If you want us to forget 9/11, you’ll have to wait until all of us who lost someone that day are laid to rest ourselves.
The past is not dead. It’s not even past.
-William Faulkner…
"A sinister cabal of superior writers."
Has Enough Time Passed To Start Forgetting 9/11? - Comments Page 2
Article comments
26 - handyguy
I did not and do not 'spew hatred,' here or elsewhere. (Although in your own way, you just did.)
I do think there are ways of 'honoring the dead' that do not involve mouthing Hallmark-style cliches. And those other ways are equally valid and equally respectful.
27 - daryl d
handguy, you get the award for post of the day. Thank you and there are many who agree with us.
28 - Victor Lana
Andy, I think you're right for the most part. Those guys went in thinking it was like 1993. So were the people who were trapped inside and waving white cloths out the window (just like in 1993). By the time they knew it was going to come down it was too late, and the walkie-talkies weren't working either.
All I know is the New York's Bravest earned their title that day.
29 - bliffle
Since the sterling BC political staff has apparently imposed a blackout on discussions of the Petraeus/Crocker head-to-head, blowhard-to-blowhard, session in congress, let me summarize:
MORE TUNNEL, NO LIGHT.
There, paste that in your neocon show.
30 - El Bicho
Biffle, if there was a blackout, then how did your comment get through? I can publish your article on the subject if you let me know the title.
31 - Victor Lana
If anyone reading this actually watched the ceremony today, I would hope that affected him or her in some meaningful way.
I wish the mayors and politicans would be somewhere else. This has nothing to do with politics (yes it does unfortunately but it should not) and everything to do with those who died and those who remain and mourn.
It is less a "Hallmark" moment and more a moment to be marked as hallowed.
32 - klondikekitty
The events of 9/11 were by far some of the most senseless,horrific and unbelievable acts of complete terroristic violence I have ever witnessed in my life. The fact that the current Bush Administration has used those events to advance its own agenda of death in Iraq only adds to the unspeakable cruelty by those who perpetrated the deaths of so many innocent Americans on that day.
Although I live in the Midwest and have no relatives or even friends who were killed on 9/11, my heart goes out to the familes of those who died, who can NEVER forget -- May God grant you His endless comfort and love to carry you through each anniversary of 9/11, as you struggle with the rest of us to understand how such hatred could be aimed at so many who had little or nothing to do with the foreign policies that fed and nurtured that hatred into attacking America. I pray that the same God who comforts you all will bring swift and certain justice to those responsible for such evil.
33 - Christopher Rose
Bliffle, re your #29, why do you say that? To the best of my knowledge the "BC political staff" couldn't impose a blackout on a 5 watt bulb and if that's not right I want to know about it!
34 - Andy Marsh
Victor - I read somewhere that they actually set up the command center that day IN the world trade center...my bro-in-law, who's a Newark FF said there was no upper echelon left in NYC that day to call for help. I remember being told as a kid that they wer egonna be there forever...the Ronzoni boxes!
I've also met the guys at House 10 and talked to them some. Incredible guys I tell ya...just incredible!
35 - Michael J. West
It is less a "Hallmark" moment and more a moment to be marked as hallowed.
THE SECRET TO CONSECRATING SEPTEMBER 11:
Shut the Hell up about it for the other 364 days of the year.
I susepct that the reason some people want to forget 9/11, or move on from it, is that they've been beat over the head with it several dozen times too many.
Well-intentioned people have mentioned 9/11 constantly, beginning on 9/12. It was necessary for a while, to make sense of what happened and to figure out what to do next.
But there comes a time in which every new utterance of the term "9/11" serves to desensitize people - to cheapen the meaning and ramifications of 9/11. Mention it every day, all the time, and how can you be surprised when people stop thinking of it as extraordinary?
Thus I propose a strict limitation on talking about 9/11 from today, September 13, until next September 8. Maybe that way, when the next anniversary rolls around, people won't be as sick to death of hearing about 9/11 as I'm guessing they were this anniversary.
36 - Victor Lana
Michael, I can understand your feelings, but please try to understand mine (and many others too). We lost someone, and in that there is not just one day a year to deal with, but 364 other ones. It's omnipresent and does not ease up as years pass. I wish mourning were that simple.
