Today, I am re-posting several entries I put up last year. Yes, there will be some minor editing.
The following essay was written for and in support of the A Perfect Morning project. There are quite a few essays there you may want to read. You may also want to read The Voices Project.
Here are my memories:
A Perfect Mourning
The phone rang. I pulled the blanket over my head and ignored it. After four rings, it shunted over to voice mail like always. I slept.
It started ringing again. Oh God, will you just go away? I thought. I rolled over, pulled the pillow over my head, and cursed the caller. Finally the ringing stopped, and I slept on.
Fifteen, twenty minutes later, the ringing started again. This time it wouldn't stop. It would ring four times, pause for ten seconds or so, and start ringing again. Now the fog began to clear a little, and I sensed that it must be the wife. Like a petulant child I heaved out of bed. This better be good, woman, I growled to myself. I'd been out of work for two months, and had taken to feeling sorry for myself and sleeping late in the mornings, at least until my son got up.
I snatched the phone up and barked, "Yeah?"
"Are you watching the news?" she said. "We're under attack."
"What?"
"The World Trade Center, in New York? They flew a plane into one of the towers and I tried to call you but you wouldn't answer. Then I was watching and while they were talking an airplane flew into the other tower! Turn on the news!"
I turned it on. Calmly, I watched. We have one of those Tivo-style automatic recorders, and it happened to be on Fox News already. I rewound the live signal to watch it as it had happened.
I called my friend Paul. He was unemployed too. We'd both been laid off in July, so I knew he'd be home. "Are you watching the news?"
"Yeah."
"Looks like terrorists."
"Yeah I'd say so."
"Remarkable."
"This is going to change a lot of things."
"Yeah."
That's what we were like. Dry. Clinical. "I'd always thought they might do something like that, but I never quite expected it," I said.
"Yeah."
We hung up. I watched some more. I called my mother in Chicago. My stepfather picked up the phone.
"Don? Are you watching the news?"
"No, what's going on?"
"Turn it on."
"What channel?"
"Any channel. Just turn on the news."
I called my friend Ed and had the same basic conversation. I called some other friends and relatives, but hardly anyone was home. I left a few brief messages. I watched the news some more. I called Paul back.
"So. They just hit the Pentagon."
"Yeah."
"I wonder what's next?"
"You know we've talked about bin Laden before." (No lie. We had.) "They're probably right that it's him."
"Yeah, you hate to speculate, but it has to be. Who else could it be?"
Paul and I are like that. We like to fancy that we're experts, and often annoy those around us when we really get going. Once in a while we actually are experts. But mostly we're just geeks from Michigan who get off on books instead of sports. But I swear to God, this is exactly how we talked all morning:
Ring.
"I wonder where the President is?"
"Yeah, they just showed him taking off on Air Force One. The Secret Service probably made him scramble to a secret location. Or maybe they'll just keep him in the air."
"Well, that's exactly what they should do. I'll bet they're taking him to Omaha."
"Omaha?"
"Yeah. Almost no one knows this, but there's this whole war-emergency protocol where military command switches to Nebraska if Washington's nuked or something."
"Makes sense."
Click.
Watching. Analyzing. Briefly consulting each other to check our mutual observations, almost like we were discussing the conquests of Alexander the Great, or France at the start of the Hundred Years War. Detached. Calculating. Analytical.
That was my day. I watched the news, and talked on the phone. My sister-in-law Mary called because she was scared, and while we were talking we saw the first tower collapse. As we talked, I did my best to be calming. I saw no reason to be emotional. We knew this could happen. Most of us are in no danger, so we must react appropriately, and deal with those who did this accordingly.
Logic and understanding were what seemed important. Staying calm seemed important. Other people might be shaking, crying, uncertain. I didn't react that way at all, and wanted only to calculate, analyze, and to help brace anyone who was scared or uncertain. I didn't mind this; the only people who irritated me were the ones plaintively asking "what does this mean?" It means someone hates us. It means we haven't been taking previous attacks seriously enough. It means we're going to war.
Maybe it's because I enjoy history, and I've long known that things like this happen. I read about them all the time. Centuries ago, the Goths sacked Rome. London was bombed by the Germans in my grandfather's day. Jerry Pournelle likes to argue that the normal state of mankind is war, punctuated by brief periods of peace. I'm not sure that's exactly right, but the point is clear: Unexpected attacks happen. Wars happen. Maybe it's also because I knew who bin Laden was, knew there were people who had it in them to do something like this. I was only mildly surprised, and hardly shocked.
