9/11: Five Years Later

IT’S BEEN five years. I can hardly believe it. Like so many others during that day, the memories are still vivid. I can remember the book I was reading on my way to work – Big Trouble by Dave Barry (which incidentally involved a nuclear bomb on a plane). I remember seeing the smoke billow out from one of the towers on my morning hike to the office. I remember that, despite being a little more than a mile away from lower Manhattan, we were all watching CNN to find out more info. I remember hiking up the West Side Highway and only hearing the sirens from ambulances, police cruisers and fire trucks. I remember feeling completely powerless and fearing all this could be a grander scheme for an even more disastrous attack, ala nuclear bomb in Times Square. I remember wanting to go home.

I was lucky I didn’t lose anyone on September 11, 2001. None of my family or friends worked at the World Trade Center. But I do remember commuting on the bus and right before entering the Lincoln Tunnel I would occassionally gaze upon the those dual skyscrapers and reflect on the symbolism with which they represented: human ingenuity, democratic values, and the limitless height the American spirit can soar.

I don’t have much more to say than what most other people have already said. Although I will mention this: because of its demise, the World Trade Center more strongly represents the values of Western democracy and American liberty – and how in the blink of an eye those values can quickly disappear.