Five years is a long time - longer than I've been married. One thousand, eight hundred and twenty six days. 43,824 hours. 2,629,440 minutes. I don't think I've met anyone over 10 years of age who doesn't remember exactly where they were and how they felt on the morning of September 11th. Never in history had such a heinous plan been executed with such success and such callousness - certainly not on American soil.

I woke up that morning to the horrific news. A plane had crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers. It was...shocking. It was barely possible to even comprehend such a horrible accident. I can't say for sure how long it was - I was mesmerized by the images on tv, the images the looked like they had come from the worst disaster movie Hollywood had ever issued - but before I realized what was happening, the second plane hit. This was no mere accident. Suddenly, our lives had completely changed. We no longer lived in a country that was isolated, safe from attacks from outside forces. Before this, the Oklahoma City disaster had been the worst on record - but it came from a source within our borders. A crazy person, basically, had perpetrated that horror. And of course, there was the Branch Davidian tragedy; again, a crazy person. But this. This was different somehow.

Two planes crashing into the World Trade Center. Another hitting the Pentagon. A building where my grandfather diligently worked for many years. The men and women in that building - they could have been my grandfather. They were just like him. Not only were the lives on the planes lost, but those buildings were full of people! The work day had already started. I was in shock, speechless, numb. It would be days before I could even begin to process, to comprehend what had happened.

Kirk, who I was dating at the time, was at work, and called me. They were under a high security alert and he was waiting to see what would happen. Eventually, they were sent home. He came to my apartment, where we sat, unable to leave the television. The images were poignant, both real and disturbing, and yet, somehow surreal. The questions were universal, "Why?!" "How?" "Who" and throughout New York City and beyond, "Where?" "Have you seen...?" "Have you heard from...?"

Something no one could have predicted or imagined happened. The towers, one at a time, collapsed. Mountains of steel, rubble, papers, office supplies, and people came rushing toward the ground, collapsing in an unrecognizable, jumbled heap. Very little was salvagable. Somehow the superheated fire dissentegrated much of what was once there - the structure that made the tower what it was. It wasn't until much later that experts began to reconstruct what happened and why. (I saw an interview with the buildings' architect - he was so completely traumatized by what had happened, by the way his buildings had collapsed under the strain of two planes full of fuel impacting them - it was clear he'd never recover). There was very little warning before the first tower collapsed. The second fell not long after.

Countless stories have been told of the people in the towers. People who, in fear of being burned, jumped to their deaths. People who were rushed down the stairs from upper floors, only to find themselves trapped above where the planes hit. People making last minute, desperate calls to their loved ones - many reaching only operators, or getting busy signals because the phone systems were so tied up. People who rushed down the stairs of the emergency exits, down countless, endless stairs, and emerging from the building just in time. Or not in time. Of firefighters and police men who rushed INTO the buildings, attempting to help whomever they could. Attempting to save thousands, innumerable, nameless faces. Many of those heroic men and women never made it back out of the buildings. The local fire and police departments were a mere shadow of what they once were - completely bereft from the loss of those dear to them.

Stories have been told of those on the planes. The first two had no idea, most likely. But the fourth plane - United Flight 93. We all know the name and number of that flight. We know, generally, what happened on board - how the passengers and crew staged a revolt, a coup, after realizing what had happened with the other planes that had been hijacked. We know how the plane, bound for a more significant target crashed in Pennsylvania. We know the stories of the heros on board. We know "Let's roll!"

We have heard endless accounts from survivors, although they are often harder to recall. We remember the tragedy. The dead. We remember the search, the endless search for survivors. The search that ended with so little result. We all remember the steaming, smoking mountain of debris that had to be carefully picked through and removed. It took firefighters and volunteers from around the country months to remove it all. A man in our church, George, was one of the first responders from Los Angeles. They almost weren't allowed to go, as all flights had been grounded immediately after the attacks. His story and the story of others who responded when called - they are etched in the memories of those who have heard them. Thousands and thousands of people who lived near what became known as Ground Zero were forced to temporarily (and some permanently) relocate to areas further away. Businesses had to do the same as well.

This tragedy was an American tragedy - it happened in a US city, on US soil. But was it really an American tragedy only? The entire world was affected by such an aggressive act. And the world responded. American embassies worldwide were besieged with flowers, notes, candles, visitors, all wanting to demonstrate their sympathy, shock and denouncement of the terrorists. It was a full 18 months later when Kirk and I were traveling in Vietnam that this became a personal experience. We were in South Vietnam, which had been US-occupied during what we call the Vietnam war. The proprietor of a restaurant thanked us personally for the USA's support during the war. He went on to say that he was horrified by the events of September 11th and had wanted to come to the USA to help. He didn't know what he could have done, but he earnestly desired to help the country that he had seen help when he was merely a young boy.

For US citizens, September 11th is extremely personal, disturbing. And yet, five years later, though we remember every detail of what we saw, heard and felt on that day, still it seems that in some ways perhaps we have forgotten. For months afterwards (and still today), airtravel was suddenly completely different. I had dear friends who got married in September 2001, in Kansas. They had been living in Europe for several years. He was from Spain. She was from the USA. But with little exception, almost all of their friends and family would need to fly into Kansas for the wedding - some from international ports. The wedding they had so joyfully looked forward to was suddenly marred by a group of men they had never met, seen nor heard of before September 11th. If I remember correctly, only about 1/3 of their original guest list actually came to the beautiful ceremony and subsequent celebration.

To this day, five years later, airports have a completely different look and feel. Procedures are modified with each new threat. If you even JOKE about a bomb or terrorism in an airport, you may find that you have traded your airline seat for a jail cell. Thanks to the "shoe bomber", we now must all remove our shoes when going through security. Thanks to the foiled plot coming out of the UK, even today, you may not carry on water, soda, hair gel, lotion or any other liquid or semi-liquid substance onto the plane with you. It must all be in your checked luggage.

We had a new president at the time - President George W. Bush. He had been in office merely 9 months when September 11th happened. The nation was in shock and looked to his leadership. He was quiet, calm, resolute. For good or bad, as a direct result of September 11, the USA is involved in two major conflicts - one in Afghanistan and one in Iraq. Hundreds of US military, Afghan and Iraqi militants, military and civilians have died. Many have called George Bush a war-monger. Many have forgotten what led us down this path in the first place. Right or wrong, the world we live in today is substantially different than the world we lived in 5 years ago. Terrorism is no longer something that happens only in the Middle East or Africa. It happens in remote locations like Bali. It happens in major metropolitan areas like New York City. It happens on airplanes, in train tunnels, on subways. It happens or could happen anywhere. Terrorism is part of our every day lives now. We have a hit television series that focusses on issues of terrorism (the show "24").

But how do we move forward? Do we live in constant fear? Do we change our lives so much that we are stifled? So paranoid that we avoid public places, public transportation, bridges, anything that could possibly be a target? Of course not. Fear is what they try to engender with terrorism. The target of terrorism is to produce and instill "terror" in the victims and the survivors. If we stop our way of life, if we live in fear or in terror, they have won.

Americans, if nothing else, are survivors. We may do a lot of things the "wrong" way. But we do still manage to DO things. Our nation has spawned such amazing organizations as The Red Cross, Samaritan's Purse, Habitat for Humanity, among thousands of other worthwhile charities. Can anyone say that these organizations have not changed lives? How do we move forward? We learn from the past. We look to the future with hope and optimism. We continue to focus on what is good, and right, and pure. We denounce terrorism. We embrace humanitarianism. The world constantly is changing, and we with it. But it is our responsibility to change the world and ourselves for the better.

Labels: Events, Reflections