The Dirty Dozen

One dozen years.

12 Septembers.

Cloudy ones. Cool ones. Rainy ones. Warm ones. Humid ones. None, quite like that day.

If we are enjoined never to forget, perhaps it is better to say we should remember, because memory works best where it is recalled always, and not left to languish until the page turns on the calendar.

Remember.

Remember the horror at watching it unfold live, in our homes, our offices, our schools.

Remember the panic, not knowing what was happening.

Remember the confusion, as events unfolded.

Remember the heroes, who drove toward the disaster.

Remember the helpers, who put aside their own fear to help others in need.

Remember the masses, streaming from the city, struggling to get away.

Remember the silence that fell as traffic stopped, trains stopped, people stopped.

Remember the shocking sight of buildings falling, debris flying, and people dying unseen.

Remember the moonscape left behind by clouds of cement.

Remember the frantic attempts to find survivors.

Remember the posters placed on every wall, every street corner, every door, every window, with names and pictures of the missing.

Remember the pile of twisted metal and smoldering rubble.

Remember the months of toil.

Most of all, remember that we came together, as a nation, unified in purpose.

Remember.

The Long Roll

One by one
The names waft
Upon the air
Sent aloft in pain
And joy
And sorrow
And remembrance
To take flight
To rise above
To soar over
The huddled masses
To fill that space
Where once stood
Mighty towers
That they might
Rise above
The hate that
Felled them
And fill once more
Hearts with hope

They Fell, We Rise

10 years.

A decade of birthdays, anniversaries, births, deaths, new homes, graduations, retirements, that 2,977 people (at last count) have missed, because on an ordinary day, September 11^th, 2001, they were going about their business, oblivious to the machinations of nineteen men bent on destruction in the name of their perverted idea of Islam.

There is no singular tragedy of that day. Radiating out from the moment at 8:46 AM when the first plane slammed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center, the tragedies moved outward at the speed of information, rippling waves of doubt, uncertainty, pain, and horror. These waves swallowed up and swamped people from New York City, out across the United States, and into the wider world. Some were devastated. Some were elated. Some were confused. Some were numb.

In an oblique way, the Twin Towers were, as the terrorists saw them, representative of America, or more specifically, the core of our values and beliefs. Together, they were tall, strong, elegant, powerful structures, a commanding presence at the lower end of Manhattan, as America had been in the world. They reached upward, pointing the way toward the sky, toward the future, as America has always done. They were filled with a broad cross-section of our society, from the powerful to the poor, the old and the young, from many creeds, and many races, and many places, just as America was (and is). Their collapse -- abrupt, slow, stately, smoky -- represented perfectly the fall of our air of invincibility, the wrenching of our expectations for our nation, the tearing away of blinders from our eyes, and the desolation that would be left behind after the smoke cleared.

10 years.

The rubble may be gone from what was named "Ground Zero," but it has not been cleared from the hearts of many of us. Some think that we are belaboring the tragedy. Some think that we are disturbed. Some think that those of us who were not directly affected that day -- losing a loved one, being a first responder, working on the site -- have no business being upset. So many, too many, have written the day off, pushed it to the side, accepted it as history, and chant the mantra of "it's time to get on with life." But... it's not so simple. Wherever you were that day, whatever you were doing, whoever you were, to be exposed to such a momentous and devastating event was to have to process something inconceivable to the normal, steady mind of the average citizen. Perhaps some have the mental capacity, the intestinal fortitude, the hardened feelings to simply allow such a thing to hit them only a glancing blow. Perhaps some can absorb, process, and deal with the matter.

Some of us are not so lucky.

Call it whatever you like, by whatever yardstick you use, but I still carry pain from that day, pain that does not simply bloom and flower ever September 11^th, but lives with me and intrudes on my life in unexpected ways. It may rear up its head when I hear my children fighting in the way siblings do. It may manifest when I have left my home and cannot remember if I told my wife I love her. It may seep from the shadows whenever a plane flies over my house at low altitude. It hides within the folds of memory, and pours forth unbidden. I believe much of it is due to the incredulity of the moment; more of it, I feel, is some pent up guilt I hold, for not running downtown to help. I know, in the light of reflection, that there was little one more person could have done, but I have never been the shrinking violet when there was an emergency around me. To be rendered so immobile, to be held in abeyance by abject fear, is so unlike me that perhaps I have had trouble reconciling it. Others might be willing to overlook it, but I am having trouble doing so for myself.

