disturbing is that the level of anger against the elements that attacked us has dissipated. Whenever I used to pass ground zero, I'd find my teeth clenched at the loss of the twin towers, which should have been replaced by now. Yet, when I booked a reservation for a hotel stay next week, I completely forgot the significance of the date.
If all we are reminded of is the loss of life, sooner or later, the grieving ends and we become jaded and disconnected. This is wrong, because we are at war with Islamists who are still determined to destroy our way of life, and it's time to remind New Yorkers of that day in all its gruesome details.
Even now, I cannot see a passing aircraft heading toward Newark's airport without thinking of the planes that flew into the towers. I know that there is footage of people jumping to their deaths and audio of the screams and falling bodies. For the longest time, I refused to watch the film "United 93," which I purchased last year, because I didn't want my blood pressure to rise — but it's time that it did. I plan to watch it again Tuesday, and I hope that the movement urging us to fly the American flag outside our homes that day catches fire. What we truly need to remember is how united we were in the weeks following September 11, 2001.
We also need to be reminded that President Bush never claimed that Saddam Hussein was involved with September 11 or that the danger from Iraq was imminent. What he said was that we would be targeting those that support terrorism before danger became imminent. Distortions of his statements were spun by hostile journalists and political adversaries. I truly believe that it was the "enemedia" that created the so-called quagmire in Iraq by polarizing the nation for a leftist political agenda.
It was dear, trusted Uncle Walter Cronkite who did the same during the Vietnam War. He called the war a lost cause after the 1968 Tet offensive, when it was in reality a huge victory for our military. We lost more than 2,000 men, but the Viet Cong lost more than 50,000 and, according to one former North Vietnamese leader, Bui Tin, collapse of our political will was "essential to our strategy." In an interview with the Wall Street Journal after his retirement, he said that visits from such anti-war advocates as Jane Fonda and Ramsey Clark "gave us confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses."
Likewise, the Iraq War has been hampered by the aid and encouragement the enemy has received from those suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome. Television networks should rerun that video of Osama bin Laden laughing with his fellow conspirators about how he was surprised the twin towers fell. Ha-ha-ha.
Are we ready for the truth? Can we handle it?
