[COPY] The Unsettling

Personal reflections on 9/11 attacks, reposting here.

I didn’t intend to repost this aged piece, but decided late in the day to add it to this platform for future reference. Who knows, someday my grandchildren may read this collection. What follows are my memories of the day, as a native New Yorker living outside Washington D.C.

I grew up knowing the Empire State Building was the tallest in the world, but, like a typical New Yorker, I’d only been up there a few times as a child. When the Towers went up, I was a young teenager, and hated the ugly “modern” architecture on my classic NY skyline. I never visited them, but my mother told me often about her dinners in the Windows on the World restaurant. We lived in a bedroom community, blocks from the Long Island Rail Road station, where I could hear the train whistle every day until the trains “went electric” at some point in the 1960s.

I drove to work in my silly Miata convertible on the brilliant morning of 9/11, a clear September day – one of those days when you actually stop to look around and think, “Are there really no clouds at all?” My wife called to ask what I thought of the developments in my hometown. Uncharacteristically, I had been listening to a CD that morning instead of the news. Turning to an AM station, I listened as newscasters talked of the collapse of the first Tower. Cars around me continued their pace, but the faces of the drivers were intent, their minds elsewhere. I made it a point to look around, a perverse part of me realizing the history of the moment. Road rage has given way to an odd pensive mood. At I-66, my life changed. An explosion at the Pentagon, an aircraft down in Pennsylvania, followed by reports of a car bomb at the State Department.

In 1997, I was with a think tank supporting the staff of the National Defense Panel. Essentially, these were somewhat senior military and civilian leaders, who researched alternative futures to help their bosses – the Panel – make recommendations regarding force structure and posture for the Department of Defense. My favorite scenario was “HotLanta,” where we presented a scenario with a nuclear device detonated in downtown Atlanta. We took our work seriously, and pondered the implications for homeland defense before it became a household word. We knew an attack against the U.S. in one of our cities was a high probability. We were among a relatively few who spent our working hours considering the various ways to manage extremely bad days. Years of these wargames and scenarios filled my head as I thought of my wife in Georgetown, and my colleagues in two 5-story buildings between Dulles and DC. If an attacking aircraft was intercepted short of a target in downtown, the terrorist may choose the nearest tall building. It wasn’t hard to begin fearing aircraft over my head. Air Force historians are fond of boasting that no American soldier had been lost to enemy aircraft since the Korean War. That string was broken on 9/11, as the U.S. lost air superiority over its homeland, including its capitol city.

The Towers are down. I don’t know squat about structural engineering, but I know war. I assumed secondary charges blew out the supports as rescue crews arrived. What’s next? According to our scenarios, the enemy will now drop bridges. Wait until the populations of target cities are fleeing, and detonate charges under bridge supports. These charges could have been set days earlier. I arrive at my office, and recommend evacuation, but my theory fails to impress a friend who cannot reach his wife in the Pentagon. Scenarios and gaming meet reality. I’ve studied terror, he’s living it.

I head for Georgetown, where my wife is a University employee. Driving on I-66 east, I am going against traffic. A fender-bender to my right, and the average speed is much faster than usual. We have all silently agreed that we probably will not be stopped today, and that the speed limit should be a bit higher today. We are not barbarians, we leave the shoulder to the stream of black SUVs who have suddenly sprouted flashing lights and are speeding into downtown. I arrive just as the University is being evacuated. One of her colleagues called her husband to ask what she should do, and he said, “go home.” She turns to me and asks the same. “Go home, and avoid bridges.” “I can’t, there are only bridges between here and my home.” I wish her luck.

My bride and I spend the next two hours on the road, taking the smallest bridge over the Potomac in hopes that it is small enough to be overlooked by terrorists whose next move should be to drop the main bridges into DC. As we cross, I take her hand. Among the many lasting memories of that day, those 300 feet are among the most gut-wrenching. It was a few weeks before I realized that I crossed a major bridge on the way into Georgetown without even thinking about it.

My eldest daughter is 26 years old, living in Los Angeles. She stays home from work and waits for her mother to call.

My youngest daughter is 24 years old, 4’10 and weighs nothing. She’s also a nurse, and has by noon Tuesday already registered to help out at local hospitals if needed.

My son is 17, and has spoken approximately 30 words to me this year. He sends an email to let me know that when he’s 18, if there’s a draft, he will sign up. He tells me he always thought he’d flee to Canada, and just wanted me to know that he’d changed his mind.

That afternoon, I visit my neighbor, an airline pilot for Continental. We are usually social, but he is on the phone with brethren who are suddenly on the front lines. He acknowledges my visit, but soon is on the line with an American pilot. “Brother, you lost a few today.” Tears come easily, and I make my exit. I look to the brilliant clear sky again, and note the absence of contrails. Months before Mr. Springsteen writes his excellent song, I immediately think of the phrase “empty sky.”

Much later that night, I lie awake next to my warm wife. Thinking of the thousands who are suddenly cold, and the untold number who lie crushed and pinned in the wreckage of those ugly towers. I realize I pause in my breathing often. Finally, I hear the whistle of a passing train. Movement. Life will continue. I am asleep in minutes.

Months later, we visit the ghosts of the World Trade Center with two dear friends. The giants who worked the wreckage were larger than life, and I finally understood the Paul Bunyan legend when two of them emerged at the end of a shift. Lumbering men of legend and overalls, working amidst certain toxins and horror. Looking back at these words, I realize many of these men would be dead within a decade or so - dead of injuries sustained during this recovery.

Standing outside the church that miraculously survived, and reading earnest notes taped to storefronts; “we are ok.” K has been a friend for over 10 years, her attitude stuck on pleasant throughout our interactions. I’ve never seen her morose or sad in all that time, even through the loss of her mother. She is one of those people who, when she is angry at someone, you enjoy the response despite yourself, because it is so unexpected.

As she passes one storefront, nearing the gaping maw where the towers once stood, she stops as if shot. Looking back, I see her clutch the brick wall, her hand to her chest, her mouth open and crying. The sound is an icy hand around my heart. Her husband moves to comfort her and I look away. This is no doubt a common scene here, a place that represents the great unsettling that covers us all like a cold, unwelcome mist.

Freedom Tower under construction (John Bordeaux)