I will be there on Sunday, along with the throng of others in their various states of grief and memory. I will be looking to perhaps, finally, put aside the worst of the day, to wash off the feelings of horror and despair that have clung to me like barnacles. I can't say if I will be successful. I can't say if it will help. But for the memory and for the hopes of 2,977 people, I must try, for as they fell, I must rise. We must rise.

Weeping

I weep for...

Birthdays missed
Anniversaries not celebrated
Appointments not kept
Births unattended
Promotions missed
Prayers unanswered
For those who jumped
Those who burned
The heroes who rushed in
Everyone who watched
Leaders feeling helpless
Companies destroyed
Empty cubicles
Last messages on voice mail
Passengers uncomprehending
Passengers unyielding
Soldiers undaunted
Those who stayed
Those who ran

I weep.

The Towers Fall Again

September 11th is being trampled on. It started with the conspiracy theorists and their wild, ridiculous, and unsupported accusations. It continued with an invasion of Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with the attack. It was sullied by Rudy Giuliani's insipid and infuriating use of that day as a rallying point for his Presidential bid. It has had dirt cast on it by the ignorant and hate-inspired ramblings of those who would oppose a Muslim cultural center in the same general area as Ground Zero, even though it would not be visible from the site, and would be there to promote peace and understanding. And now, as a pièce de résistance to the creeping morass that engulfs the day, a pastor of a fringe "Christian" sect has been allowed to co-opt the narrative with his reprehensible and ridiculous idea to burn Qurans on the anniversary, which has only served to inflame the passions of devout Muslims with its offensiveness.

The World Trade Center Towers, symbols of American preeminence and pride, linchpins of the lower Manhattan skyline, victims of hatred and hubris, are being torn asunder once again, not by planes loaded with volatile fuel, but people filled with volatile rhetoric. Unlike when Francis Scott Key was moved to write The Star Spangled Banner, this moment, which could have been made the rallying cry for further unity of purpose and of people, has been turned into a divisive and discordant event. The shock, and dismay, and grief of the day, has been replaced by hyperbole, bigotry, and hypocrisy.

Why?

I was there, in that city, on that day, miles from the epicenter of destruction, but still tied to it by the company I worked for, which had a large amount of office space in the World Trade Center, and by memories of the very first job I held in New York City, not far from it. I had lunched amidst their tall shadows. I had marveled at their sheer height, and bulk, and beauty against the sky. I had shopped in the Borders bookstore there, and still have the bookmark I received when I made my last purchase there. Those buildings were as much a part of me as anyone, for beneath them I had heaved a sigh as my first job in Manhattan went away, the company shriveling up as so many did at the end of the Dot Com bubble. On the day I filed for unemployment, I walked all the way from Midtown to Downtown, just to stand near them, and try to absorb, even minutely, their strength. Ever night, when I walked along the heights across the Hudson River in New Jersey, I would look longingly toward them, towering in the dark, hoping I would return.

Then they were gone.

As much as one can feel for those who lost loved ones that day, and my heart is forever scarred by the thought of the pain they suffered, especially those whose family and friends had to experience the suicidal plunges of the planes they were riding on, the death those people suffered was merciful and at least they know that those they loved are in a better place, brought to peace. For those of us who lived, even those of us who were not covered in dust, showered in concrete, or standing amidst the paper falling from the sky like snow, the death is slower, more tenuous, and more painful. For though we bear not a physical scar of the day, a part of us died that day, too. A small part, to be sure, but in us lies the death of our innocence and the world we know. Hopes, aspirations, peace, tranquility, shattered just as sure as steel was shattered by the force of an airplane impact.

