Remembrance Day
Sep. 11th, 2006 08:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wordwitchIn 2001, I was working 8-5 in downtown Milwaukee. One of my colleagues typically started at 7 because she wanted to be out of there by 4. She, unlike myself, had a radio.
When I came into the library on September 11, she said to me, "A plane just crashed into the World Trade Center. They don't know if it was an accident or not!" As I listened to her recapping the news, one of the guys upstairs came in and wheeled the library TV into the cafeteria. I went in to help set it up, and moments after we had the station tuned in, live footage came through of a second plane crashing into the second tower.
I remember saying, "Oh, that's no accident."
I remember watching as the buildings shuddered and collapsed, and the people turning to flee.
I remember a bright, fierce feeling that did not then go into grief. I remember thinking, "That was a big mistake." I remember adrenaline, and focus, and the immediate efforts to discover where our staff were.
I remember getting the news about the Pentagon, and thinking: "They must have diverted them away from the Capitol and the White House." I remember going to my online community and trying to find our where our members were - we had several vital people in Washington, and we later got news that a beloved elder had walked the 20-odd miles from the Capitol to her home in Maryland.
I remember the air shutdown.
The silence over the next three days was unimaginable: I had never before known how much background noise aircraft give off until it was gone. My heartrate zoomed every time I heard aircraft, because I knew that they were military. We watched camoflage-painted helicopters going by at low levels, and convoys of military trucks and humvees.
I remember the flag being hung behind the TV in the cafeteria, and the messages of support coming in from all over the world. I remember finding out that we had lost a couple of people.
I remember the swell of music from everywhere. I was singing the Star Spangled Banner, and the Battle Hymn of the Republic, just to let the pressure off my heart - and the same music was coming from everywhere. My lady let me hang her grandfather's flag outside, and the upstairs neighbors let me hang it from their windows to get some height. I remember the candlelight vigil.
I remember not hearing a bloody thing from our commander in chief for hours.
The grief came out later.
I remember hearing about Flight 93, and the passengers finding out about the other planes and deciding to do something about their own. I remember learning that one of the men who launched the counter-assault was gay, and the sheer pride that went through me at that.
I am a pinko leftist commie-symp bleeding-heart liberal feminist, and I remember being poised like a leashed hunting dog, eager to be loosed upon the correct target.
And all we were given to do was to donate blood, which I cannot do (insufficient iron). We would have sacrificed anything, done anything, to redress this calamity; and we wanted to do so. And we were told to "go about our normal lives."
I have never forgiven Mr. Bush for that.
I have also never forgiven him for capitulating to the demands of the terrorists, and shoving our nation as hard as he could toward social conservative uniculturalism of the most unforgiving, intolerant sort - the kind that the terrorists found and find to be the most acceptable.
I will never, ever, forgive him, or them, for that.
May we never forget.
When I came into the library on September 11, she said to me, "A plane just crashed into the World Trade Center. They don't know if it was an accident or not!" As I listened to her recapping the news, one of the guys upstairs came in and wheeled the library TV into the cafeteria. I went in to help set it up, and moments after we had the station tuned in, live footage came through of a second plane crashing into the second tower.
I remember saying, "Oh, that's no accident."
I remember watching as the buildings shuddered and collapsed, and the people turning to flee.
I remember a bright, fierce feeling that did not then go into grief. I remember thinking, "That was a big mistake." I remember adrenaline, and focus, and the immediate efforts to discover where our staff were.
I remember getting the news about the Pentagon, and thinking: "They must have diverted them away from the Capitol and the White House." I remember going to my online community and trying to find our where our members were - we had several vital people in Washington, and we later got news that a beloved elder had walked the 20-odd miles from the Capitol to her home in Maryland.
I remember the air shutdown.
The silence over the next three days was unimaginable: I had never before known how much background noise aircraft give off until it was gone. My heartrate zoomed every time I heard aircraft, because I knew that they were military. We watched camoflage-painted helicopters going by at low levels, and convoys of military trucks and humvees.
I remember the flag being hung behind the TV in the cafeteria, and the messages of support coming in from all over the world. I remember finding out that we had lost a couple of people.
I remember the swell of music from everywhere. I was singing the Star Spangled Banner, and the Battle Hymn of the Republic, just to let the pressure off my heart - and the same music was coming from everywhere. My lady let me hang her grandfather's flag outside, and the upstairs neighbors let me hang it from their windows to get some height. I remember the candlelight vigil.
I remember not hearing a bloody thing from our commander in chief for hours.
The grief came out later.
I remember hearing about Flight 93, and the passengers finding out about the other planes and deciding to do something about their own. I remember learning that one of the men who launched the counter-assault was gay, and the sheer pride that went through me at that.
I am a pinko leftist commie-symp bleeding-heart liberal feminist, and I remember being poised like a leashed hunting dog, eager to be loosed upon the correct target.
And all we were given to do was to donate blood, which I cannot do (insufficient iron). We would have sacrificed anything, done anything, to redress this calamity; and we wanted to do so. And we were told to "go about our normal lives."
I have never forgiven Mr. Bush for that.
I have also never forgiven him for capitulating to the demands of the terrorists, and shoving our nation as hard as he could toward social conservative uniculturalism of the most unforgiving, intolerant sort - the kind that the terrorists found and find to be the most acceptable.
I will never, ever, forgive him, or them, for that.
May we never forget.
