A Gaping Hole

“I’m proud to be an American-- where at least, I know I’m free. And I won’t forget the men who died, who gave that right to me. And I’ll gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today. ‘Cause there ain’t no doubt, I love this land. God Bless the U.S.A.”

That is the chorus of a song that I love. Lee Greenwood made it a #1 hit during the summer of 1984, and I remember getting choked up the first few times I heard it. I was fighting for my life that summer, but I never paid the ultimate sacrifice. I was in a war but I’d enlisted, and I knew what I was up against. Those 2, 977 innocent victims of terrorism who died on September 11, 2001 did not enlist, and they did not suspect. They went to work or stepped onto an airplane, thinking the world was safe. Sane. Thinking that they would return home to their loved ones that evening.

How can we come to terms with what happened? How can we forgive? Can we ever forget?

Personally, I don’t WANT to forget. And truth be told, I am glad those 19 high-jackers died that day. For if they hadn’t... what would we have done? How long would we have had to look at them, and support them, and wrestle with what to do with them? How much longer would it have taken to heal our wounds, then? They may have firmly believed they were fighting for a good cause. That they were making the ultimate sacrifice to forward their sick and twisted agenda. Their campaign of hate against the western world. They might have truly believed there would be virgins awaiting them. Is it seven virgins? Nine? Nineteen? If I cared enough, I’d look it up. But I don’t care about them. They’re dead, and I’m glad. If that makes me a terrible person, then so be it.

They were wrong. Dead wrong. Violence is never the answer. And no god worth following would advocate the killing of innocent people. No god worth his or her salt would encourage a people to raise their children to hate.

I’m proud to be an American. For all my country’s faults, Americans’ hearts are in the right place. We’ve always tried to be accepting—often to the point of absurdity. We bend over backwards to make foreigners feel welcome. To give them the freedoms we’ve enjoyed… the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The freedom to worship whomever and however they choose. The right to speak out when they disagree with our policies. We haven’t been parsimonious… we’ve shared our privileges and our bounty with people the whole world over.

Some people don’t know a good thing when they see it.

Last year I visited the memorial at the World Trade Center. In the past, I’ve written about how that experience affected me. I’ll never forget the faces on the wall… the victims of terror’s power.

I’ll always remember the faces of the firefighters who backed the truck into the annex next door while I watched… the faces of those left behind to remember their fallen comrades. They confront that gaping hole every day. How do they do that? How do they survive?


I saw the twisted steel. The cell phone. The shoe. That steel couldn’t stand the inferno. The cell phone which was used to call for help. The shoe… just one lone shoe.

Someone’s shoe, for the love of God!

I didn’t lose a friend or family member that day, but I lost something essential, nonetheless. I’m a writer, but I can’t find the words to describe what was taken from me. What was stolen from good human beings across this country and around the world. You’ll understand though, won’t you? While I had it, I didn’t recognize it, but now that it is gone, I miss it terribly.

Nine years is a long time, and it’s naught but a heartbeat. My kids were little on that fateful day, now they’re almost grown. Life goes on, and time stands still.

I plan to stand still for a moment tomorrow morning. If you do the same, please remember those who fell and those who miss them. If you pray, pray to a god of love and not of hate, okay? And if you don’t pray, that’s all right, too. We all find our serenity in different ways, and we each have our own personal faiths. We each are free to practice those faiths in peace.

That’s just one of many things which are truly wonderful about this country. We’re allowed that.

God Bless the United States of America.

The World Stopped Turning

Today is September 11th. It has been eight years since the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington DC. Sometimes, it feels like only yesterday…

Today many, many people will be writing about that horrendous day in this country’s history. We need to do that. We need to try to purge it from our systems, I think…although I’m not so sure we can ever successfully eliminate it altogether. The events were simply too tragic and unbelievable. The losses too unimaginable.

Today, rather than write about my own memories of that day, I am going to paste in a copy of one of the columns I wrote for The Irregular after returning from my trip to New York City in May. To those of you who visit and read, I bid you a warm ‘hello’ and a welcome. If you are an American, I am sending you a hug. If you aren’t, I could sure use one, if you’ve any to spare. The world is getting smaller, you know, and we’re all in this together.



During my recent trip to New York City, I was determined to see as many of the sights as possible. I had only two free afternoons in which to experience the biggest city in America. My friend Patty and I walked for approximately eighteen hours during those two half-days. I was sore, but I was happy. We traipsed up and down and around city blocks, rode the subways, and climbed more stairs than I could count. But we saw The Big Apple!

Times Square. Madame Tussauds Wax Museum and the Hard Rock Café. The Empire State Building. Trump Plaza and Central Park. Grand Central Station. Rockefeller Center, NBC and ABC Studios. Broadway, Park Avenue, and my favorite avenue, LEXINGTON! Hell’s Kitchen, the Garment District, the Diamond District, and the Financial District. We shopped in Swatches, ate in Little Italy and, in thrall, watched the indoor ferris wheel at Toy’s R Us. With a backwards ‘R’.

But two of the places that Patty and I visited made profound impressions on me. One was due to the sheer glory of actually seeing it in person, instead of on a television screen--and the other was for the feelings of deep respect and unimaginable loss that it engendered.

