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Spencer
Abraham If there is one thing I would like people to remember about that day and the days that followed, it is that government worked — from the highest elected officials, to the police and firefighters who gave their lives to save others at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, to the employees who performed the unnoticed but essential jobs that secured the nation from further attacks that day and in the full year since.
Even as nonessential Department of Energy employees were being evacuated and sent home, we ceased all nuclear operations around the country, halted all shipments of nuclear materials and secured all nuclear materials in approximately 90 minutes. We monitored key energy infrastructure, and heightened security at nuclear plants, refineries, pipelines, distribution points, and along the electricity transmission grid. And we monitored and assessed the nation's oil and gas supply, including the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Immediately following the attacks were scattered reports on gas stations in some regions of the country that were charging as much as $5 per gallon of gasoline based on rumors of disruptions in the gasoline supply system. The Department of Energy worked the phones hard to quash those rumors and make it clear that there was no justification for significant spikes in gas prices. Within a day, we had reopened our facilities and resumed operations. I'm pleased to report that our nuclear materials are, if anything, safer today than they were one year ago. And we continue to monitor key energy-infrastructure security closely, and to assess the status of the nation's oil and gas supply. I am tremendously pleased and gratified by the dedication of the people I have the privilege of leading at the Department of Energy. The "other shoe," a second terrorist attack, has not dropped, in large part because people at all levels of government have worked so hard and successfully to protect the American people. In thinking of September 11 and its aftermath, that should not be overlooked.
Anita
Blair Wednesday morning, September 12, fires still burned at the Pentagon, but the SecDef declared business as usual. My car was still where I'd parked it 24 hours before, so I rode to the Navy Annex and then walked the last smoky half mile. The Pentagon outside looked hellish, but thanks to television, weirdly familiar. Inside it looked strange, rung with yellow POLICE SCENE tape, our friendly guards suddenly swinging M4s. Everywhere big, sooty boot prints covered the polished floors wall to wall. What hot, hard work it must have been to comb those long corridors in heavy gear. At each junction every soda machine stood upright, locked, empty, and blinking. I felt ashamed thinking of rescuers digging for "EXACT CHANGE ONLY" just to get a slug of Coke. Apart from the acrid smell, my office was untouched. Barbara Olson, a friend of ten years, and Capt. Jack Punches, USN (Ret), a friend of ten days — both gone together in the same instant. Just before the plane hit, I had been marking a piece of text on my computer screen. One day later I pressed "CTRL-V" (paste) and the text reappeared — an insignificant thought interrupted by eternity.
Lucianne
Goldberg One thing I remember most vividly about the attacks was how physically debilitating fear of the unknown and overwhelming grief can be. By the end of that fateful day I was so weak with the pain of it I could not function. As the days and weeks moved on I experienced, to a lesser degree, the same feeling of impotence and weakness every time I witnessed the skirl of a bagpipe, the face of a dead fireman's child, or God Bless America sung by a children's chorus. The only time I was able to dissipate the feelings of inadequacy and self-pity was to look at the pictures of the flaming towers, of the dust-coated people fleeing, and the jumpers falling as they held hands. Then blind rage became the antidote to misery and I could function. Prayer and pity for loss is a cleansing thing but it is fire of outrage than fuels forward motion. It dawned on me in the buildup to the nonstop theater of anniversary angst how manipulative sentimentality can be. Those whose goal it is to make us miserable weaken our resolve. Those who convince us that we are cold and unfeeling if we even for a moment entertain thoughts of justice, and yes, revenge, seek to disarm us. They seek to subjugate us by making us inadequate to any task other than weeping and rending our garments. Save for our own personal historical diary — it matters not where we were when anything momentous happened. What matters is the lesson learned. What I've learned is that crying makes one sick and a sick person can be sold just about any deceptive package. Sadness is depressing and someone depressed cannot act decisively. Hymns and parades and plaques are a necessary show of respect for those who are dead but they produce nothing constructive and do not clear the mind and eye. I've learned that one can refuse to be a victim and the sentimentality of prolonged mourning serves no other purpose than victimhood and to keep us weak so that those with a sinister agenda can have their way. I shall not weep again. I shall only listen to or sing hymns of joy and renewal and moving on. Someone tell me when we start to roll. I'm ready.
