Somber Thoughts from the White Board - Sept 11

A rumination on the events of September 11th, 2001...

I've noticed these past few years that sometimes I overlook the anniversary of this day, even though it coincided with a pretty significant event in my life.  You see, a few days before the events of that particular September morning, I had asked my boss for the day of September the 12th off.  That was the day I had determined to ask my then-girlfriend to marry me.  At that time I was working as a materials receiver at Parker-Hannifin, which was and still is a manufacturer of a vital aircraft components, and therefore a major supplier of the airline industry.  

I was nervous that whole week before. You see, I knew my girlfriend was somebody I wanted to be in my life for always, but then again I wasn't too sure I was ready for marriage.  Just the same, I'd gone and bought a diamond ring, and I was looking forward to having the day off.  It was to be a major turning point in my life.  I couldn't imagine anything else that could overshadow such a day.


On September 11th, I got up around 6 AM and headed into work.  I suppose that my mind was on the next day as I went about my business on Dock "C."  That was the freight dock that I and a co-worker were responsible for.  Parker-Hannifin was a very busy place prior to 9/11.  When I started with the company, they didn't have room for all the people employed in the Ogden facility, and they were busily adding new office space outside the main building, just to keep up.

I know that everybody has a story about what they were doing when they heard the news.  I remember that I was standing by a wire shelving unit next to my desk out on the dock, sorting some parts that were either just coming in or about to go out of the plant.  Either the radio on the desk had a music cassette tape playing, or I was singing to myself in my head.  In the moments just before I heard the news, I remember music and excitement and happiness and the feeling of butterflies. 

Probably very shortly after the first tower was hit out on the east coast, one of the ladies who worked in the nearby office came out of the door and hollered that somebody had just crashed an airplane into the World Trade Center.

These words that I'm typing don't seem to do justice to what I felt at the time - and still feel even to this day - about that moment.  In retrospect, I do recall thinking that it couldn't be as big a deal as her urgency made it sound.  But I went into the office just the same.  There was a lot of confusion, and the phone was ringing  every other minute with people asking, "have you heard?"  I remember the coworker who had hollered at us, whose name was Amanda, mentioning something about how there were pictures on the internet of people falling and even jumping out of the building.  I remember that I didn't want to look at those.  The idea made me sick inside. 

Then the news came that the second tower had been hit.  It was like a car crash.  Having been in one, I remember the feeling being strangely similar.  Like things slowed down, and everything seemed way too real, and yet surreal at the same time.  There was so much uncertainty that seemed to just hang in the air.  It seemed like the air in the room was heavy.  Literally heavy.

Then the rumors started.  There were rumors that the Pentagon had been hit too, which were soon afterward confirmed.  There was also a story about a helicopter going down at the White House, which I didn't learn until later was not true, but based on the stuff that had already happened, it wouldn't have surprised me.  I seem to remember, but this may be the later events mixing in, that somebody said a chemical attack had also taken place.  The anthrax attacks of the next few months might have gotten mixed up in my memory, but the day was one in which you couldn't really have discounted anything.  Anything could happen.  I even remember wondering if we were going to get hit in some way too.  In Ogden Utah, of all places.

I remember how quiet the factory was that day.  If you've ever been in a major industrial plant, you know how noisy the equipment can be.  The machines in the factory cut steel and aluminum with high precision, and you could barely hear yourself think when you passed out into the main work areas.  Even though the machines still ran on September 11, it was eerie how still the building seemed.  Everyone who wasn't tied down to a specific task was huddled together around radios, the few available TVs, and computer screens linked to the World Wide Web, wanting to hear more about the events that were going on in New York, Washington, and later the story of United Airlines Flight 93, which I didn't hear about until around midday.

As the day wore on (I worked long hours at that job; ten hours a day was common) I remember how the hallways of the plant seemed almost deserted.  I saw my soon-to-be fiance that evening at the place she was then living, and we looked at each other and wondered just what sort of world we were preparing to join our lives together in.  We held each other a lot.  I remember her tears.  Neither of us specifically knew anyone who had been killed, but we felt the weight of the events, and we grieved for those who were caught directly in the attacks.

The next day, I took my soon-to-be-fiance to the LDS temple to worship and find solace together, and then we went down to Salt Lake City for lunch.  We ate in the mall food court.  I can't even recollect which mall it was, but I can remember the scene clearly.  There was footage of the previous days events on all the big TV displays around the food court.  Every where you went, the news was plastered with images of the destruction.  I don't think I'd be waxing poetic by saying that the United States was in a state of shock as real as any experienced by a person when they have suffered a physical wound. 

