In Memoriam

Forgive me if this seems trite, but I would like to share a couple of thoughts on September 11, 2001. With the 10th year anniversary upon us, I’m taken back to the emotions that never fail, even ten years later, to bring on tears. I’m not a very emotional man and I guess, like many men, I was taught to keep those feelings in check. However, this weekend, I’m once more confronted with what that day meant.

I was teaching my first class of the day when a late arriving student told me, upon entering the class, that a plane flew into one of the World Trade Center towers. I seemed to recall a story of small planes flying into buildings before, causing minimal damage so my immediate reaction was, “Wow, that is horrible. The pilot must have had a heart attack or something.” The class continued as normal. After that first class, a teacher approached me and said that a second plane had hit the other tower and like most people, it dawned on me that we were under attack. Over the course of the next couple of classes, students were hearing one story after another – most of them false. However, at that time, we did not know what was true or not. I heard that the Pentagon and the White House had been hit. I heard other places were on lock down and that more planes were heading to various locations.

At some point in the morning, a local news broadcast suggested that parents take their children out of the school. To this day, I’m not sure of the reason for this but for the next couple of hours, parents flocked to our school and signed them out. Students, not fully understanding the event, began to see it has a way of leaving school and some expressed dismay as to why their parents did not check them out. Meanwhile, I struggled with my feelings. However, I pushed forward to hold class as usual, with no particular insight on what was happening. Yet, it is my experience that work can pre-occupy the mind and perhaps, that is what we needed. Upon the day's final school bell, I still had not seen any coverage of the event. By the time I made it home, the coverage would consume me. My then-girlfriend (now-wife) was in Germany at the time and with all air traffic shut down in the U.S., she would be there another week and a half. It seemed to me she was safer there than here.

To this day, rebroadcasts or documentaries of the attacks bring up strong emotions. It was an unprovoked attack and I’m grateful for Presidents Bush and Obama for keeping our country safe and free of additional attacks in the years following. I have little patience for conspiracy theories. As a historian, if you do not have facts, and very few of the conspiracy propagators do, then I can give no weight to the speculation that seems to excite the darker recesses of their minds. As with the Kennedy assassination, people cannot handle a lack of information and in the absence of understanding, others fill in whatever fits their preconceptions.

As a historian, it is understandable that our world is rapidly filling with people who have no concept of the attacks and therefore, no appreciation of the event. For those of us who remember that Tuesday, we might dismay at the lack of connection but that is the way of the world and we cannot take that personally. Still, we have a role to play in helping them understand what happened, why it happened and to remember the thousands that died. We can never forget and we cannot fail to pass along what is now a part of our national heritage.