September 11, Terrorism, and Memory

These two new books on 9/11 are must reads:

The main problem with the plea to “never forget” is that we invariably do. Our memory is poor, and we easily forget things that matter. That is why we must constantly be reminded of that which is important. And one of the most important events of recent times which we must ever keep alive in our memories is the Islamic terror attack on America on September 11, 2001.

We just recently had much of the world commemorate the 18th anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on American soil. At this time of year various documentaries and programs will be shown concerning this momentous event, but as we get further and further away from that day of infamy, we forget more and more.

Several major new books have appeared this year to help keep the memory of this dreadful day fully alive. Both primarily make use of first-hand accounts which really help us relive that terrible day in great detail. While numerous books on 9/11 have appeared over the years, these are certainly the newest, and are among the most important. I refer to these two volumes:

Mitchell Zuckoff, Fall and Rise: The Story of 9/11 (Harper, 2019).
Garrett Graff, The Only Plane in the Sky: The Oral History of 9/11 (Monoray, 2019).

Although these two tomes cover some 1100 pages (600 the former, 500 the latter), one will not find them formidable. Indeed, I read each one in a day – they are those sorts of books that you cannot put down. In each one you are reliving the day as if it were happening afresh.

We all know – or should know – the basics on this: On that Tuesday morning 19 Islamic terrorists hijacked four commercial airlines – two slamming into the World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon, and the last one into a field in Pennsylvania (heroes onboard prevented the murderers from reaching their target). All up 2,977 innocent men, women and children were killed on that day.

That is not all. As Zuckoff says, “Roughly six thousand more sustained physical injuries, some of whom would never fully recover.” And other ailments (including cancers caused by toxins at Ground Zero) would mean that by “the twentieth anniversary of 9/11, more people will have died of an illness related to ground Zero than in the attacks.”

As mentioned, the two books are rather similar in dealing mainly with that one day, both relying on hundreds of interviews and first-hand accounts. Zuckoff provides narrative throughout, interwoven with these personal stories, while Graff’s book is almost entirely made up of these voices, with only a modicum of editorial remarks.

Perhaps the best way to give you a feel for these books is by just featuring small quotes from each of them, beginning with the Zuckoff volume. He briefly sets the stage by reminding us that on February 23, 1998 Osama bin Laden issued a fatwa, declaring war on America and its citizens.

Image of Fall and Rise: The Story of 9/11
Fall and Rise: The Story of 9/11 by Mitchell Zuckoff (Author) Amazon logo

The rest is history – horrible history. We hear, for example, of those on board the planes who became aware of their fate. Consider Elizabeth, who was on United Flight 93. Those on board had learned of what had already happened with the other three planes. She managed to say this on a phone call: “Hello, Mom. We’re being hijacked. I’m calling to say goodbye.”

And then there were the fallers and jumpers. Images of them can never be forgotten. These were men and women seeking to flee the burning buildings. From such a height, death was the only outcome. “On impact, the body disintegrated into a puddle of flesh, bone, and blood.”

One police officer said this: “I did see one jumper actually hit a fireman on the corner near Vesey and West. I later found out that the fireman was Danny Suhr. He played for the fire department football team. I coach our team, and I’ve played, so I knew Danny. He was one of the first firemen to get killed.”

Such was the terrible nature of the job of the first responders. In Pennsylvania Terry was one of those persons who had to try to find bits of evidence. He found a flight manual – written in Arabic. But he also had the horrific job of seeking any remaining body parts:

Once Terry became a witness to death, he couldn’t stop seeing it. Remains were everywhere, small bits of men and women who at the moment should have been landing in San Francisco. Some larger parts, too, including part of a torso; a charred buttock; a piece of spinal cord with five vertebrae; and a foot with three toes that tree-climbing arborists, sent by investigators, would find in the hemlocks. All the remains would require DNA matching, dental records, or other means of positive identification. Somewhere near where Terry stood was a napkin-sized piece of skin, charred at the edges, whose source was never in doubt: the intact Superman logo tattoo on the flesh of Joey Nacke’s shoulder.

And those who lost loved ones back then continue to hurt, all these years later. As just one example, Jennifer said this: “It never heals. You just get better at putting the Band-Aid on.”

