September 11, 2007
Clarksville, Indiana USA
1915 Hrs
The sun is gliding silently, slowly toward its invisible resting place. This beautific pre-Autumnal day turns slowly toward the forsaking shadows of the eternal darkness of night here, at my little house.
The early evening news shows will palaver their drooling, and speculative advertising-dollared offerings for the evening’s fare. We will, for the sixth time now, cast our eyes eastward, and upward to the emptiness that still so surely fills that hole as completely as concrete ever did. We will watch, even as we scream out our repugnance, our digust. We will be overcome by our sense of indecency as our eyes refuse to divert from those scenes as the planes explode in their fireballs of instantaneous, vaporizing death. Our gaze will yet once again cause us to, as Lemmings, steel our gaze on the hundreds of thousands of tons of concrete, steel, and iron as the buildings yet once again, finally and forever capitulate to the forces joined mercilessly against them.
Throughout the evening, we will have moments of remembrance which will travel the entire spectrum, from heart-felt to the obscene. I cannot help but wonder if we do, in fact, remember. From the vulgar to the mundane, those called Americans will re-live, endure, withstand, deny, resist, or simply ignore the historical realities and eternal significances of this day.
For several thousands of families, six years is nowhere near long enough to begin to heal the wounds of that fateful morning. For thousands more, a new terror looms silently, yet malignantly before them. These newer victims of 9/11 discover that the illnesses their loved ones endure today are a direct result of their intensive and “no questions asked” volunteerism as they worked “in the hole” on that horrible day. Being an American, doing the right thing for the right reason, without preamble or expectation, has taught these heroes some astounding lessons. Sadly, they are gently advised, such tragic illnesses are not covered by medical insurance or financially reimbursable–by anyone. Do We Remember?
Piling insult upon injury, those many more thousands now helplessly, hopelessly heap their tears upon the turbulent fragrance of death, disease and disbelief which we, as a nation, experienced on that day not so long ago. But, I really wonder: Do We Remember?
In the time of six years, have we instead turned off our minds and our hearts–and our willingness to reason–to this reality, as well? Is the hole at WTC #1 large enough to contain the thousands of bodies destroyed by war? Can it possibly contain the wounded who have not found sufficient favor to die, yet have no reasonable hope of assistance to recover?
Can we look at the footage from that fateful day, and not encounter the grisly truth? How can we say that we remember, when we cannot even admit the gruesome and ungodly truths we have learned since that day? We have seen our own arrogance with unveiled eyes, in a way very similar to the same perception many of our global brothers and sisters have seen us for decades–or centuries. It is a putrid diaorama which we find incomprehensible. Regardless of the truth displayed, we surround ourselves in our sanctimonious self-righteousness as we simply destroy that which we feel compelled to destroy.
We attempt to re-write history, even as our beloved sons and daughters feel their life seeping slowly into the darkened sands of an unknown place. As they, who are truly our heroes and heroines for this age, transform their last ounce of strength into one last act of courage, can we honestly report to their dying eyes that we do remember?
Do we remember clearly? Honestly? Bravely? Wisely?
I believe that, having asked the question, I must answer it. I shall.
I remember that morning. I remember the day following that morning, as well. Having volunteered, I drove all night to reach the collection point by 0500 the following morning just west of the George Washington Bridge. I had a refrigerated trailer full of donated whole blood that would be delivered to St. Vincent’s Hospital that morning. I remember driving through the hole, under both police and military armed escort.
I remember sitting on a curbstone outside the Emergency Room of that hospital as a man came quietly out from inside the cavernous dimensions of that massive facility. He was wearing a lab coat that identified him as a rather important surgeon.
“You the guy that brought the blood, right? Thanks.”
“You are welcome, Dr.”
He sat down near me. Silently, I smoked a never-ending chain of my favorite brand. After some time, I noticed his hands shaking. I pointed the pack towards him. Withdrawing a smoke, his look was of gratitude.
I flipped him my lighter, which he caught rather impressively. “Thanks.”
“No problem, Dr,”
“Where are they?”
When he asked the question, we remembered. I remember my response.
“I don’t know. But if they come here, they will be very lucky, indeed. I know that.”
I watched as the simple truth of life played itself out before this dedicated Physician’s tortured mind. I do remember.
I remember his shaking hands, and a suddenly tear-stained face looking at me.
“They aren’t coming, are they?”
“Probably not. There really isn’t much left.”
I remember sharing those moments with a dedicated emergency specialist who, for years, had trained for just such a moment as this. Critical Care, and Triage is a very particularly difficult area of medical study–especially for the Emergency Physician. Mass Casualty exercises (“Mas-Cal”) are very rarely utilized, very expensive to employ, and completely subjective in their effectiveness as both training device and learning tool. Most of them are designed by military tacticians, because the civilian world just hasn’t seen horror, or terror, on such a massive scale. I remember the day we did.
Looking at his hands, I completely understood both his frustration and his sadness. All he needed was someone to help. I wanted so badly to help him. All I could do was to offer him a cigarette. To his credit, he took it, lit it, and smoked it. His hands never stopped shaking.
“What will become of us?” This was, I thought at the time, a near-ludicrous question. I have sense come to challenge my thinking on that one.
“I think we will be okay, Doc. We are, after all, Americans.” With a weak smile, he rose to return to the empty Emergency Room. I stood. He reached for my hand. I reached for his shoulders. We hugged, hanging on as two complete strangers thrown together in a surreal necessity to matter. He cried that longing, deep-souled, earth-moving cry of the lost. I cried for him, and for myself, and for us all.
