"9/11 Remembered"

                                                                     Sydney M. Williams 

“9/11 Remembered” 

September 11, 2021

 

The attack on September 11, 2001was unique for our country, in that it was perpetrated by a state-less, Islamic terrorist organization and cowardly directed at civilians. Nevertheless, one cannot help but contrast that attack with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 (“A day which will live in infamy!), especially when we consider the state of our nation twenty years out. Both were surprises and both resulted with our country going to war.

 

What is most striking between 12/7 (Pearl Harbor) and 9/11 is the difference twenty years meant. In the first instance, we had moved on with confidence. In the second, we are mired in self-doubt. Approximately 75 million people died during World War II, in a world that had less than one third of the population it has today – an incomprehensible loss of life. The two principal protagonists, Germany and Japan, had their economies destroyed; within four years both had surrendered unconditionally. Yet, by 1961 both had rebounded and represented the third and fifth largest economies in the world. In large part that was because of the forward thinking of the victors, acceptance of loss by the losers, and the compassion and generosity of the people of the United States. To help stabilize both countries, troops were stationed in their homelands, with U.S. troops still there. In the second instance, the enemy was amorphous. They were Islamists and terrorists, but not representative of a specific country. Fifteen of the nineteen terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 came from Saudi Arabia, two from the United Arab Emirates, one from Lebanon and one from Egypt. All were affiliated with the militant Islamist group al-Qaeda. They had been given sanctuary in the Taliban-run country of Afghanistan. Over the past two decades, US and NATO forces exorcised the Taliban from governing Afghanistan, but this unconventional enemy was always difficult to define and defeat. So that. as of August 31, 2021, the black and white Taliban flag once again flew over the capital city of Kabul.     

 

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Even before 2001, September 11 had special meaning for me and my wife. It was on that day in 1966 our first child was born. In 2001 that son, his wife and six-month-old son were living in London. The weekend before that fateful day they arrived at our home in Old Lyme. He was on a business trip, which took him to Boston on Monday the 10^th and to New York City that evening. When the two planes hit the Twin Towers the next morning he was, thank God, at his hotel. Later that morning, he came to my office in midtown, and together we walked the twenty blocks north to New York Cornell Medical Center to give blood.

 

Our youngest son’s wife was on an early morning flight from Buffalo to LaGuardia. She landed before the terrorists struck. He was in his midtown office where they were both employed as security analysts. Later that morning, they both – she six months pregnant with their first child – walked the fifty blocks north to their apartment. Our daughter was at her home in Rye, New York, with her fourteen-month-old daughter. Her husband, our son-in-law, was in his midtown office. He walked the eighty blocks north to catch a train to Rye.

 

My wife and other daughter-in-law were driving from Old Lyme to Rye. When I was finally reached them, I urged them to turn around, but my wife (correctly) insisted we all be together.

 

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When the first plane hit, I thought, like many, that a small plane had veered off course. By the time the second plane hit, which was televised, we knew it was a deliberate act of war. Hearing about the plane that hit the Pentagon and United Flight 93, which crashed, because of the actions taken by brave passengers, into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, we all felt a plethora of emotions: incredulity, disbelief, sorrow, anger and a sense of patriotism – we were all Americans.

Now, twenty years out, we should acknowledge that evil does exist, but even more important, we must never forget that the United States, with all its flaws, is an exceptional nation – that freedom and opportunity are rare, that they are not free, but that we have them. Now, there are those who would like to change our system of free-market capitalism; they would like to increase the role of, and dependency on, government. It sounds an attractive objective, but it is one that comes with a loss of self-reliance, individual liberty and brings with it an authoritarian government. It is an avenue we should consider wisely and carefully before committing ourselves. In the meantime, we should give thanks for the good fortune that is ours to live in this place – a nation that is hated by a few extremists (and loathed by some of our own citizens), but it is one that serves (and has served) as a beacon to the world’s oppressed, those who yearn to be free, and who want the opportunities the United States offers.