37 - Michael J. West
I understand your feelings too, Victor. But I do wish to reiterate: rehashing and revisiting 9/11 ad infinitem, 365 days a year, is PRECISELY what makes other people not want to hear about, talk about, or think about it anymore, even on its anniversary.
And I speak as someone who watched the plane go into the Pentagon.
Thus if someone who wants to "move on" seems to you to be "despicably callous" - well, "callous" is a fitting word: it means "hardened and desensitized as a result of prolonged exposure."
I don't mean this to sound as nasty as it does (genuinely, I don't), but those who rehash and revisit 9/11 ad infinitem, 365 days a year, are the "prolonged exposure." Does this include you? If so, and if people have become callous about 9/11, it is you who have helped to make them so.
38 - Catey
I have never heard it rehashed and spoken of like you state it Michael. Im my everyday life I have never experienced this mind boggling, all out assault of speaking about 9/11 that your talking about.Maybe you need to take a break from this site and other sources that do talk about it and rehash it 365.Change the channel.Watch cartoons :)
39 - Michael J. West
I'm not talking about a mind-boggling, all-out assault, Catey. I'm talking about every time someone says "Have you forgotten what happened on 9/11?" or "9/11 changed everything" or told the story of where you were on 9/11.
You don't have to rant and rave about it: After a while, every time you talk about it at all, it contributes to desensitizing people.
40 - Nancy
Mike, amen to that. I hear it even more than you do, since I'm with a fire/rescue dept - & we were there at the Pentagon w/in the hour of the plane striking. So I'm aware firsthand of the horror, etc. BUT - since that day, I hear nothing but 9/11-9/11-9/11 - USUALLY by those who want to exploit it, like the MSM, who gabble about it incessently, & the filthy pols, who use it to try to advance their own selfish interests. I DO wish someone would hold a major memorial on 9/11 - & pointedly DISinvite the politicians & attention-grabbers. Something like: '...no elected or political personalities need apply....'
Later we sent a couple of our vehicles up to NYC to help with the searches. I didn't go, but that was pretty rending for those that did. I certainly heard all about it in detail, as well as saw a lot of personal & upclose photos our guys took while there. Awful. And NOT to be endlessly hashed over & USED by opportunists, dammit.
41 - Victor Lana
I do agree with you Nancy about people who shouldn't be there (which includes ALL politicians). This is a solemn event, and during such somber moments we don't to see these poeple who are trying to somehow benefit from such tragedy.
42 - Michael J. West
I know, I know how insensitive I've sounded on this thread. Especially insensitive in that I'm talking this way to you, Victor, who've proven yourself time and again to be a thoughtful and sensitive writer.
It's just that I need, desperately, to live in a world where EVERYTHING is not a reminder of 9/11. Constantly I'm exposed to images of the Towers, or descriptions of it, or those goddamned morons who insist that it was controlled demolition. 9/11 is not something that I can forget or move on from. Because 9/11 is EVERYWHERE.
I can't spend every day for the rest of my life re-living that event.
I think it would be very appropriate to spend every September 11 thinking about that day. Discussing it. Remembering it and paying tribute to the lives lost because of it.
But I don't think we can reasonably do that if we're expected to do it every other day of the year, too. Just like anything else, "9/11" becomes meaningless if it's repeated too often. It doesn't matter by whom - politicians, journalists, plumbers, or college students. Politicians just happen to be the worst offenders.
43 - Victor Lana
Michael, I think everyone has to do what he or she needs to do to get healthy. Sometimes it involves going up to Vermont and living in the country, or it could be climbing a mountain or deep sea diving.
I chose to write a book about 9/11. I lived it everyday for three years, but the writing helped. Now, I still live it and think it and feel it each day, but that doesn't mean I'm talking about it 24/7.
I guess each of us will find the way to get to a place where that gaping hole in lower Manhattan doesn't eat our hearts away, but it hasn't been easy.
44 - Michael J. West
And I apologize, Victor, if I came across like a jerk. I certainly feel like one when I reread those comments.