Perhaps it was good that our naiveté died that day, that, not unlike Pearl Harbor, we were brought back to the reality of our place in the world. However, the price we paid was the opening of Pandora's box, loosing a new round of the evils of humanity into the daylight. Bigotry, hatred, intolerance, ignorance -- all these things that had lain dormant, not cast back upon the wind, to rain down on a hapless and anxious country. It was not long before those who lived by these negative associations began to absorb them, and turn them to their purposes. The end result: a country that could have used such a horrific event to fuse itself together even more tightly, is, instead, tearing itself apart and chewing itself away.

If the mass death of the innocent is not enough for us to demand better, if we do not see this as the opportunity to unite as one, stand atop our loftiest principles, and say to our foes "you cannot hurt us while we have our freedom and liberty," then the anniversary of that day is a sad one indeed, because beyond the toll of mortal beings, and the remaining collateral damage of those of us who still suffer with the memory, there is the damage to the American spirit. By casting aside that which made us strongest, our dedication to our principles and our belief in our Constitution as the blueprint for a truly democratic country, we cease to be an ennobled. If we wish to wallow in the mud of our enemies, so be it, but that removes any honor in our actions; to do precisely what our enemies say we do, is to hand them victory in their nonsensical and reprehensible war against us.

Hallowed Ground

The first weekend of April and October, in the middle of the White Sands desert of New Mexico, near Alamogordo, you can gain entrance to one of the most important sites in American history. Down a dusty road, and through gates, lies an area, normally inaccessible to anyone other than a member of the military, cordoned off, containing nothing more that the twisted stumps of a tall tower and a stone cairn monument with a plaque, noting the importance of the place. It is called Trinity Site, and it is the home of the first atomic explosion on Earth generated by humans. July 16th, 1945, a plutonium bomb, similar to the "Fat Man" device dropped on Nagasaki, was detonated atop a tower in the middle of the desert, as proof of concept that an atomic bomb worked. It was the moment when the genie was let out of the bottle, when Pandora's box was opened and the demons of our nature were loosed, and would lead to a tense standoff that threatened the life of everyone on the planet for over forty years. This place has been preserved, as a reminder of where our trip into the modern age began.

Go to south-central Pennsylvania, a tiny town of less than seventy-five hundred, and you find a six thousand acre park, the remains of the most significant battle of the American Civil War, when the forces of Confederate General Robert E. Lee met the Union Army under the command of General George Meade, in an attempt by the Confederacy to force the war into the North, and, possibly, threaten Washington, D.C. After three days of ferocious battle from July 1st to July 3rd, 1863, Lee was beaten and forced to withdraw back over the Potomac River. Though the war would continue for almost two more years, the tide of the war began to shift to the Union, and Robert E. Lee lost some of his mystique of infallibility. It was a titanic struggle of two committed forces, determined to strike a blow against the other, and it led to around 50,000 casualties, a staggering number that was almost evenly split between the two sides. Where the Union could survive such a loss of manpower, the Confederacy could not. It was the fundamental shift that would lead, ultimately, to the end of the Confederacy and the reestablishment of the Union.

A short boat ride on any warm and sunny day will take you a brilliant white memorial, straddling a section of the Peal Harbor Naval Base. At the memorial site, you can look down on the rusting remains of a hulking ship, the battleship USS Arizona, lying where it was sunk in a surprise attack by the Japanese Navy on December 7th, 1941. Only the tops of the mounts where two of the main turrets were still reach up out to the depth of the harbor; the rest of it lies below the surface of the water, clearly visible a short distance down, slowly being consumed by rust and corrosion. Every so often, a dark blob breaks the surface, and spreads out as a shiny and rainbow-tinged circle. These are bubbles of oil, rising up from the ship's fuel stores, called the "tears of the ship." Perhaps the ship still weeps for all the names listed in black on the tall marble wall at one end of the memorial, a monument to the gallant men who gave their lives that day.