“What’s your name?” I needed to know, for some strange reason.
“Jim. I’m Jim. Jim Jenkins.” As we broke our embrace of fellow warriors, we looked into each others’ eyes.
Stretching out my hand, our grasp was a promise to remember.
“Bud. Bud Fields. Nice to meet you, Jim.”
“Thanks, Bud. Nice to meet you, too.”
No more words. He turned, and slowly mounted the two short steps to the impervious self-opening doors. With what I surprisingly thought expert efficiency, Dr. Jim “flicked” his cigarette neatly into a corner, where it would safely smolder itself into oblivion. I smiled. He smiled, and disappeared inside the echoing chamber of what should have been chaos central.
“Driver? You’re done. We need to leave immediately. Other trucks, you know.”
“Yes, alright. Let’s go, then.”
Yes. I remember.
I remember the sadness, and the shock. I remember the grief, and the incredible necessity to be angry. On that day, I understood as never before how the people of Germany must surely have felt upon reading the fine print from the Treaty of Versailles. A nation enraged.
Being that angry, for that long, can have an amazing effect upon a people. One might opt for the opinion that we drew closer together as a people, as a community, as a nation. We did not.
One of any reasonable intellect might conclude that we, as Americans have seen ourselves clearly in the mirror of world reflection, and have become humble. We have not.
One with the rich heritage of our history, and our perceived place of honor on the world stage would surely deduce that we are a just people, on a just mission, for a just cause. We are Americans, who consider the needs of others long before our own needs; givers, not takers. We are they who come when called, regardless of their answer in our time of need. We are the keepers of the flame; the flame of liberty, AND justice. Surely, there can be no argument from any point that we are the one peoples of the world who respond rightly–even in a ghastly devestation such as this. We do not.
Our leaders have created a new America. They ask us to withstand our own reason, suspend our own disbelief, and entrust our legacy, or what remains of it, to their care. We dare not.
It is we, the unseen, the forgotten. It is we, the disenfranchised of America, who do truly remember. Our untriumphed selfless sacrifice sends boxes upon boxes of simple “comfort items” to troops whose names we do not know. We, of the shadowed America step out quietly in desperate silence, and walk to the Veteran’s Hospital, and volunteer our time. It is an organization so nearly extinct that, to see a blue banner with one, or two, or three, or four, or five gold stars hanging in quiet and solemn declaration from a living room window makes us feel as if we have become travellers to a forgotten time. Yes, we remember.
Our children now face the realization that their lives will include military service. Many of us remember that, as well. While the parents argue, and pontificate, and decry one stance, or the other position, our children huddle together and measure tomorrow. They remember.
The great humiliation of America is that we, as a nation, do not remember. Five years of war, in a place most will never see, among people we consider barely above savages, have no particular effect upon us. Even as we watch our very definition castigated, mutilated, and evaporated before our very eyes by an Administration who screams so loudly, and so often, that it completely believes its own lies. We, as a nation, do not remember who we are. We do not remember whose we are. We are condemned by our own actions, in a resiliant voice that cannot be repressed. And, suddenly, how it could be for one people, from 1918 until 1929 (eleven years) does not seem quite so outlandish, after all.
It’s funny, the things we remember.
Perhaps we, as a nation, have been effectively de-sensitized. We’ve lost our definition as a people. We’ve lost our identity to the world. We’ve sacrificed our first beliefs for expedience, and have discovered to our own dismay our complete willingness to lie about it at the drop of a hat–or a supoena. For, if we remember, then we can only hold ourselves accountable for what these past six years have brought to the world, in our name. Who wants to remember that?
Quietly, and ever faithfully, it is the solemn determination of individuals that bring us, upon this day, our true remembrance. Could any cogent being honest believe that Chief Parker had even the first hope of saving his men, when the NYFD made its first response? Do we remember?
If you were among the 50,000 or so lost souls who suddenly found themselves walking out of lower Manhattan on that day six years ago, you remember. You remember the shop-keepers bringing slices of Pizza, and bottled water to your tortured soul. They didn’t ask for anything. They gave. They remembered. I also remember the guy at the coffee shop just across the way from “ground zero” who suddenly thought that selling a quart of water to a fireman on an 18-hour shift for $24 was the American thing to do. I remember the Greek shoestore merchant, yelling to those walking uptown “What’s your size? You’ll never make it in those heels. I have tennis shoes. What’s your size?”
There was no expectation of profit, or capital gain. There was no ulterior motive. Quietly, these heroes didn’t have to remember: they never forgot, you see. Thousands upon thousands of individual stories of miraculous grace, and grief, litter the theatre of my memories of those days.
In the six years since that moment, do we remember who precisely it was that attacked us? Do we remember who, precisely, it was that they attacked? I think not. We have created, drawn from our national imagination, or had given to us charicatures of who it is we are supposed to remember. But, in the quiet corners of America, we really do remember.
As much as some would have us flee from the remembering, still so do we remember. That the one entity most fearful of that truth would be our own government may not give some cause, but I can assure you it gives me cause–to remember. And, even as my brothers and sisters create volunteer homecomings for some of our 15,000 seriously wounded heroes, coming home to a place, and a time, and a people they fear will not remember, this day is a simple reminder to each of us.
If we will but remember.
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