Or so I thought. Maybe I was fooling myself. I barely noticed that I had a three-year-old son in the house who I was supposed to be watching, who normally got up late with me. He must have wondered why I barely responded to him when he woke up. But he was too young to watch the news, and got to eat whatever he wanted and to play his video games all day. I hope he doesn't recall being neglected. I barely recall interacting with him.
In any case, I talked to people calmly, and I watched. And watched. And watched. Unemployed, I watched all day, all night, barely sleeping, hardly eating. I watched. I calculated. I analyzed.
I'd often discussed things like this in the abstract, and no, I never thought "that only happens in movies." Nor did I think much of the talking heads on television talking about "national trauma." I sometimes thought, Look, it was some buildings. Some people died, but if you aren't one of them, or related to one of them, why act like you've been personally wounded?
We needed to analyze. And to support our leaders. And to act. If you're not one of the wounded, you need to shut the fuck up and start talking about what we need to do to deal with the motherfuckers who did this.
I watched. I calculated. I analyzed.
My emotions? A faint anger. A faint awe at the scale of the disaster. But mostly concern about how effectively our leaders would deal with the perpetrators. And what role I might play, however small, as a man too old and too fat to join the service.
So I watched. I calculated. I analyzed.
The next day, as I continued to watch, Brit Hume came on and showed us a familiar event over in London. It was the morning Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace, one of the most famous displays of pagentry in the world. During this famous scene, they typically play "God Save the Queen." That tune, strangely enough, is familiar to most Americans by the words "My country 'tis of thee." But the original tune is the British national anthem, and to them it begins, "God save our gracious queen, God save our noble queen, God save the queen."
Not everyone knows all the words to their own national anthem. Many Americans barely even know their own history. Our anthem was written during the War of 1812, where we once again fought the British Crown. "And the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air" describes British bombs and rockets hurled at American forces in a battle that raged through the night, a battle most present didn't think we'd survive. But we did. We persevered. By dawn it was over, and Major Armistead's outnumbered forces at Fort McHenry had withstood the British attack. The American flag flew proudly through the night, and was still there when the battle was over.
So much history between us as a people. Bad blood and resentment sometimes, friendship and alliance at other times.
That morning, for what I believe was the first time in history, the Royal Guard of the British Monarch did not play "God Save the Queen." As I watched numbly, they began to play instead:
As the Royal Guard of the British Monarchy played The Star Spangled Banner, my eyes filled with tears. And I began to mourn for my countrymen.
Let us pause to remember those events, and to remember those who died. Then let us move on to do what must be done.
I had much the same reaction. My whole life has been based on "stepping back, being calm, not giving in to emotion." Spock is my hero...
Brilliant. I completely agree with your sentiment, especially the last line.
Most folks don't know there are four verses to the anthem. Here they are in toto.
I feel last two verses are especially appropriate these days:
O say can you see, by the dawn's early light?
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there!
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?
On the shore dimly seen throughout the mists of the deep
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes
What is that which the breeze o'er the towering steep
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam
In full glory reflected now shines on the stream.
`Tis the Star-Spangled Banner, Oh long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
And where is that band who so hauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
A home and country, shall leave us no more?
Their blood was washed out their foul foot steps pollution
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave.
And the Star-Spangled Banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Oh thus be it e'er when free men shall stand
Between their lov'd homes and war's desolation!
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the Pow'r that has made and presrv'd us a nation
And conquer we must when our cause is just
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the Star-Spangled Banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
How amazing it is that music means so much to us in trying times. The playing our national anthem at the changing of the guard, the singing of America the Beautiful by the congress on the steps of the capital building, and the singing of the Battle Hymm of the Republic at the mememorial service in Washington DC all brought tears to my eyes (and still do).
But as much as I love our national anthem and America the Beautiful, lately I've been singing to myself the Battle Hymm of the Republic, not so much because it's a hymm with Christian references but because what we need right now is a song about getting out there and kicking some ass.
Mine eyes have seen the glory
Of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage
Where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning
Of His terrible swift sword;
His truth is marching on.
I have seen Him in the watch fires
Of a hundred circling camps;
We are building Him an altar
In the evening dews and damps;
I can see His righteous sentence
By our dim but flaring lamps;
His day is marching on.
