Thursday, September 11, 2008
Remembering the forgotten
I try not to get on my soap box while on tour, I really do try. But this sunny morning in Bethesda, Maryland, as we prepared to leave at 7 a.m. for a day of tours in Williamsburg and Jamestown, Virginia, I found it hard not to remember the events of 9/11/01. How could anyone forget the news from Pennsylvania, New York City, and Washington, DC? A nation, gripped in fear, watched the TV non-stop as the reports grew increasingly dire. First shock. Then horror. Then disbelief. And then, for most, anger.
“We’ll never forget!”
Well guess what America?
You forgot.
This morning’s Washington Post offers a haunting photograph of the new Pentagon Memorial, to the victims of 9/11/01. For once, Washington (and more appropriately, Arlington, VA) got something right. The “country’s first major 9/11 memorial” it is being called. And the article goes on to explain how, in 2001, the thought for the funds to build such a Memorial would be the least of the eventual designer’s worries. But trouble it was. And it took a concerted effort by family members to make it happen, not the government. Lisa Dolan, whose husband was killed at the Pentagon, said “I don’t think the public thinks much about 9/11 now.” I agree.
All the people that couldn’t purchase an American flag to fly outside their homes quickly enough in September 2001, many for the first time in their lives, have somehow found many more important things to commemorate. A government full of blowhard politicians that paraded the cause of protecting ourselves through campaign ads and TV commercials featuring the destruction front and center—they sit idle today, more interested in their own re-election than properly funding other 9/11 Memorials. Where I use to ride through North Jersey neighborhoods awash in red, white, and blue in late 2001, now those communities seem much less colorful.
I have only led group tours since 2004, so I can’t say what it was like back in 2001 as far as motor-coach conversations with adults and students regarding the events of that day. But, whenever I mention anything about 9/11 on the coach many passengers ask where I was. I was less than a couple miles away, watching both Twin Towers falls across the Hudson River in Lower Manhattan. I can never forget that moment. My mind might want to let me, but I make a point of remembering that day, that moment, and all the wonderful (and maybe, sometimes not so wonderful) people that were lost in Manhattan, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. They didn’t ask for their fate, save for a few of the “pilots”. All gone. All too soon.
I make it a part of my commentary to lead a discussion in some sort of way whenever we’re preparing to visit any of the local sites where the murders occurred. The story of the lost needs to be contemplated, needs to be discussed, needs to be remembered.
In Arlington, Virginia, starting at 7 p.m., and continuing non-stop, 24 hours a day, visitors will reflect on that dreadful day through the design of Keith Kaserman and Julie Beckman. Their $22 million Memorial will give the families and those who do remember a proper place to honor those hopes, dreams, and lives lost.
In Shanksville, Pennsylvania and New York City today, visitors will stand and stare at an open field, an open pit, and wonder how a nation forgot.
By fboronski
Tom, yesterday I worked in Washington doing a tour for the first time in 7 years.--not intentionally. I was in the cemetery when the Pentagon blew up and the next day as we abandoned Washington to continue our tour to Williamsburg I remember telling the pax that I never thought I would give commentary of a smoldering Pentagon as we drove south on 395. I greeted my incentive travelers at 8:50AM to proceed to the Capitol for a tour. I told them we would arrive at the Capitol in the vicinity of 9:37AM and left to them their own commemoration of that moment. And I told them I wanted to share only one story--the caring and compassion of those who run Arlington Cemetery: there are 5 families who received no remains from the Pentagon. On the 2nd anniversary a 5-sided memorial was dedicated and placed in Section 64--not far from Section 60 where the Afghanistan and Iraqi fighters are interred. It listed every name of the dead. Underneath the memorial are unidentifiable remains. They were so minute as to be indistinguishable. But they was sufficient material for the Cemetery to assure families that there were no terrorists among the runs. And they asked the 5 families who received no remains to serve as next of kin for the memorial dedication.
And then for the next 2 years I took every group past the Pentagon and told the story of 9/11. Now, I carry a laminated photo from the news magazine for 8th graders and tell them pretty much what I tell them about the Holocaust museum...we are here because it is their turn to remember. What I don’t tell them is the the economic terrorist goals have been achieved and we are still living with the results. Don’t know if the teachers will be up for the walk. I took my adults past it yesterday at their request. It was nice to be on the peaceful streets.