These places are what we call hallowed ground, places that retain a meaning beyond their mere existence, but for what happened there and what those events represent for humanity. They are preserved in as natural a state as possible, an attempt to retain a small part of what made those places important. We would not go to Gettysburg and expect to see the corpses of the fallen, or ground strewn with rifles and broken artillery; what we do see is the terrain, and the monuments that stand in for those who fell. It is up to us to go and use out imagination, to insert ourselves as best we can into these places, and try to take something away from them.

Recently, a lot has been made of the plans to build a Muslim community center near the site of the attack on the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11th, 2001. There have been constant references to Ground Zero as being "hallowed ground," and claiming that building this center is some kind of besmirching of the memories of the victims of that day. The rhetoric that is flung around is far more overwrought than necessary; far from being some kind of insult, such a place would hold the potential to broaden people's minds as to the true spirit of Islam, and perhaps build bridges that could eliminate future attacks, by creating mutual respect and understanding.

The acrimony really boils down to one simple question: is Ground Zero hallowed ground? The answer, to me, is no. Ground Zero, far from being preserved as a memorial to the events of that day, was immediately subject to the forces of commerce, and its reclamation for use in building new office and commercial space on the site went off apace, with nary a voice of dissent from any of the groups now clamoring for the Islamic center to be built elsewhere. As we approach the ninth anniversary of that horrific day, the site, though the scene of much construction, still has no building there, no memorial, nothing remaining that would truly illustrate what that day meant to New York City, America, and the world, except for some large picture illustrations. Like so much of New York City, it is being consumed by the incessant need of the city to reinvent and restructure itself, swallowing up its history, and changing it into new things. The fight for preservation has been on-going for more than a century, but it sometimes cannot resist the tide of greed and money that seems to permeate everything.

For those who are outraged, to have that outrage match the actuality of it, then the site of the World Trade Center would still be a hole, filled with crushed rubble, shards of twisted, blackened metal reaching toward the sky like the fingers of the dead, attempting to reach up to wrench down the cowards who perpetrated this crime, and drag them down into the depths of Hades, to await their fate. Instead, it is a virtually empty concrete pit, cleaned and scrubbed of rubble and metal, swept free of the debris of the day, to form the base of a new, gleaming building, to rise like a glass and steel middle finger, aimed at those who would see us as enemies to their way of life. Somewhere, in some corner, perhaps some "suitable" memorial might be built, a small concession to the need to remember what happened there, but kept small enough not to take up valuable real estate.

I would ask, before another voice is raised in horror at the thought of a Muslim community center so close to Ground Zero, that the owner of that voice, and all the other voices raised in anger, take a long, hard look at the place, and ask themselves if the site is still truly hallowed, or has, perhaps, become more hollowed, stripped of everything that made it truly important to us, ruining it as a memorial to the three thousand people who lost their lives there. Perhaps they, too, wonder what we were thinking, in sweeping away the past.

Mosque-erade Bawl

To say we would not be here without Islam is a bit of an understatement. While Europe suffered through the Dark Ages, Islamic scholars were continuing the work of ancient Greek, Indian, and Egyptian scientists and philosophers, working on elements of physics, chemistry, astronomy, geometry, and mathematics. They were responsible for bringing the concept of 'zero' as a number into the numeric systems of the time, from India. The English language is filled reminders of this time: alchemy, algebra, cipher, mecca, and the like. The knowledge harbored and expounded upon made its way into Europe, and thus planted the seeds of enlightenment that led to the Renaissance.

Islam is a distinct offshoot of Christianity, wherein the prophet Muhammad was considered to have taken God's word from the archangel Gabriel. It makes reference to Abraham, Moses, even Jesus, sharing lineage with both the Talmud and the Bible. It, too, demands a strong obedience to God, and lays down the ways to commune better with him. Everything a Muslim does is to be for Allah, nothing less. Their ways may be different than the path taken in Judeo-Christian theology, but all three religions strive for the same thing: to do good works on Earth to please God.

