What, if anything, are you doing to remember 9-11?
I apologize if this topic has been posted before, but I don't have enough time to look at the moment.
I am sitting right outside the tent I have spent the last four days in, listening to the radio's revisit to the heroes and victims of September 11, 2001, and I started wondering...what are the world's people doing in rememberance of this horrible occasion? Here at the field site (training for the upcoming rotation to Afghanistan) we shut down all the generators, laptops, etc, had a little prayer, and a moment of silence at 0900. There is also going to ba a memorial service held this afternoon at one of the dining facilities.
When I woke up this morning, I spent some time thinking about the tragedy that happened two years ago. I then spent some time thinking about the senseless slaughter of lives in Isreal and Palestine, and wondering why we're such animals. Thinking about what's going on in the middle east is so depressing - killing, killing, and more killing.
I then pondered doing a front page post on remembering 9/11, then I remember what has happened every other time we've done anything remotely political, the people who live in the US get patriotic (which I don't mind at all), and the people in other parts of the world get offended at that patriotism...which results in an ugly discussion thread that we end up locking. :|
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I've gotta say, I didn't actually do much different than what I do every day. That is, working in Manhattan, it's extraordinarily hard to forget 9/11 on any day, and I feel very lucky on a daily basis to be alive and have the opportunities I have. Just this morning, as I was taking the subway, there were announcements of a police investigation at 96th St. station. It's all around us, more some days than other, but virtually omnipresent on a nearly daily basis.
9/11's different for me. See, two years ago today I was in the intensive care unit of a children's hospital, watching over my nearly five month old son, who was unconscious and breathing only with the help of a ventilator. Three days later he died. I never got to see him sit up or crawl. I never got to hear him talk. I was fortunate enough to hear his heart-melting laugh, and he laughed often. He will always be remembered. He has a memorial page as well.
9/11's different for me. See, two years ago today I was in the intensive care unit of a children's hospital, watching over my nearly five month old son, who was unconscious and breathing only with the help of a ventilator. Three days later he died. I never got to see him sit up or crawl. I never got to hear him talk. I was fortunate enough to hear his heart-melting laugh, and he laughed often. He will always be remembered. He has a memorial page as well.
I can see why you have a rather different perspective on this time of the year. It's a nice memorial page for your son, I'm sure you will always have good memories of the short time you were all together. Things like that are so tough!
David
9/11's different for me. See, two years ago today I was in the intensive care unit of a children's hospital, watching over my nearly five month old son, who was unconscious and breathing only with the help of a ventilator. Three days later he died. I never got to see him sit up or crawl. I never got to hear him talk. I was fortunate enough to hear his heart-melting laugh, and he laughed often. He will always be remembered. He has a memorial page as well.
Being a father myself, I have some inkling of how you must feel. My daughter's now almost three, and losing her would bring the world crashing down. I have seen the results of missed diagnosis in a friend's little girl, when several doctors failed to spot meningitis, preferring to call it flu.
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I've gotta say, I didn't actually do much different than what I do every day. That is, working in Manhattan, it's extraordinarily hard to forget 9/11 on any day, and I feel very lucky on a daily basis to be alive and have the opportunities I have. Just this morning, as I was taking the subway, there were announcements of a police investigation at 96th St. station. It's all around us, more some days than other, but virtually omnipresent on a nearly daily basis.
I was going to say something else here, not directed at any one person but of a more general nature, but I won't, as Jason said it would most probably result in having the thread locked. I'm all for a reasoned debate, but another day. Not today.
Let it suffice to say that I hope everyone's thoughts go out to ALL people who have suffered through the actions of terrorists, now and in the past, in all corners of the world.
I then pondered doing a front page post on remembering 9/11, then I remember what has happened every other time we've done anything remotely political, the people who live in the US get patriotic (which I don't mind at all), and the people in other parts of the world get offended at that patriotism...which results in an ugly discussion thread that we end up locking. :|
I don't think it's the patriotism that causes the problems Jason. It's some of the the uglier forms, and also the more simplistic, jingoistic 'my country is superior and everone should be like us' forms, that can upset. Most nations have their own variety of this however - and perhaps we outside the US gave less leeway to an expected outpouring of genuine US patriotism, even if a 'very' small part of it was distasteful, than we should. I'm not sure we in the UK would have been any 'better' (difficult to decide the right word there!) if it had happened to the City of London.
You know - I've been quite touched this year by two things. One - people have remembered the losses of 9/11 in more simple, less ostentatious ways this year (some friends of mine who lost someone in the WTC got very upset with the continual repeating of images and film of the events last year - I don't know what US TV has been like this year but in the UK the networks have been much more low key and struck a better balance. Two - people have started to ask the difficult questions that for a time were almost impossible after the original tragedy. For a time I remember it being almost impossible to ask in what ways the West helped to cause the hatred from parts of the Islamic world without being accused of justifying the terrorism itself. I think that is one of the more encouraging things that two years passage of time has allowed... people are coming to grips with a more complex world and starting to ask what new ways we should develop to deal with this and prevent people from feeling that their only hope is to flock to the banners of people like Bin Laden...
It's also 'good' to be reminded by slothdog that intensely personal tragedies happen everyday to people - and it helps us to never forget that 9/11 was not one event but a collection of thousands of personally tragedies - and hopefully many stories of hope...
Also worth remembering that the extraordinary coming together of post 9/11, and the amazing altruism shown, has sadly not diminished the casual cruelties that many still endure as a consequence of the tragedy. I spent today doing some advocacy work that I volunteer to do for disadvantaged groups (nothing to do with the day - just random chance that it was 9/11). Among them (a case I touched on only briefly) was a women who lost her husband in 9/11 (he was, would you believe, only due to be in the US for three weeks...) and whose insurance company has yet to pay out after two years - on legal technicalities...!
Just one little final thought. A friend (who works for a Christian aid agency) sent me an e-mail a couple of days ago pointing out that last year 37 separate terrorist events (and the resultant loss of life) were commemorated just in the UK and NI - and somewhere in the region of 150+ within Israel and other parts of the Middle East and Africa. Worldwide estmated loss of life through terrorist acts in 2002 alone (excluding wars and small scale conflicts) was in the region of 250 times the total loss of life in the WTC crash. Even though these are only estimates it provides some pretty staggering food for thought at just how many 'New Yorks' have been dealing with their own burdens of loss throughout the past year and how little we have moved to stopping people from feeling they need/have the right to commit terrorist acts...
I was going to say something else here, not directed at any one person but of a more general nature, but I won't, as Jason said it would most probably result in having the thread locked. I'm all for a reasoned debate, but another day. Not today.
Well, in advance, my sincere apologies if I sounded arrogant in that comment. It was not intentional, and I hope you didn't read it that way. I'm not trying to put my experiences above everyone else's. Feel free to PM me if you want to express anything.
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Originally Posted by Duncan
Two - people have started to ask the difficult questions that for a time were almost impossible after the original tragedy.
Excellent point. It's also noteworthy that the average American knows a lot more about world affairs than they did two years ago. (Still not nearly enough, but one step at a time.)
What, if anything, are you doing to remember 9-11?
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