He has sounded forth the trumpet
That shall never sound retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men
Before His judgement seat.
O be swift, my soul, to answer Him
Be jubilant, my feet
Our God is marching on.
In the beauty of the lilies
Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom
That transfigures you and me:
As He died to make me holy,
Let us die to make men free;
While God is marching on.
Glory, glory, hallelujah
Glory, glory, hallelujah
His truth is marching on.
I was really moved reading your post. Many people try to protect themselves from being hurt by being cold or distant. But something so terrible as what happened a year ago...well, you just can't pretend to deal with it as you deal with anything. The last few lines of your post really touched me, especially because I didn't know that they had playes the anthem there. Im really moved and can't say much more than what you already said. Thanks for sharing it.
Nancy:
I watched the memorial service at the National Cathedral in Washington DC. President Bush spoke last, then they played the 'Battle Hymn of the Republic'. I told my wife, we're going to war, we've just sung our War Song. Just like the Indian Tribes, who sang their war chants, we have ours.
Yes, hearing men and women in other countries singing our national anthem in honor of our fallen is something that will give you goose bumps and will make you cry like a baby. You suddenly see how connected we all are.
Thanks, Dean.
Mourn those who have passed and pay respect to those who have lost. Be proud.
I knew no one who died in those attacks, but I took them personally anyway, because I know that all those scum, dancing in the streets of Gaza City, would have danced more joyously if the enemy had suceeded in killing my wife and two children.
They would have, if they could have, killed us all.
I was working at my desk all morning on the eleventh. Some time into the noon hour, I think, my computer beeped. New e-mail.
I opened the e-mail. It was from a parishioner, forwarding some account from an eyewitness who described staggering through the streets of Manhattan. "As I looked back at where the twin towers of the World Trade Center once stood"... words to that effect...
Oh, Phyllis, I thought to myself, are you forwarding science fiction to me, or something? I read the piece a second time, still couldn't make sense of it.
Still more or less thinking that it couldn't be for real, I went into the living room, turned on the TV, turned it to Channel 19 from La Crosse. ABC News.
I got a horrible twisting sensation in my solar plexus. This was no science fiction. This was a terrorist attack, against thousands of innocent Americans, on American soil.
I spent the afternoon phoning people, e-mailing people, watching the coverage on TV. That evening, next door at St. John's, I led an informal and hastily improvised worship service. I remember I talked about dates that those of us old enough to remember would never forget. We would never forget where we were when we heard the news. December 7, 1941. November 22, 1963. And now September 11, 2001.
Yeah.
The anger came for me a few days later. I was numb. Just numb. All I wanted to do was get hold of my friends, and then once I did, I was numb.
All those mothers and fathers. All those decent people. It still hurts to think about the loss.
My reaction was markedly similar - of course, being on the west coast, and not watching the news before I go to work, or listening to the radio in the car, I didn't know anything had happened until I got to work, by which point it was all over.
My first thought was "whoever's behind this is dead" - war was the obvious, inevitable, undeniable result. No other outcome was conceivable.
I remember the moment I started to feel better.
Cameras in Britian were showing Margaret Thatcher. She was bent over, looked terribly ancient, and was struggling to walk while a camera was shoved in her face.
She stopped and looked not at the camera, not at the cameraman, and said,
"We will stand beside you. As we always have."
God bless the Brits and the Aussies.
I don't know if what I felt was anger. It was more a feeling that seeking and obtaining justice was inevitable, irresistible, natural and certain.
On those occasions when I have been sucker-punched, that's how I've felt. Maybe that is anger, for me, for that kind of situation.
But what I think of as anger is something much hotter and noisier. That, I really didn't feel on that day.
I remember telling someone, "They made a huge mistake, they just don't know it yet."
The weirdest thing for me?
My grade-school aged daughter went to school that morning with a shirt on that she had bought the night before at Target.
It was a blue-grey pullover, long-sleeves, crew neck. Kind of a touristy-looking thing. The kind of thing you might buy from a street vendor. In New York City.
You see, my daughter wore a shirt to school that morning that had, on the front of it, a picture of the World Trade Center towers.
I still get the chills thinking about it.
Nancy, I agree with you about the song. The Battle Hymn of the Republic has been going through my mind as well. I think it expresses the mood of our country and what we must do. God is Marching On.