As for the actual events of my proposal of marriage to my wife...  It went a bit clumsily, in retrospect, and as this story doesn't directly relate to that part, I'll save it.  Suffice it to say, I got on my knee and asked her to marry me, and she said yes.  We've been together going on eleven years now.  Some of those years have been better than others, but that is neither here nor there.  She is still the best thing that ever happened to me, and I am so grateful that we've had this time together and for the happiness we've shared.

It is important for you to know that I write this account of how 9/11 happened, as seen from my own eyes, for two main reasons.  First, but certainly not most important, I do it as a historian.  I look back at the events of the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese military at the beginning of the United States involvement in World War II, and wonder how people felt at the time.  I can look at photos of that attack, some quite famous images, and comprehend the facts of the day.  But at the same time, I can't know how the men and women of the United States felt as their homeland was bombed and their soldiers killed by a foreign power. 

You can look at images of both events online.  When I Googled "September 11" and checked what pictures come up, I find many pictures of the Twin Towers being struck by the two doomed airplanes.  I see black smoke over New York City.  I see visuals of the Pentagon.  I see memorials for Flight 93.  I even see pictures of people flying through the air as they tried to escape the hell that those stricken skyscrapers must have become before the end.  Those particular images especially hurt down deep in my gut.  What do the family's of those people feel, when they see their loved ones dieing that way?  Forever captured in collective memory as they fell to earth.  I can't imagine the grief that would cause.  Not that I am in any position to judge, but I can't help but feel a bit of empathy, because I lived through the day when others did not.

I know that future generations, when they look at these images, will feel some of that pain too.  Mostly in a detached, clinical sort of way, I'd bet.  They will be distanced from those events, like I was, to a degree, depending on their own attachment to it.  It could be like looking at the bodies of dead soldiers from a past war.  It is sad and ugly, but you can't feel for them unless you had a relative who was part of the actual event, or you have personally been through something similar.

For me, I lost no one in the attacks.  I know there are many who, even today, still feel the loss that they received on that cool September morning, and still have hole sin their lives because of it.  There are even more who feel the after-effects.  They lost someone in the days and weeks and months and years that followed, due to one reason or another.  As trite as it may sound, I think it is accurate to say that September 11, 2001 has been like a pebble dropped in a pond, and the ripples will be felt for many years to come.  I can only hope that my words, written on this eleventh anniversary of 9/11, may someday help someone who reads what I write to feel a bit more of a connection to what occurred on that day.  To make it personal for them.  So they may see that this was not just a horrible thing, but that it really affected people that weren't even there at ground zero, or on 93, or working in the E-ring.

My second reason for writing is more difficult to describe.  I write this account so that I personally might remember.  Not for future generations, but for the past.  I've heard it said by a wise man that the most important word in any language is "remember."  If we remember something, it affects how we live.  The things we forget are the things that no longer apply to us, even if they are things we most need in our lives.

I remember September 11 especially because there are those who do still suffer from it today.  I remember those who died in innocence because of the hate of people half a world away.  I remember for those who would soon after take up the cause of a wounded nation, and then suffered or died for their choice to serve.  I remember because... well, there are those who seemed to have forgotten, somehow.  I remember so that I can do what is within my power, albeit limited as it may be, to keep such a thing from happening again. 

And most of all, I remember the promises made by a loving God, who said that He will wipe away all our tears someday.  You don't have to follow my faith to believe that there is a kind Father of us all who loves us and feels our pain, and Who would make it all better in any way that He can.  This doesn't mean it all gets magically taken away - no Men in Black memory stick thingy to erase our memories and therefore our pain -  but maybe someday we will understand what He understands and the sting of it all will be taken from our souls.  This is my sincere hope and my earnest prayer, on this September 11th, 2012.

Are you guys ready? Let's roll! - Flight 93 passenger Todd Beamer, apparently as a signal to other passengers to attack the hijackers, Sept. 11.

I may never be normal again. But this is my life now. I have to live it. - Manu Dhingra, 27, a securities broker who suffered burns over a third of his body but was released from the hospital Oct. 2.

Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal.
- Author Unknown

While we are mourning the loss of our friend, 

others are rejoicing to meet him behind the veil. - John Taylor

 The parting comment:



Source: PossibleVacations.com/History/September-11-2001/We Shall Never Forget

There are many images available online from September 11, 2001, but instead of dwelling on the horror of the day, I was glad to find this one.  It seems to me to fit the whole of the day as well as anything else.