On September 11, 2001, I was twelve miles west of the Towers. I worked for Montclair State University, helping redesign the SVP’s website. When the first jet hit, I was walking down the campus to pick up a copy of Dreamweaver at the bookstore. When I got to the bookstore, the DJs on the radio were talking about the second plane hitting the second tower, and I thought, “This is the stupidest joke I ever heard in my life. It’s not funny.” I picked up my copy of Dreamweaver and stood in line to pay for it. “What’s with the stupid joke?” I asked the clerk. “It’s not a joke. Two planes hit the World Trade Towers.”
I hurried back to the office. The news was all over campus by then. I found myself crowding around the small TV in one of the administrators’ offices, watching one of the towers burn and wondering why the picture looked so strange, and then suddenly realizing that there was only one tower standing. And I remember scouring the web for alternative media, as the main news sites were overloaded with people all over the world trying to find out what was happening. . I didn’t find Instapundit that morning—I spent more time at Dave Winer’s site, gleaning information from there, and trying various non-local media sites with some success. By noon, I had had enough and although the VP told us we didn’t have to go home, I went home. I couldn’t concentrate on anything else.
For some reason, I was convinced that was the end of life as we knew it, and I went to the supermarket and picked up some food items. When I tried to get home, I couldn’t. The police had blocked off the route between my supermarket and my home, because Eagle Rock park lay in between, and some 20,000 people had gone there to watch the towers burn. Eagle Rock park has a phenomenal view of the Manhattan skyline, and has a great restaurant where you can eat good food and watch the lights of Manhattan. An impromptu shrine sprang up along the wall people stand by to look at The City. That’s what NJ natives tend to call New York. “I went to a party in The City last night.” “I’m going to The City to do some shopping.” “I’ve got tickets to a show, I’ll be in the City tomorrow.”
The City was burning.
I went home by roundabout streets and convinced the officer at the last one that I lived where I said I lived. When I got home, all of my neighbors were outside, sitting on the porches of our apartment complex. My upstairs neighbor was an IT tech who worked in the World Trade Center. He didn’t die, because he was always late. He never, ever got to work on time. So that morning, his lateness saved his life. I expect a lot of his coworkers didn’t make it. They were working on the 103rd floor, I believe.
We sat outside in stunned conversation for some time. I had the TV on from the moment I got home, and switched from station to station to station. NBC, ABC, CNN, CBS, anything and everything. I was lucky enough that I didn’t have to worry about a relative, although I found out later my cousin’s husband drove into Manhattan to work that day, saw the towers on fire, and turned around and drove back out. One of my sister-in-law’s cousins died in the tower. Even though there are 20 million people in the New York Metro area, everyone knew someone or knew someone that knew someone who was in the World Trade Center that day.
Our lives changed that day. Don’t believe anyone who says it’s time to get over it. It’s over. It’s in the past. 9/11 may be in the past, but the events of that day were the proverbial ripples in the pond that are still heading towards the shore today. 9/11 changed me from a lifelong Democratic voter to a woman who voted for W. four years ago and who will vote for McCain in November. 9/11 destroyed the American airline industry, or at least, it was the first of the one-two punch (the second being the price of fuel). But the price of fuel is up in part because of 9/11. We went into Iraq and Afghanistan because of 9/11. 9/11 terrorists attacked Spain and England and threaten Europe today. 9/11 was the attack that woke America up to the fact that we are at war with Islamic fundamentalist terrorists. There are many who still don’t believe we are at war. They are mistaken. The terrorists have been very plain in both their intentions, and their thoughts. They tell us flat out that all we have to do to stop them is to convert to Islam, sacrifice Israel, give Spain back to the Muslims, and take a secondary role in the Islamic Caliphate.
Yeah, we have a three word answer for that: Not. Gonna. Happen.