That there are those in the Islamic faith who would pick and choose from the Qur'an, the holy book of Islam, and use it toward their own ends, is no different than those who do so in any religion. There are those who pervert the Torah or the Bible, all in the name of "proving" their faith is the "true" faith, their belief the one-and-only to be followed. Sometimes it comes to nothing harmful; many times -- as in the case Jim Jones' Guyana Cult or the Branch Davidians or al Qaeda -- the fervency of belief leads to death and destruction, the taking of lives, and incomprehensible horror.

That Muslims should be tarred with a brush dipped in the blood spilled by Osama bin Laden is a travesty. His zealotry and self-aggrandizement are affronts to the religion he supposedly holds dear, and that he would make war on innocents, condemns him for the coward he is. He will not reap the golden dreams of his beliefs, instead tasting the bitter fruit of condemnation, when his God will show him the error of his ways. We, however, cannot concern ourselves with this, for his actions have brought forth another travesty, against the United States, and not just in the senseless loss of life on 9/11, but how eagerly Americans have been willing to sell out their principles due to fear and obfuscation and outright lies.

The Founding Fathers made it clear, through the auspices of the Bill of Rights and the First Amendment, that they believed religious freedom and tolerance were paramount for a nation to be successful. Enjoining the Federal government against establishing any religion as the state religion assured all Americans that their beliefs would be protected, if not always respected. It was important for the country to have people of faith, they thought, because they were more likely to act morally, and protectively, toward their fellow countrymen. This would be needed, if the fledgling country were to survive past its inception, as revolution and constitution did not guarantee that another nation would not seek to enslave the young country.

So it has been for over two hundred years, that individuals have had the right to worship as they chose, and establish houses of worship. There has always been a sense that rather than dividing us along the lines of belief, this would make us strong through our diversity. Now, that strength is being threatened, by fear-mongers, ideologues, and sycophants, who seek to confuse, alarm, and terrify the citizenry with Muslim cabals and the threat of terrorist training centers in their midst. They have latched onto a project a few blocks from Ground Zero, wherein a 13-story Muslim cultural center will be built, as their proof that Muslims are going to begin their takeover of our nation, tearing down the Constitution, and implementing their law, subjugating us all.

It would be laughable, if their cries were not in earnest. Some of the biggest names in politics have spoken out against it: Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, etc. Families of 9/11 victims have called it a "slap in the face." The Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, has been supportive, as has President Obama, citing the principle of religious freedom in the Constitution. The whole issue has taken on a dynamic that is akin to a tornado of conflicting emotions and religious prejudice. Battle lines are being drawn. Chaos is sweeping over downtown Manhattan.

As someone who was in New York City on September 11th, I have to say that I have a certain amount of sympathy for those who view the area as hallowed ground. Every visit there evokes strong emotions in me, and I am often brought to tears, recalling the events of the day which I watched from a distance, though was close enough to see with my own eyes. It speaks to me of innocence, misery, suffering, bravery, and hope. I am more appalled by the thought of a new tower being built there, instead of a park with two black marble walls outlining the spaces where the Towers stood, inscribed with the names of the fallen. Commerce has its way; hallowed ground is about to become an office building. Why that is not more of an affront to the families, I cannot say, but it is definitely an affront to me, almost like putting a riverboat casino on the site of the USS Arizona in Pearl Harbor.

I do not wish to insult those who suffered the greatest losses that day, the loss of a loved one, but to claim this cultural center somehow denigrates the memory of 9/11 is rank hypocrisy. A mosque already exists near the site, which was operating before the Twin Towers were even open; no one has complained about it. This is only a cultural center, a couple of blocks from Ground Zero, that will not even been seen from it, blocked as it will be by two city blocks full of taller buildings. It may, in fact, revitalize a dying part of town, as the area around there still suffers the scars, with abandoned buildings and empty shop fronts, a job that was supposed to be done by business interests and/or the government.

This cultural center is only an issue because powerful forces, aligned against Islam since that day (and even before), have determined to make it their mission to bring the religion down in America, violating the principles of freedom we hold dear. In raising this fuss over an innocuous and potentially useful building, they play right into the hands of the extremists they so want to keep out, who can use this news as a recruiting tool in their war against America. Rather than dealing terrorism a blow, they are instead handing them ammunition, as Muslims who see this will gladly donate to, or join, the cause. We have shouted for years about our democratic principles and their superiority, and now we show how hollow those words are, for we are ready to toss them aside, to the delight of our foes, who can then point to our hypocrisy.

