9/11

Thirteen years ago today this nation endured the deadliest terrorist attack in its history. In a coordinated attack by al-Qaeda, four commercial flights originating out of the East Coast were highjacked. The first plane struck the North tower of the World Trade Center's twin towers in NYC, followed 15 minutes later by a second plane going into the South tower. A half hour after that, the third plane crashed into the Pentagon. Only passenger intervention caused the final plane to crash a half hour later into a Pennsylvania field instead of its intended Washington DC target. Nearly 3,000 people died as a direct result of the attacks, the vast majority in the crashes and subsequent collapse of the twin towers.

I left for work that morning barely aware from early radio reports that the first plane had crashed. Mom woke shortly after that to the news, and had the TV on all day as the story unfolded.  By the time I got to work, which was a second job that I jobshared between the environmental lab I work for and one of our clients at the time, the other planes had crashed and the country's confusion, fear and anger were reflected in media coverage of unfolding events. Fred and I were riveted by the events being broadcast. Needless to say, not a lot got done in terms of production.

Fred viewed events through a unique perspective. His family had left Iran after the Shah was deposed in 1979.  Most ended up in America. Fred had an architectural/banking background before he became an environmental consultant. He had married an America, and had a couple of school age sons by the time I met him. He was horrified by 9/11, and immediately understood the implications of what had happened, both in terms of American response as a nation, and the potential backlash of individuals against members of the Islamic faith--or those perceived to be followers of Islam.  He was right about that. There were attacks that happened to people in the days following 9/11, both here and abroad.

Our nation was forever changed by 9/11. People either knew people that died, or knew people who knew other people that died. My niece Brianna was in Kindergarten, One of her classmates had an aunt aboard one of the doomed flights--three of the four flights were headed to LAX. Her class learned a harsh lesson in geopolitics, life and death because of that day. As a nation, we have become very focused on security in public places, particularly airports and other transportation. We have fought wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other parts of the world in an attempt to "degrade and destroy" al-Qaeda , the Taliban and other terrorist organizations. We are currently involved in air strikes against ISIS (aka ISIL, IS and the Islamic State).

There is no easy solution to any of this. For every Osama bin Laden that you kill, another radical jihadist springs up. For every dictatatorship you topple, another organization is willing to fill that power vacuum. ISIS has taken over large swaths of Iraq and Syria, and wants to establish a global caliphate. They have killed many Christians, Jews and moderate Muslims, and persecuted many more.

In the meantime, we pause today to remember the victims of 9/11 in ceremonies across the country. The most profound, as always, is at the memorial that has been established at Ground Zero in NYC. Names are read, and bells toll for the times of the crashes and the collapse of the twin towers. At night, twin beams of light cut powerfully into the night sky, representing the site of the twin towers of the World Trade Center.

We will never forget.