Graff’s book, based on 500 oral testimonies, contains hundreds of other painful and poignant moments to help us not forget. He also records the fate of the jumpers, and those who witnessed them. One was an assistant FBI agent:

This fireman said something to me that I didn’t understand – he said, “Watch out for the falling bodies.” I remember crossing West Street and thinking, What did he say about falling bodies? I said, “It’s a fire.” As I got close to the building, this fireman from behind yelled, “Run! Here comes one!” I froze and looked up over my right shoulder, up into that beautiful bright blue sky. I saw a fellow spreadeagled, coming out of the sky. He had on navy blue dress pants, a white shirt, and a tie. Dark hair. I couldn’t believe what I saw.

Phone calls between those trapped in the towers and loved ones were certainly moving. Howard for example said this: “My brother, Gary, was in the building. Later that night, when I spoke to my sister, she told me that she spoke to my brother. She had said to him, ‘Oh my God. Thank God you’re not there.’ He said, ‘I am here, and I’m going to die. I wanted to tell you I love you.’ He said goodbye.”

Deena Burnett and her husband Tom Burnett, a United Flight 93 passenger, had this conversation. Tom had said, “Were going to take back the plane.” She tried to dissuade him, but he said: “No Deena. If they’re going to crash this plane, we’re going to have to do something.” She asked, “What can I do?” He told her to pray. He told her he loved her, then hung up. He never called back.

She said this “I kept waiting. I held on to the telephone for almost three hours, waiting for him to call back to tell me he had landed the plane and everything was fine and he would be home later. I started thinking about what I could cook for dinner. I was thinking about sending the kids to school and who could come pick them up, because I didn’t want to miss his phone call. So I just sat there.”

The fall of the towers and the aftermath was equally heart-wrenching and cataclysmic. Graff offers this background: “The South Tower collapsed at an estimated speed of nearly 124 miles an hour, and later estimates held that the winds generated from the collapse of the World Trade Center peaked as high as 70 miles per hour, driving the accompanying cloud of debris scores of blocks away as the hurricane-force wind spread devastation throughout Lower Manhattan.”

Image of The Only Plane in the Sky: The Oral History of 9/11
The Only Plane in the Sky: The Oral History of 9/11 by Graff, Garrett M. (Author) Amazon logo

One New York Police Department member said this about it all: “I’ve never heard screaming like I did on that day. It was all men. It was unbelievable screaming. I’m thinking about how I’m probably going to die and about my kids.” And those involved in the rescue will never forget that day either. Consider what Jennifer Meyers, a dispatcher at the Arlington County Emergency Communications Center, said:

All of us who worked that day can recall moments that will stay with us for the rest of our lives. Mine was a phone call from a man who spoke with extreme calmness – I believe he might have been in shock. He told me he knew his wife had been on the plane that went into the Pentagon, and he knew she was no longer alive. What he was requesting was for me to assist him in finding out who was sitting by her. He wanted to know what her last words had been – he wanted to speak to the survivors. My heart sank. His voice is ingrained on me forever. What I was not allowed to release to the public yet was that they were almost certain there were no survivors on the plane.

Bruno Dellinger, who made it out of the North Tower, said this:

When I got home, the first thing I did was take my suit off, and – don’t ask me why, I think it may be unconsciously because I thought there might be some human remains in those ashes – I collected them, put them into a small box. I was never able to ever wear that suit again, or the tie, or the shoes. For some reason I was inspired to collect that dust and keep it, and I still have it in a small box with the only thing that’s left of my office: a set of keys.

There was little good news on that day. But one good news story came the next day. Graff introduces it this way: “In New York, at what workers and rescuers called ‘The Pile,’ teams searched for the dead and the living, and bucket brigades began sorting and clearing debris, a process that would ultimately encompass 1.8 million tons of wreckage and stretch until May 30, 2002. Early on the second day, rescuers stumbled upon Pasquale Buzzelli’s coworker, Genelle Guzman.”

Genelle had been buried for 27 hours. She said this: “Everybody in my family was in mourning already. They were up all night. They didn’t even entertain the thought that I had made it after the collapse. They went through a moment of thinking I was dead and they were not going to see me again. And, as the Bible says, sadness comes at night, but joy comes in the morning. That’s what happened to my family.”