If anything, we need this cultural center. We need it to create greater understanding of Islam and what it stands for. We need it to be a place of peace, in a community that is still reeling from a vicious and unprovoked attacked. We need it to show that we, as Americans, will not be cowed by our adversaries into abandoning that which makes us fundamentally Americans. We need it, to build a bridge toward greater harmony. We need it, to prove once and for all, that we are worthy of the sacrifice made by so many to forge this nation. We need this cultural center, because until we can see past our hate, until we can let go of our desire for revenge, until we can stand up and prove that we are better than our enemies, who are so completely intolerant of those things that do not conform to their zealotry, we stand to be dragged down into an infernal abyss. America must show our enemies, as we have so many times in the past, that they are wrong about us, and that their error in judgment will cost them everything, in the end.

Lest We Forget

8 years.

8 years is a long time, and yet not so long.

8 years since a cool, clear, sunny day in New York City changed every one's lives forever.

For 2,751 people, it was the end of their lives, a fact they would not have contemplated that day.

For hundreds of thousands more, perhaps millions, like myself, we were witness to their death in one fashion or another, and were unprepared for what we saw.

For tens, nay hundreds of millions of people, it was the end of their cherished naiveté and the disruption of their cocoon of ignorance. The world, which was "out there," was suddenly here, on our soil, in our face.

There was death -- raw and uncleansed -- on our television screens.

There was destruction, of a type Hollywood could never have envisioned.

There were emotions on a scale undreamed -- incredulity, sorrow, fear, bravery, helplessness.

And there was loss. Loss of life. Loss of innocence. Loss of hope.

8 years on, and the day is no easier to process for me now, than it was then, and I was in midtown Manhattan, not at the epicenter of the disaster. It was not I, running through the streets, covered in dust, trying to outrun falling debris. It was not I, clambering down endless flights of stairs, in the dark, choking on smoke, trying to get out into the light of day. It was not I, charging into the chaos, attempting to quell the inferno and rescue the wounded. It was not I, standing over the smoking remains, desperate to find survivors.

For me, it was a day indelibly etched on my conscious mind, so clear now, that to close my eyes and focus, brings it back to sharp relief. Television screens in offices, showing the burning towers, then the collapsing towers. Rows of empty cubicles. The first moments, when word spread like wildfire of the first plane's impact. The dread at the impact of the second plane. Being told that a bomb threat had been called into my building, but not leaving because there was really nowhere to go. Looking between two buildings at the far distant towers, wreathed in their funeral pyres, then hearing a TV anchor claim one was collapsing, and looking back to see it gone. Sparrows, normally drowned out by traffic, chirping in empty streets, so loud as to be unbelievable. Standing in an endless line, waiting to board a boat. Riding a Corps of Engineers river dredge across the Hudson, and seeing the column of smoke rising high above the city. A little girl in a stroller, with her mother, standing next to me. A crowded bus, taking us to the trains. Stopping at the liquor store on my way home, to an apartment I had only been in for ten days after separating from my wife. No long distance service, forcing me to call my parents with a calling card. Restless sleep.

I cannot forget. The pain may ease, but the memory must not weaken. This day was a seminal moment in the life of a country which thought itself invincible and invulnerable, which let foolish pride take the place of measured paranoia. For now, the pendulum has swung and we live in a country gripped by forces that would have us surrender our dignity, our morality, and our rights, to fight an ephemeral enemy, one that lurks in shadow, and knows how to stay hidden from view. As years pass, hopefully this will soften, for if it does not, we stand to work ourselves into another disaster of epic proportions: the destruction of American society.

So on this day, let us not forget the innocent lives lost, the bravery of many who tried to save lives, and the despicable acts that brought us together as a nation that day. Let us honor them in our own way, and let us take from this the hope for peace.