By Douglas V. Gibbs
September 11, 2001 is still etched clearly in my memory.
I will not get too deeply into the various theories about 9/11. Is it possible, and even likely, that segments of the U.S. Government could have stopped the attacks, and may have even had a hand in 9/11? It’s possible. Despite alleged evidence, the reality is that from the point of view of the world, it was a Muslim terrorist attack on New York City, the Pentagon, and another target that Flight 93 did not reach on September 11, 2001. Islam had shown its animosity against the “Great Satan”, and there had been an attack against the World Trade Center in New York City before. After 9/11, Muslim populations in the Middle East, and around the world, were dancing in the streets with glee. Today, Muslim Communists on the rise in our own country proclaim not only that it was an Islamic attack against America, but from their point of view America brought it upon itself and deserved it. And, twenty-five years after the 9/11 attack, as America proclaimed they would never forget, New York City has a Muslim/Communist mayor.
The Islamic enemy allegedly behind the 9/11 attacks hates America. That is a no-brainer.
I try to stay away from arguments that dance along the extreme. I am the type of person that doesn’t tend to jump to conclusions. I need to study the evidence. I need to come to my own point of view based on that evidence. So, I don’t necessarily chase any of the various conspiracy theories regarding what happened twenty-five years ago. Unfortunately, we live in an age where if you disagree with one side it is assumed you must be an extreme inhabitant of the other side. If you don’t believe the conspiracy theories, then you must believe the entire official narrative, hook-line-and-sinker. If you don’t want to defund the police you must love everything that police officers do. If you don’t hate Israel, then you must approve of every move by the Israeli government. If you are against socialism then you must love all corporations and support fully the misshapen form of capitalism that currently exists in the United States. If you support an originalist view of the Constitution and Donald J. Trump then you must be an insurrectionist, bigot, and rightwing extremist. If you agree with Donald Trump’s operations in Iran then you support illegal wars and you are a war-monger.
The reality is, there are more often than not reasonable varying degrees in between.
9/11 is no different.
The reality is, we’ve been in a forever war for over two-hundred years, and 9/11 was simply the latest manifestation of that war. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison fought the war we are in with Islam during their presidencies when they engaged the Barbary States. 9/11, however, was more than a mere attack by Islam. So much more was connected to it, and since then the war against America has expanded. 9/11 seemed to be an opening salvo on a new fiercer battlefield that also includes globalism, progressivism, cultural Marxism, and the Democratic Socialists who have all increased their campaigns aimed at destroying American Liberty from within.
On that fateful day in 2001, I was working in the construction industry. I first saw the image of New York City’s Twin Towers at the World Trade Center being hit by airplanes as I walked in the door at home from a long day at work.
We had heard about it at work, but the information was sketchy until I got home. But when I saw the image of that second plane plunging into one of the towers, I knew that what was going on was not just some tragedy. It was an act of war.
I visited Ground Zero thirteen months later. I bought a hat with an image of the twin towers, and the words “Never Forget,” on it, and a small painting with the iconic image of the firemen hoisting the American Flag.
When I walked up to the green fencing surrounding the hole that used to be the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers, I didn’t know what to expect. I had never seen the Twin Towers in person. This was my first trip to New York City.
I peered through a hole that had been torn in the green fabric on the construction fencing, and as I looked down I witnessed a huge hole in the ground with twisted subway tracks at the bottom. To my left, on a building that had sustained a little damage, hung a giant mural of the American Flag, and the words “Never Forget.”
A man standing beside me looked through the hole in the fencing as I pulled away from it. After he spent a few moments looking through the hole, I said, “I never saw what they looked like.”
“You mean the towers?” he asked.
“Yeah, the World Trade Center. This is my first trip to New York. I’m from the Los Angeles area, and I never saw what the towers looked like.”
The man lowered his eyes, and said, “The New York skyline is not the same. They dominated the skyline. It’s not the same.”
“Were they tall?” I asked.
“They towered over the other skyscrapers. Now, when you are outside the city, and you look towards the city, you can tell that something is missing. The skyline is not the same.”
We were silent for a moment, then he asked, “Have you seen the Statue of Liberty?”
“Yes,” I replied. “This morning. She’s beautiful.”
“Yes,” he said, “she is lovely.”
“I was at the Arlington Cemetery yesterday. Saw the Statue of Liberty this morning. Then we came here.”
The man turned to face me, his eyes, and the cheeks below them, were wet. “I worked in the towers,” he said. “I was running late to work, that morning. I watched the planes fly into the towers from my car. I was supposed to be in them that morning. The towers, I mean. I haven’t been back here since. Today is my first visit to the hole that once was the twin towers since it happened.
“I lost a lot of friends, that day,” he continued. “People were running in all directions. We didn’t know what to think. We just knew that what was happening was horrible. When the second plane flew into the tower, I knew it was no accident. They meant to do this. They meant to kill thousands of people.
“It only took a couple hours for the towers to fall. I was far enough away so I wasn’t in danger, but the white cloud after they fell was horrendous. The smoke and dust covered the entire city. It seemed like there was no escape. The people. All of those people in the towers. All of those people in the streets near the towers. They were dead. All of them. They were dead.”
I didn’t know what to say, but as I looked around I noticed that we were no longer alone. A group of about twenty people had surrounded us, listening to the man tell me about the day the towers fell. Some of them were probably locals, but most of them were probably tourists. Nonetheless, they were all crying. They were crying with him, feeling his grief. Feeling his pain.
Reaching over, I placed my hand on the man’s shoulder, and he suddenly, to my surprise, reached over and pulled me into a hug. He wept on my shoulder like a child, releasing the anger and pain of a year’s worth. Nobody walked away. Everyone remained around us, each with their head bowed, mourning with him, praying for all of us.
We stood near that green fence around the hole that used to be the World Trade Center Twin Towers for quite a while, in a tearful embrace. At that moment, I was no longer a Californian, and he was no longer a New Yorker. We were both Americans. We were both Americans grieving for our fallen.
Afterward, we shook hands, and as he looked me in the eye he said, “Never forget.”
Another tear rolled down his wet cheeks.
I nodded, but said nothing as our hands separated, and the man walked away. The crowd slowly dispersed, and my wife walked up to me, after approaching from around the corner asking, “Did I miss something?”
“Yeah,” I said, “But I couldn’t describe it properly if I tried.”
It was at that moment that 9/11 truly became alive to me. The disconnect I had before, being a West Coast Southern Californian, was gone. The image of the hole below became etched in my memory. The tears of the people around me as the man that had lost his skyline wept remains with me still.
A family member later bought a book for me titled “Portraits 9/11/01,” which is the collected “Portraits of Grief” from the New York Times, and I read each and every one of the portraits of the people listed in that book. Another book, given to me by my mother, titled “Report From Ground Zero” by Dennis Smith, who was one of the firefighters on the scene, served to educate me more on what happened that day, and each day that followed.
I have a portrait of the World Trade Center on the wall. It has two images in it, both showing what the skyline looked like before 9/11, with the two towers dominating the scene. At the bottom the words read, “World Trade means World Peace.”
Unfortunately, to those 19 hijackers on September 11, 2001, peace was the last thing on their mind. Instead of peace, on that morning, two hijacked jetliners struck the twin towers of the World Trade Center. The 110 stories of both towers collapsed. Between the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and United 93, the death toll was 2,977. Nearly 3,000 men, women and children died that day in an act of war against the United States committed by an angry hybrid of politics and religion still embracing middle ages barbarism that claims to be a religion of peace. Islam is a political ideology that claims to be a religion. Simple as that.
The man who wept told me to never forget.
I shan’t.
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