It’s an overused expression: “The world changed.” But it’s a true one. Osama bin Laden’s mindless cruelty changed forever the way America and Europe moved forward into the twenty-first century. The fact that seven years later, there has not been another attack on American soil, is a sign that we’re winning the war. The fact that seven anniversaries have come and gone without an al Qaeda hit on us anywhere in the world on that date is a sign that we have weakened al Qaeda quite well. But they’re not gone yet. They are resurgent in Afghanistan. They still plot in Europe and South America. So we’re still in what some call The Long War, which will take quite some time before we can safely call it ended—but we’re winning.
Now I live 90 miles south of the Pentagon, but two days a week, when I work in my Job in NorVA, I’m ten miles north.
I never want to see the smoke rolling to the heavens again. I don’t think I’ll have to. But it is far from over.
Thanks for sharing that, Meryl. I was working in south Jersey at the time, and many of us crowded around the few televisions in the office when we heard about the first plane hitting. Of course, everyone was convinced that it was just an accident – until the second plane hit. Then we watched people jumping, and shook our heads, certain that the buildings themselves would stay up.
To the best of my knowledge, I don’t know anyone who died that day, although my sister knew quite a few of those who worked on the top floors, and her daughter’s softball coach was among the victims.
Like you, I am a lifetime Democrat who is about to vote for a Republican for president for only the second time. I don’t believe that much of the nation has yet awoken to the reality of this war, and in particular the Democratic party is strongly in denial on this point.
Russ, there are those with first-hand experiences who strongly disagree. Please read this detailed account from a life-long Republican:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/09/11/hunting_binladen/print.html
A co-worker of my wife’s at the time, was a volunteer fire fighter with the Lake Ridge, VA fire department. He was on the scene while the fires were still burning and was one of the folks that hung the flag on the side of the building. He worked 12 hour shifts for about a week, while continuing to work his day job. Said he couldnt sleep, so he might as well work…
I’ll never forget that day…
If the “life-long Republican” thinks Obama will prosecute a hunt for bin Laden more successfully than the Bush Administration has or than a McCain Administration would he’s an even bigger fool than he appears to be. Obama thumps his chest and talks about invading Pakistan to pretend he’s gung ho on military affairs. He does not seem to realize that the logistics of our forces in Afghanistan move through Pakistan. Al Qaeda has already tried to cut the line of supply and been stymied because of US diplomacy with tribes in the Tribal Areas near the Khyber Pass. Invade Pakistan? Obama is sending us up by saying that. More evidence that he knows nothing of military matters and cares less.
Now since Petraeus took over Central Command American clandestine incursions into the Tribal Areas have increased dramatically, to about one a day. Pakistan can endure clandestine incursions where an overt invasion, such as Obama suggested, would be fiercely resisted (as any country would resist such an invasion). These incursions will expand in a McCain Administration, but not, I think, in an Obama one. And they must be kept clandstine.
Obama will return to the law enforcement strategy of fighting terrorism that worked so poorly in the 90s under Clinton. That put a whopping 29 jihadists in jail, as opposed to the thousandss that have been killed and captured by the Bush strategy. The law enforcement strategy is what brought us 9/11. And we will get renewed terrorist attacks on us by resuming it. Don’t forget all the Dem hysteria over the intelligence measures used to fight the jihadists. They have spent years trying to tear them down, and will finish the job of neutering our intel if they get into the White House. How will that help find bin Laden? Answer, it won’t.
Here is an evaluation by a man who understands strategy and served a year in Iraq as a high staff officer.
http://townhall.com/columnists/AustinBay/2008/09/10/bin_ladens_slow_rot
The upshot is that if you want somebody who will actually prosecute the war vote for McCain. If you want somebody who will give you talk and no action vote for Obama. The Dems, after all, regard the War Against the Jihadist Terrorists as a distraction from the really important stuff, like creating an army of “community organizers” paid by the taxpayers to pursue the Alinsky program (which is what all those “Corps” Obama proposes are meant to do.)