Concrete, Steel, Blood
Concrete, Steel, blood.
I've been offline for while because of my new workload, plus a family vacation to California the week before Labor day. I'd written some things on the Palm during vacation that I was going to post. That kind of seems, well, pointless right now.
Tuesday morning, my wife came home from running some errands and called for me to check the news–an airplane had hit the World Trade Center, she said. I was finishing a paragaraph of a story I was filing, and slowly started to wander toward the stairs, until I heard her shout, “Oh my God! Come quick!”
A few minutes later, as we watched, the second plane hit the south tower.
Back at Memorial Day, we had been up in New York and had stayed at the Marriott World Trade Center– the hotel between the two towers. During the three-day weekend, the Trade Center was a ghost town; My older son had made a game of sprinting between the towers and touching one, then the other. We went up to the observation deck, then out onto the roof, and watched the sunset from atop the building my grandfather had helped build as a construction electrician. The memories are still fresh, still vivid.
We met a family from England that we had run into in line for the Statue of Liberty that morning. We took their picture for them , and we returned the favor. We stayed up there until the wind came up and the temperature dropped, then we stayed up there some more, finally coming down reluctantly from the chill.
Two days later, and I still have this sick feeling. I've seen death before, I've lost friends before, I've known violence before from my time in the service. Those things pale in the shadow of this.
Rory Thompson, a friend of mine from my InformationWeek days, who works with me on the new magazine I'm at, is a volunteer fireman on Long Island. Our NY offices were closed yesterday, so he and some other firefighters went into the city to help with the rescue and recovery operations. He e-mailed everyone today:
The news footage you see on TV does not tell the story. The
devastation and destruction are well beyond any words I have to describe
such a scene. It was reminscent of many war and invasion movies we've seen
in the past, but this is real. At one point I stopped to catch my breath,
and looked up and about. The buildings surrounding World Trade are scorched
and smashed. Metal parts hang precariously, rocking in the breeze.
Shattered windows lend mute testimony to the forces of the blasts and
subsequent collapses.
As we dug with our hands and shovels through the rubble, we were
aching to find someone, hoping for a sound, or to see some movement. At the
same time, we were quietly horrified at the prospect of finding a body …
or a body part. While I was there, we found none of the former, and,
unfortunately, too much of the latter.
It was hot, sweaty work, and I'd hung my turnout coat on a pole near
the firehouse at One World Trade. At about 5:30 a cry went out, “That
building's coming down!” and we ran up the street; all I saw were asses and
elbows as we grabbed each other and sprinted. Four blocks later we stopped
and looked back, but the building (One Liberty Street) was still standing.
Operations were suspended at that time, so we decided to pack up and
head for home, four of us without our coats.
Firemen have an emotional attachment to their gear, and I really liked that
turnout coat. But you know what? It's just a coat.
Despite what any “news pundits” say to the contrary, New York's
Financial District will be closed until Spring, at the earliest. The
devastation to infrastructure and the surrounding neighborhoods is complete
and utter. Once the search for victims is ended (which by itself will take
weeks), then all surrounding structures have to be checked. Many will have
to be demolished.
Rory had friends who worked in the towers. He had friends who were firemen who responded to the…what do you call this thing, other than disaster? He's probably lost many of those friends. I don't know how many people I know were there; certainly the people I'd met during our stay there, and folks I knew growing up on Long Island. But I can't begin to measure my emotions against Rory's; it would be impossible.
When the turret exploded on the Iowa, 47 of my friends died. I wept. How does one even begin to express themselves over this, the death of thousands?
My oldest, Kevin, is shaken. I don't know how much. I've reassured him, comforted him, but I don't know how deeply this has affected him. My younger son, Jonah, is 7; he can't begin to wrap his head around it.
I went to church Tuesday. Father Bob, a retired priest who does some of the masses at our parish, was there; our pastor is in Ireland on vacation. Father Bob has a history of problems with his off-the-cuff statements (and then there's his “wrestling naked with Jesus” dream that he mentions in one of his homilies). He continued that history Tuesday night–he chose to put the deaths in perspective by mentioning how it didn't even compare to the numbers of unborn babies killed every year. A parishoner and lay minister, Ed, managed to get up at the cantor's podium and hijack the service back toward why we were there–to gather as a community and take strength from being with each other. Thank God for Ed.
The gospel says to turn the other cheek, to love your enemy. Somehow, I don't think that George Bush is asking his cabinet, “What would Jesus do?” It's going to be Old Testament time at the White House; an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. I've been down that road before, in the Gulf against Iran and in Panama. I was lucky, and never fired a shot in anger, but I know plenty who did and never came back. I've seen the aftermath. And I know that whatever we do in response to this will come back upon us tenfold, as the things that this country has done in the past did this Tuesday.
But that much blood calls out for justice in measure. And it's a call that can't –and undoubtedly won't–be ignored. I pray for those people in New York, but I also pray for the world, because forces that have been building for the last half century are now set to be unleashed. And once they're let loose, there's no quick way to stop them.
