|
September 12, 2001
Never Forget
by Adam
Schorsch
Work must've started normally enough
for the 50,000 some occupants of the World Trade Center
on the morning of Tuesday, September 11th. By 9:00 am,
things would've most likely progressed just like any other
day. But before anyone would've even been able to take
their lunch break, the decisions of a cooperating group
of madmen would've destroyed the lives of countless thousands
of people and left a firestorm of rage and anguish behind
them.
One of New York's most famous landmarks
has been destroyed, brought low by an act of terrorism
so heinous and cowardly that it is very likely the most
destructive of it's kind ever in the city's 400 year history.
The scale of such a tragedy is vast almost beyond reckoning,
but more often than not the population at large is spared
the experience of a terrorist attack on a personal level.
In the Pacific Northwest, there are few
landmarks that carry such prestige as the World Trade
Center - at least not from the standpoint of a deranged
criminal seeking to gain posthumous fame by logging the
highest body count ever in our country's history. As a
result, it becomes easy to feel untouchable, to develop
a false sense of security - to default to the 'it'll never
happen to me' response.
Anyone reading this will undoubtedly
have seen, heard and/or read countless broadcasts and
reports about the tragedy that shattered the relative
calm that existed prior to 9:15 am. In those broadcasts,
commentators will toss around the same catch phrases,
the same tidbits of information, and generally do the
same thing they always do when some juicy disaster promises
big ratings. For those of you reading this, I hope to
bring something a little different to the fore.
My father was scheduled to be on a flight
to Alaska around 6:00 this morning for a much-deserved
fishing trip. It took me almost an hour after hearing
the news to realize that my father, the man I've looked
up to and emulated all my life, may be on one of the two
planes that was unaccounted for. As of the time of this
writing I have heard from him and am thankful that his
was one of the flights that was cancelled when Sea Tac
was shut down, but the possibility was still there.
Of all things that have crossed my mind
since this morning, one troubling fact still remains;
in a matter of minutes, the man I love and admire more
than any other could become a casualty in some madman's
pointless ideological vendetta. For all of you who allow
yourself the luxury of thinking 'it'll never happen to
me', remember exactly how easily your life can be terribly
altered by such a cowardly act of aggression.
There are those who say that we only
barely avoid countless such disasters each year, mostly
thanks to superb intelligence and security protocols.
But when rescue crews are facing a 200,000 ton pile of
rubble containing untold thousands of injured and dying
innocents, no one cares about the disasters that almost
happened.
Never forget how fragile the peace is
that we enjoy every day, nor how hard won. Never forget
the actions of those who would take that peace from us,
nor the valiant efforts of those who risk their lives
in an attempt to mitigate the suffering of those caught
in the middle. ***
© 2001 Adam Schorsch
|
