Post 9/11: Have I Learned Anything?

Thursday my posting, Train 911, described my personal observations on September 11, 2001 – a day of infamy for the USA and the world. I was very fortunate not to suffer any personal loss that day. I know others who did. My heart continues to ache for them. I cannot write about their suffering or even begin to understand their loss. But 9/11 is a "tipping point" for many Americans. Some have changed dramatically and are "different" people. Others, like me, are just coming to understand how both our personal and collective responses to the tragedy have altered our lives. If an historic event such as the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon do not cause us to reflect on the event and our response, what will? Here are some of the profound and much less profound life lessons the tragedy and responses to that tragedy on 9/11 have had on me:

• I am fully convinced that I will never be able to understand what mental and emotional processes can enable a human being to perform wanton acts of destruction toward other human beings.
  
• It has taken me years to fully admit and come to grips with the instantaneous prejudice 9/11 caused me to have toward Arabs and Moslems. Due to the magnitude and senselessness of the 9/11 attacks, I needed somewhere to vent my rage. I internalized this prejudice and over the first few months/years after the attacks, I might have spoken of forgiveness, but harbored resentment. I still need to confront myself in this area, but now realize that the attack was planned and carried out by very few people, who happened to be both Arab and Moslem. This does not mean that all Arabs and Moslems are bad people.
  
• I better understand that all religions surround us with holy people and saints that provide wonderful models for living a better life. Religious writings and rites help me better understand my relationship with God and the people around me. I am also aware that religious people are not necessarily good people; some are evil. The events of 9/11 made me leery of the Koran and of Moslem leaders. I had never read the Koran or met a Moslem imam and perhaps this lack of knowledge added to my discomfort. More recently, I have reflected on how Christians from Spain, Portugal, France, England and the United States either killed or dispossessed all Native Americans from the Hudson Bay in Canada to the tip of Argentina in South America. My religious beliefs provide me with the opportunity for more insight and tolerance, but no religion guarantees instant holiness!
  
• Wars are not good for people! Unfortunately, people are good at wars! But the US is not that good at wars when the enemy is not a nation. For example, in 1964 Lyndon Johnson declared a War on Poverty. This was a very noble cause. Poverty in the United States dropped from 22% in 1959 to 19% in 1964 a decrease of 3%. But the nation rightfully believed that 19% are too many Americans living in poverty. During the next forty years we fought the War on Poverty and we reduced those living in poverty to 12% of the population. I have to tell you that I do not get warm and fuzzy feelings that in forty years we have only reduced the percentage of people living in poverty by seven percentage points. With our growth in population, there are more people living in poverty then when we started this war. We have most likely lost this war. We are also waging a War on Drugs in the United States. My thoughts are that we are doing slightly better fighting against drugs than against poverty. In this fight we have spent over $35 billion dollars by some estimates and now America has the largest percentage of its population incarcerated than any other nation in the world. Drug use is reported to be down. Perhaps if we can keep drugs out of our prisons and incarcerate 100% of the population, we can declare this war as won!
  
• Now we are aggressively engaged in a War on Terror. This war was declared in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States that killed 3,056 civilians. Again the United States is waging war against an ill defined enemy. In this war the US has already lost 4,155 troops in Iraq, and 589 troops in Afghanistan. The US government acknowledges over 30,000 Iraqi civilians killed by violent military causes and other estimates put the total Iraqi civilian deaths at 1,255,026. The US military expenses in Iraq are estimated to be $2.5 billion per week. Homeland Security spent $69,107,000,000 in 2006. Although, we have not had any repeat of a terrorist attack in the US – that's a very good thing – I wonder if some of the $3.8 billion dollars a week we are spending in this War on Terror could be better spent to fight cancer that is killing over 1,500 Americans each and every week.
  
• Richard Rohr, A Franciscan priest and author, writes, "The three great demons are fear, guilt and anger." In his first inaugural speech, Franklin D. Roosevelt told us, "So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself -- nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts…" I believe fear is the goal of terrorism. If it is, then we are losing this war also. Look at us. We are constructing walls at our borders similar to the great fences strung across Australia to keep the animal pests out of the grazing lands. We are restricting visits to our country and in rebuttal are having restrictions put on Americans who want to travel abroad. We are permitting our government to monitor all our email and phone conversations. We allow someone to designate a person as an enemy combatant and then be put in jail with no legal recourse whatsoever. We tolerate the torture of people in the fear of a potential terrorist action. I believe we have allowed our fear of terrorism and desire for safety, to let us subrogate the very freedom and values that make America the great country it is.
  
• Who has won the airport security battle? On the US side we have had no successful terrorist actions at our airports in 2008. This is a battle we seem to have won. Then again we all allow at least one additional hour at the airport to get through security and make our flight. Last year there were 675,000,000 airline passengers in the United States. Besides the cost to provide airport security, American airline passengers invested a minimum of 675,000,000 hours or 77,054 man years waiting in line at the airport. Each passenger must also remove his or her shoes because one person (terrorist?) attempted to place an incendiary device in his shoe. That means 1,350,000,000 shoes are removed and replaced each year at the airport and giving that it takes two minutes to take off and replace those shoes, Americans invest an additional 5,137 man years in shoe shuffling. I trust the TSA has found enough shoe bombs to justify this activity!
  

I apologize for using these trite examples. I just want to make certain we realize we have let fear of terrorism affect our lives. Unfortunately, many of the not so trite examples are a much greater threat to our American values. I am certainly not done with my learning process, but it is clear to me that both the cost of the 9/11 tragedy and the cost of our nation's response to the tragedy are way beyond the value of any personal wisdom I might gain.

Train 911

One spectacular September morning I make my regular morning commute to New York City. There is not a cloud in the sky and the air feels "country" fresh even in midtown Manhattan. My regular train, the 7:42 from Cortlandt, arrives at Grand Central Terminal at 8:39 AM. I sit near the rear of the train and it takes several minutes for me to get from the train to the main lobby of the terminal. As I am a creature of habit when commuting, I walk out the entrance from the corridor in GCT through the subway's 42^nd Street Shuttle station finally emerging in the majestic lobby of the Lincoln Building. I glance at the bronze statue of Abraham Lincoln sitting in a chair, a replica of the one that is so striking at his memorial in Washington. Abe is a symbol of quiet strength to me, a strength sprinkled with conventional wisdom and tolerance.

I exit the Lincoln Building on Madison Avenue, then cross the street and walk up 43^rd Street to Fifth Avenue. I pause at the corner directly across from the New York City Library. What a day! As I mentioned before, clear blue skies and not one cloud east, west or north. I did notice a low white puffy cloud drifting over lower Manhattan as I looked south.

I continue on to my office building at Broadway and 37^th Street. When I get to our small office on the fourteenth floor, it is no different than the day before or the week before. The time is now about 8:55 AM. Suddenly one of my coworkers jumps up from his cubicle and shouts, "A plane has crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers!" I quickly try to bring up the CNN internet site. S…L…O…W. I try the local WNBC site with no better luck. We are all thinking that some small single engine plane is involved in the accident. We cannot get any information. Soon after, I get a call from a colleague in our London office. He wants to know if everything was all right in our office. I ask, "Why?" It is now about 9:10 AM. He tells me that two airliners have crashed into the WTC towers. He is looking for details about the incident from me and here I am only a mile or two from the site and I know almost nothing. I ask him to keep us informed.

I try to call my wife but cannot get an outside line on my office phone or my cell phone. Another coworker comes into the office. He had just been on the roof of our building. He tells us he could see smoke coming from both towers downtown. The mood in the office is now half shock and half panic. We are getting little or no information, but still rumors are flying. I receive a second call from London and they say these incidents are reported as terrorist attacks. At 9:30 three of us decide to go up to the roof to take a look. It was heart wrenching. The smoke from the two towers looks ominous. We could only see the top of the towers, maybe the top thirty to forty floors. We hear and see a few helicopters and some sirens down at street level. I then glance over my left shoulder as I here fighter jets zooming in. I am aware of the looming Empire State Building just three streets and one avenue away from where we are standing. It occurs to me that the roof is not a place I want to be and leave by myself to go back downstairs.

There is still no way for us to communicate to the outside world. Someone finds a radio and at least we get some information on what was happening. Soon that radio is moved to another office and we again have no news! Many of us, me included, want to be home and not in Manhattan. Just after 10:00 AM the two coworkers I left on the roof burst back into the office. All I here is, "It collapsed! It collapsed!" After what seems like minutes, we finally learn that they were watching the towers and in seconds one of the towers was just not there anymore. The plume of smoke and debris was enormous. Now I really want to get home.

I decide to walk to Grand Central Terminal. Once outside on Broadway, there are people walking not only on the sidewalks but right up the middle of the street. All foot traffic is moving north. There are no cars, no buses, and no taxis. People look frightened. At one point, there is a loud noise – people start running in all directions. Others seeing the runners also start running. It makes no sense and lots of sense. I step into a doorway and soon all is again calm and is back to "normal", although I soon realize that "normal" is soon to be changed forever. The police are not letting people into the train station. Someone comes out and tells those assembled that some trains are running up to Marble Hill in the Bronx but not any further south. Marble Hill is a several mile walk from midtown.

When I return to the office, I learn the South tower has also collapsed. Some coworkers are already leaving on foot. I do not know what to do. I take another trip to the roof top. Now the skies are totally quiet. There are no planes and no helicopters. It is an eerie sight. I still worry about the Empire State Building, but feel relieved that there is no air traffic at all in New York City. By now I also know about the crash at the Pentagon and another in Pennsylvania. I want out of the city. Just before 2:00 PM I leave the office to head north, to Marble Hill if necessary. The streets are more crowded than earlier with people walking north. Some are obviously from downtown since they are covered with ash. As I passed GCT I see some people entering at the Vanderbilt Avenue entrance. I follow them in. A policeman tells us that some trains are now running, but there is no schedule. Fortunately there is a train to Poughkeepsie right in front of me. I walk down the platform and take a seat. The train is very quiet. Many passengers are like me, somewhat in the dark about the day's events. Others, those covered in dust, apparently know more but are not sharing information. Today there are no card games, no alcoholic beverages and no idle banter. Once moving, I do over hear some quiet conversations, but still am not able to fully piece together the events of the day.

When I finally park my car and walk into our home, I am relieved to see my wife. It is at home, in front of our television that I finally learn the chronology of the day's events. I start to wonder about some of my friends who work downtown. Are they safe? I cannot remember anyone close to us who actually worked in the World Trade Towers. I flash back to the early 1990's when I did consulting work for the Port of New York Authority. Three days per week, I commuted downtown to my cubicle on the 72^nd floor of the North Tower. I wonder if any of my old coworkers from that time were still working in the tower – most likely. I try to remember names and faces and in the following weeks I check the New York Times for names of victims. Fortunately, I do not see any name I know.

September 11, 2001 is a day of infamy. Let all who perished, rest in peace. And may all who lost loved ones, find peace in their hearts.