Lee
Greenwood I was in Los Angeles, California on business last Sept. 11. (where incidentally, I was born). I received a wake-up call from my wife in Tennessee. Horrified, I watched the second plane hit the South Tower in New York City. The enormous loss of life had a tremendous impact on me as I'm sure it did on all who watched. Like everyone else, I tried to understand what had happened, and what was going to happen next. The next few hours I began communications to my office and my home. While the next attack took place the immediate questions were: Are the attacks over? What will be the next target? Is my family safe? Are we at WAR? The government smartly shut down air traffic to prevent any further attacks. Although the right thing to do for the safety of Americans, it stranded over a million people who were traveling. I began to think how much I longed to be home. The security of my family was a concern and I wondered when business start up again? Today, one year later, I still have the same thoughts. I think about the military and how they would feel the same. Facing the threat to protect the nation but trusting others to take care of those they love at home. As time goes by, we may begin to feel somewhat safe again. But America now realizes that no place on earth is a safe haven. Only constant vigilance as care takers of freedom will ensure our future and that of our children.
Ted
Nugent
William
McGurn Finally I called my wife, who told me about the attack. And when we looked up across the river, we watched the first tower come down in smoke but couldn't comprehend what we were watching. Even if someone had told me that the tower was falling down, I would have imagined it tipping over. When we realized the horror we decided to get on the train out, figuring the station would soon be overwhelmed with people trying to get out. As we pulled out with the WTC to our backs, people were frantically dialing their cell phones, and I heard a man say, "The second tower is down." Immediately I remembered Augustine's description of hearing that Rome had fallen. My brother-in-law was across from one of the towers, and my brother Brian was in one of those towers, and only later did I learn that he not only escaped but was one of the heroes, helping (along with a colleague) a pregnant woman out. But the images that seared in my mind had less to do with what I saw that day than the devastation it exerted closer to home. Three men in my parish were killed that day. Each funeral was a terrible beauty. But the one that seared in my mind was for Tim Hughes, a Cantor Fitzgerald exec who lived up the road. At the Mass at St. Vincent Martyr Church, grown men broke down delivering eulogies. As long as I live I shall never forget the sight of his two boys, fatherless, standing up on the altar, one speaking about his father while the other (and all of us) suppressed tears. Along with other unsettling things that brought the horror home — the cars still in the commuter-train lots late at night, each one representing a dad or mom who would never come home — this funeral for Tim Hughes remains the lasting image I have, of the evil that was done to this family, and the innocent, grief-stricken faces of boys heroically paying tribute to their father, boys who seemed to have become men, before my eyes and surely before their time.
Bill
Simon We were talking about old times and the future. In particular, I was getting advice from Rudy about my own campaign for governor of California, which was still in early days. I had not yet even made my final announcement. Just as we were finishing up breakfast, a member of Rudy's team came up to us and handed a cell phone to Denny Young, one of Rudy's longtime aides. Denny then handed the phone to Rudy. He listened intently and then told me, "A plane has hit the World Trade Center; I've got to go." As Rudy and his team jumped in their cars to speed south, even though at that time we didn't know the full extent of the attacks, I remember thinking, "New York is in good hands." We all watched that day unfold in horror, and I later learned that I had lost a close cousin, and several good friends. It was a day of conflicting emotions — sadness, wonder, anger, amazement, awe, patriotism, pride, and more, all wrapped into one. And of course, my confidence in Rudy's leadership was on display for the world to see. In days that followed, as I struggled to get back to California to see my family, I had time to reflect on why I was running for governor of California. Those days immediately following the attacks cemented in my mind my desire to be of greater service to my state and nation.
Victoria
Toensing I have lost friends to death before — brain tumor, lung cancer, car wreck, the usual. But nothing prepared me for my reaction to September 11 and the death of my friend Barbara Olson. For some reason, a year later, I am incapable of saying her name without the lips quivering, the throat catching, and the mist forming in my eyes. I know that part of the emotion is sadness because I recall the fun we had politicking, like the morning we met on the Hill with mutual friend Barbara Comstock to plan what needed to be done to ensure husband Ted's confirmation as solicitor general. "It's up to the women," we chorused and laughed throughout our planning session. I also feel cheated out of the many events she and Ted, and my spouse, Joe diGenova, were planning to enjoy together, from bike riding in Italy to fighting over which was the best California Merlot. But there is another emotion, one that I feel to my core each time I think of the terrorists crashing Barbara's American Airlines plane into the Pentagon. I feel anger. And I don't know how to get rid of it nor do I think I want to. |
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