As she later said:

I was praying for 27 hours. Being the last survivor—it was a huge thing. I felt totally different. When I came out of that rubble, I felt a total conviction. From there I knew that the Holy Spirit was working in me and had changed my life. Since that day, I’ve been serving the Lord. After I came out of the hospital in November, I went to the Brooklyn Tabernacle Church. I got baptized. I got married to my boyfriend. I’ve been living the Christian life ever since. I had two kids after that marriage and the Lord has been good to me.

All this – and more – is why we must never forget. But as Zuckoff reminds us, “Already an entire generation has no direct memory of 9/11, despite its daily effects on their lives.” Thus the importance of books like this.

[1928 words]

9 Replies to “September 11, Terrorism, and Memory”

  1. That day is seared in my memory forever but so many people now say it wasn’t real, wasn’t caused by Jihadists etc etc and eventually people will forget. This day changed the world forever.

  2. Our daughter, with her and her husband’s 4 year old and 4 months old daughters, was in their apartment in Washington, DC, watching on TV what was happening in New York when she heard and then saw from the apartment window what had happened at the Pentagon, where her husband was working.
    It was several hours before she was able to discover that he was okay.
    Certainly not a day to be forgotten.

  3. I recall my husband waking me up to watch what was happening on the TV on 9/11. But over the years we’ve had so many saying that it was an “inside job”, that the Towers could not have fallen like they did if it wasn’t by demolition triggers. One of my son’s friend’s lost her uncle that day.

  4. In other countries the carnage continues, as reported by World Watch Monitor and other organisations.

  5. I purchased the book “Only Plane in the Sky.” We all need to remember those that went threw 9/11 on those planes, their families, co-workers and first responders. We have to remember what happened, those that died and those forever affected by muslim terrorists evil acts.

  6. the sad part is on 9/12 before the bodies, what was left of them, were cold the left was blaming America for the attacks. the liberal teachers unions were creating lessons about how we deserved to be attacked and WE should apologize for our foreign policy and how islam is a ‘religion of peace’ and how our policies toward israel forced them to take this extreme action and that these people are freedom fighters not unlike George Washington. either they are actually believe that or are so afraid of islam they how saying this will get them in good with the muslims so that when they take over the USA they will let the liberals live and maybe even stay in charge of some places. basically appeasement. Churchill said the appeaser feds the crocodile hoping it will eat him last. but actually the appeaser hopes the croc wont eat him at all and is surprised when after feeding him everything finds the croc want to eat him too! appeaser: but I fed you. Croc: yes thank you! now get in my mouth!

    sad part 2: the nation and the west have only gotten worse spiritually since that day. it was a wake up call to the American church but most oof the church did not heed it because we had “God’s man in the white house” so everything was cool. we have wed ourselves to politics so much that we have forgotten that cultural change come before political and SPIRITUAL before cultural. America and the west is a bullet train speeding into a dark tunnel, we have long past the last switching post to get on another track, how long we stay in this tunnel is up to how long it take the church to WAKE UP AND DO IT’S JOB! we keep approaching this war with the wrong mentality. (like the guy who shows up to a gun fight with a switchblade.) we think small and can’t see the forest for the trees. THIS IS WAR and we MUST FIGHT IT AS WAR. we need a prolonged spiritual D-Day offensive. I just don’t think most christians have the stomach for such a war. we want to be nice. we want to be loved. we want to love people to heaven. we want to be the barney the purple dinosaur of faiths (yes some christians can be THAT annoying with their sing song sappy version of christianity) we want to show the world we can be just like them and have Christ so that we can win them to Christ. We have forgotten no servant is above his master christ was NOT loved, NOT nice to unrepentant sinners, and NOT acting just like the world in hope of converting people from the world. flock SIZE was not important to him as crowds shrank when the didn’t get what they wanted.

    It is possible God may give yet another wake up call to the america church or possible a dose of judgment short of total destruction to see what her response is. I am betting on the latter. whatever it is it will have to be BIG to wake up a sleeping church here in america and in the west. she is in a VERY DEEP slumber. Whatever God has coming our way will NOT be pretty. God help us all!

  7. I remember an excellent sermon by John Macarthur at his Grace To You Church, the next immediate Sunday after Sept. 11 2001.

    Worth a listen, I’m sure it’s still available there.

  8. Thank you very much, Bill for that Sept 11 message by John MaCarthur. I am sending it to members of my Church Life Group. Much appreciated

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

%d bloggers like this: