The Command Post - Op-Ed - No Ordinary Day

August 27, 2003

No Ordinary Day

[When you are done reading this, please go here]

As we make our slow crawl towards September 11, 2003 and the second anniversary of that day, I can't help but notice that the media has decided to move on.

With the second anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks only three weeks away, TV networks have planned nearly no special programming to commemorate the horrible events of that day.

In New York, many of the Sept. 11-related events will be private and attended only by the families of the victims.

Instead of breaking into regular programming, the major broadcasters will cover the day in their regular newscasts.

I felt a small fist of fury take hold of my heart when I read that. The fury is mingled with sadness and fear and that strong voice that has resided in my head for almost two years now keeps repeating: We Must Not Forget.

We do not need another slo-motion replay of those enormous blades of steel crashing into the World Trade Center, for that image is surely burned on the retinas of every single person who was witness, whether physically or through the television.

We do not have to play a repeat of that day's events in order to commemerate the lives lost and the lives ruined. There are so many other things that could be said and most important of those things is how we are rebuilding; our lives, our spirits, America. We can do nothing worse than to make our enemies think that 9/11 has become an afterthought and two years later we are complacent and forgetful and perhaps we need another wake up call.

No, we should be showing progress while still paying tribute to those left behind. The coverage of 9/11/03 should show the babies of the widows of 9/11, carrying on the spirit and personalities of their fathers. It should show the plans for the rebirth of the site of the World Trade Center, the gardens that will spring to life there, the entries for the memorial design contest.

There should be investigative pieces on how far we've come in the War on Terror, all the terrorists who had their hands in that day who have been captured, all the cells that have been broken up. There should be a big reminder flashing across the screen at one point that there have been no terrorist attacks on American soil since that day.

How are the firemen who walked out of the burning rubble coping? What about the people who made it down the stairwell and out into the open air and safety? Yes, there should be images of that day shown, perhaps a short montage just to jar our memories and wake whatever fight that was in our souls that has since gone to sleep.

I want to remember. I never want to lose that memory of the smoky sky above Manhattan that I viewed from my office window. I want to remember Pete Ganci's wake and the sharpshooters atop my neighbor's house during the memorial service for Claude Richards, I want to remember the haunted look in my firefighter cousin's eyes and the look of despair on my father's face. I want to remember the chilling feeling of looking at a sky free of jumbo jets for days on end and the quiet, the unnerving quiet, that made those days after so surreal and chilling. I need to remember these things because to forget would be to spit in the face of every single person who died that day.

Relive those events, if only for a moment. There are a million places to look in case you have forgotten, in case you turn on your television on September 11, 2003, hoping for something to help you remember that day, to live through it again just to not forget.

We cannot move on because we are still there. There are 12,000 body parts yet to be identified. There are people still in mourning, people who will never, ever get over seeing their loved one's name on this list. There are still people who want us dead, animals who would stop at nothing to see that the events of 9/11 are repeated, maybe somewhere else. Maybe your own backyard this time.

What does it say about our country when the protesters and conspiracy theorists will mark the day with more of an effort than the mainstream media is? When activists who want to put salt in our wounds and rip open our scars are commemorating that day (albeit in a disgusting way) more than our own media, who will be continuing on with soap operas and Jerry Springer as if this was just another day?

I will never forget. And I will do my best to make sure no one else does either because, obviously, the media has decided to just blow this day off in favor of ratings and advertising dollars.

For starters, you can go here and read the personal accounts I collected one year ago, for a project alled No Ordinary Day. There are more here. They will break your heart, they will make you cry and most of all, they will make you remember. Which you damn well better do.

********

I'd like to continue with the project I started last year. If all the voices gather together, we will never forget. I'm going to change the name of the project from No Ordinary Day to Voices.

I will add to the voices as you wish; memories, memorials, a few sentences a lengthy essay. Unlike last year, it doesn't have to be about your memories of that day, though it could be. Just use your voice so we don't forget. If we speak loud enough, if there are enough of us, we can become a symphony of shouts and tears and whispered pain, so we can always be heard and never, ever forget.

You can add your comments here and I will transfer them to the project, or you can add them to the comments there, or you can email them to me.

Voices.

Posted By Michele Catalano at August 27, 2003 10:59 AM | TrackBack

Comments

Very nicely said. A lot of people want to block out or forget exactly what happened that day. There are plenty of those that have already fallen back into their standard posture of ignoring the evil that others do and treating their horrible acts like some sort of natural disaster. You can see it all the time, 9/11 for some was no different than an earthquake or a hurricane. Sure hunt down a few specific Al Qaeda guys and then get back to status quo, embracing Wahabiism in our multicultural nonjudgental ivory tower escapism. This was not a random unpredictable act. It was the culmination of a growing movement encouraged by our weak responses to a series of lesser attacks.

Posted by: Mark Buehner at August 27, 2003 12:59 PM

The people killed on 9/11 were murdered. It's that simple. No one should ever lose sight of that. Each person murdered was not a "victim" as the liberal media wants to portray it. That connotates to me somehow that each was partly responsible for what happened to them. In no way were these innocent human beings responsible. So why won't the major networks face this fact and keep it in the public eye with news coverage all day? Because it doesn't fit their inhumane view of how America should respond to murders. They want us to "understand" the extremists/murderers. I say to them "phooey". I don't want to understand these killers and I will remember. For the innocent people of 9/11/01, I will NEVER forget.

Posted by: rulen at August 27, 2003 04:15 PM

Well said, Michelle.

One thing that's irrevocably changed for me is the way I see buildings. I cannot look at a tall building anymore without feeling a lump in my throat. Before 9/11they were just objects that I liked or didn't like for whatever reasons. Now they are alive, in a way that's hard for me to describe-- what my Choctaw grandmother might call "relations". Especially when they're lit up at night, I think of all the life inside of them and remember all the souls whose lives were stolen that day and I feel something I can only describe as love.

As you said--never, never forget

Posted by: marymcl at August 27, 2003 09:26 PM

I guarantee I won't forget.

I've changed my reading material (both online and hardcopy),. I'm contributing to causes that I hadn't heard of before September 11. I've also taken up target shooting (just in case).

There is nothing that the media can do to make me feel any different about that day. All they'll do is piss me off by replaying the smoking towers clip.

I'll probably avoid TV that day and spend it reading Pipes or D'Souza or some author that I hadn't heard of before then.

Posted by: John Davies at August 27, 2003 11:03 PM

I had been planning my move for the entire summer, my fiance was 6 months pregnant and we needed a decent place to live. I had many trips to make and had been up late cleaning the old apartment.

Once I got rolling on 9/11, I dropped by my local artsy Cheeze Deco Coffee shop; the type where people who normally do not have jobs get swindled into taking over the lease. They had the TV on in the middle of the room while people crowded around staring and jabbering away in fear tinged blather. I had to ask "What the fu..?" for at least a decade compressed into two or three minutes; like seeing a train wreck being replayed from every angle and freezeframe but somehow you are right there in it.

While all this was swirling around in my head, it dawned on me that all of the dreams of liberals were crashing down. Everything. The luxury of speculation about expert hoodoo and social experimentation had to end. Time had run out on making the world a happy smiley face... A tenth of a second later, I heard my internal voice say; ' We are going to alot of exotic places and do alot of stupid things'.

I heard the reports but the reality had not hit me. I looked around to all of those kids and wondered who would be around to save this country, how could we rely on thier strength? I saw no simple end to it, nor any simple answer. One half of our two party system was crashing down in infamy. Appeasement had not worked, progressive ideas of liberty, of equality, of meaning to be good but always doing bad was total bunk. As terrible as I thought that the election had been, I saw the hand of God in the fact that Bush was the president. I took comfort in his determinism, his forthright speech, mastery of understatement and a cold resolve.

I crumpled in on myself in anger and grief while I tried with all of my might to carry on with the importance of my task of making a nest for my precious little family. This day of all of the days of my life, started with so much hope. This small start, hacked in mid stride..

She eventually had our baby girl named Eileen. I just settled the child support at $391 a month for my baby this July. She said she was going back home to Ohio for christmas but she never came back. I struggled my best to keep hold of my family, a daughter with curly blonde hair and a very strong will. She is the love of my life, but I will probably never have the time or money to see her until after I do what has to be done. It will take some time to make right what was wrong. Perhaps one day, if I have a piece of the American Dream, I can bounce my little baby daughter on my chest again. It is a powerful lesson, that it takes alot of work to overcome such bad juju.

Now, come hell or high water, making things right is all I plan on doing. Come this next November and all of the other ones I have no plans to miss, I will never, ever vote for a democrat again. I keep thinking that yes, this is rough; but not half as rough as it could be. I could not even concieve of how bad it really could be. If I were a pretend Caliph like Osama Bin Laden; I would never make the mistake of underestimating American resolve agian.

As for TV, I pretty much stopped watching a black box with colored lights and a whole pack of lies. It seems more like a luxury I can no longer afford. America gets my full support. Time to get busy.

Posted by: Sunami at August 28, 2003 03:13 AM

on sept 11th, i got up and watched hbo for some reason that morning. i was on the west coast so everything had happened already, my parents did not call me, and work did not call.
I went to work and was smiling and waved to other people at work, they all gave me a cold stare and silence, i thought we had all been laid off.

only 2 hours into work did i ask wtf was going on and someone told me.

hbo pissed me off for not cutting out of their normal schedule too. The world was in flames and they were showing max and me.

Posted by: gijoe at August 28, 2003 03:29 PM

TV networks probably realize that with an approaching election, they don't want another repeat of the boost Bush saw on the 1st anniversary.

Posted by: rrgg@hotmail.com at August 29, 2003 11:27 AM

Michelle, Thank You. This is important work and thank you to all the voices raised - you have cited the website www.911digitialarchive.org - I urge all of you to viist it - it's an amazing collection in every venue of memories, love, pain and the whole damn thing. If you do go, look up Duggan - this was the way I tried to remember - and now, even that looks fresh and innocent - I REMEMBER. Got Freedom?
E Pluiribus Unum.

Posted by: Peggie Duggan at August 29, 2003 12:54 PM