Patty and I took the ferry to Liberty Island. Across New York Harbor we cruised, topside in the open air, the Statue of Liberty shrouded in fog ahead of us. I snapped photo after photo of Lady Liberty, simply enchanted that I was looking at her with my own eyes--not on TV, and not in the pages of a magazine or a textbook. There she was! Proud, tall, and green!

Just as the ferry pulled up to the dock, the sun broke through the clouds, and the haze and murk dissipated. I could see her clearly. She dwarfed the small island, the Park Service Buildings and especially the tourists that strolled around her base. Families, students, friends like Patty and me…we were all there to see this wondrous gift bestowed upon our country in 1886 by the people of France, to commemorate our centennial. She was a larger-than-life symbol of friendship between Americans and those far across the very sea we were traversing.

We went ashore and made our way through the gift shop and out into the park proper. The grass was lush, and the deciduous trees created a canopy overhead that dappled the sun-tickled ground at our feet. The paved walks were spotless, the sea wall solid and well-built--everything was pristine. Perfect.

And The Lady. I can’t describe the feeling of pride I felt as I stood there in the early evening sunshine, looking up at this American icon. Through my mind flitted images of some of the movies I’ve seen in which this statue was torn from its foundation. Washed away by a gigantic tidal wave, zapped by an alien laser, uprooted by a tornado and targeted by a terrorist regime. And yet, there she stood, right in front of me. Torch lifted high, face serene, she was stalwart and unbending, watching over the harbor of the greatest country of free men and women in the world. I got goose bumps. A tear. And a smile.

That was the final tourist attraction that Patty and I visited while in New York. But it is not, in my opinion, the most important one. As symbolic as Lady Liberty is, she is just a bit of copper-sheathed steel. Inanimate. A thing of beauty-- but a THING.

Before catching the train to Liberty Park, Patty and I went to Ground Zero. The place where the World Trade Centers once stood—themselves proud and tall.

I’d had reservations about going. I wanted to pay my respects, and yet, seeming to be a tourist in a place where so many lives were lost made me feel… I don’t know. Cheap, perhaps. Like someone who got a charge or an adrenalin rush from being in close proximity to such a calamity. And that in no way was a reflection of how I felt. In the end, Patty and I discussed it, and we decided to visit the site.

There is little remaining that resembles the images that were flashed across television screens worldwide in the days and weeks that followed September 11, 2001. Images of smoke and fire, of twisted steel and debris-filled streets. The ruins are gone, and atop the firm bedrock of the plaza, new industry is taking place. Massive cranes, dump trucks, and laborers in reflective vests are all toiling to replace what was lost with something new--some other edifice that is proud and tall--and significant. Some monument to our strength of spirit, our resolve, and our willingness and desire to move forward with confidence and hope. And in the middle of that concrete jungle that is Manhattan’s Financial District, the sun shone through on that misty afternoon, illuminating the site of one of our nation’s newest battlegrounds. It seemed to shine just for me. My own beacon of confidence and hope.

We made our way to the Visitor’s Center. It is a small museum overlooking Ground Zero, and is housed right next door to one of New York City’s fire department substations. As we waited in line to enter the Center an engine pulled up, a firefighter jumped off the truck, and he moved to direct the driver in backing the rig into its bay. Painted on the side of the truck was a memorial. Ten members of that tiny station were lost on 9/11. My throat closed, my eyes watered. Ten men from just that one, close-knit company. How sad. But how proud I felt to be counted as an American alongside such men!

I’m not going to go into detail regarding what the museum has on display. Anyone who’s interested can easily find photos and information on the internet. I found I simply couldn’t stay inside for very long. In a small back room, two whole walls are covered with the photographs of all those who died as a result of the terrorist attacks on the two towers. I sat on a small bench and stared at those faces. There were smiling faces, hopeful faces, faces caught unaware by the camera and displaying surprise, uncertainty, chagrin. Human faces, just like mine and like those of my loved ones. Faces that belonged to mothers and sons and children and friends. As I sat there, I could hear the screams, I could smell the smoke, and see the flames and the twisted metal. I could feel the panic, the worry, the despair. These faces were never to be seen again, except in photos such as these, and in the memories of those who remained behind to carry on.

I wept.

I don’t often contemplate what it means to be an American. I’ve always been one. I take it for granted. I’m guilty as charged. But once in a while, I’m given a rare opportunity for a moment of reflection. A pause for thought. The WTC Visitor’s Center presented such an occasion. It reinforced my pride in country, but even more—it renewed my pride in my fellow Americans.

As I left that memorial site, I found myself humming the tune to a song. I haven’t heard it since1976, when my cousin Holly and I sang it at a celebration of our country’s bicentennial. It’s been thirty-three years, now--and I can’t remember all of the words--but these few came flooding back into my mind.

Here is a land full of power and glory; beauty that words cannot recall. Oh, Her glory shall rest on the strength of Her freedoms; Her glory shall rest on us all. But… She’s only as rich as the poorest of the poor. Only as free as the padlocked prison door. Only as strong as our love for this land. Only as tall as we stand! Here is a land full of power and glory. Beauty that words cannot recall. Yes, Her glory shall rest on the strength of her freedoms. Her glory shall rest on us all!

As I took one last look at the walls papered with the images of our countrymen and women, I realized that Her glory is resting very well, indeed.

God Bless America and the people who make Her great.