I’ve told people this time and time again. I was working as a newspaper reporter in Georgia at the Americus Times-Recorder. The office was about about 15 miles to Plains, Ga. where former President Jimmy Carter lived.
I was the only reporter working at the time and I had a late night before covering a meeting. I woke up around 8:30ish and went through my normal routine of making coffee, shaving while it was brewing and eating breakfast. I remember it was The Today Show reporting a plane just hit one of the World Trade Center towers.
And I changed the channel. New York City was many hundreds of miles away. Whatever happened wasn’t relevant. Maybe we’d pick up a story from the Associated Press. I got in the shower and by the time I was out, the second plane hit the other tower. I watched the chaos while getting ready and by the time the first tower fell, my boss called and I was on my way in to the office which was about a mile away.
Reports were coming in that a plane hit The Pentagon on the radio. The second tower had just collapsed when I made it to the office. It was a different time. I didn’t have Internet access on my computer. We didn’t even have a TV. The reasoning was we’d be too busy watching TV or goofing around on the web.
But I didn’t have time. It was a busy day. Nothing else happened after United 93 crashed in a field outside Shanksville, Pa. I talked to the Secret Service detail in charge of the Carters. They didn’t saw much except the Carters were safe. The sheriff’s office and Plains police was increasing patrols.
One of the women who worked at the front desk had gone to her apartment to grab a TV so we could at least get updates through the static rabbit ears reception.
I drove around getting people’s reaction and a few gave us some unprintable responses. I also didn’t want some people’s anger coming back years later. Yes, it was Islamic terrorists. But it wasn’t all Islam. I’ve grown up and lived around conservatives and extreme racists. I’ve seen and known the ugliness of the Christian right.
Even though President George W. Bush said at the time it wasn’t about religion, Americans still have an intolerable cruelty toward other people they find the least bit different. After the Cold War ended in the early 1990s, we had to find someone else to pound our chests and say we’re the alphas.
A total of 2,977 people died on Sept. 11, 2001. More died from the exposure to the toxins in the air. Rescue workers have died as the politicians who used the attacks in their campaigns and rhetoric denied the workers benefits. It took a public outcry led by celebrities like Jon Stewart. It should have been a given.
But ask all the black WWII soldiers and just military veterans in general how the government cares about them at the end of the day. And those still hating all Muslims, remember they organize blood drives every year in remembrance. Mere hours after the towers collapsed, they said people in NYC turned parks and empty lots into construction zones where they used their own money, power tools, supplies and time to make stretchers.
I’m glad the current President refused to go to NYC for the memorial because he couldn’t speak. He doesn’t need to. He’s lied already about how he was there being carried away by firefighters when he wasn’t. It’s not about him. It’s about the people who died and aren’t here today.
Thousands of people went to work on this day and never returned while one person bragged about now having the biggest building in NYC.
Peace and love be with all those who died and have lost their loved ones.
Zane Says 