Have You Forgotten

President Obama has taken away from the CIA the job of interrogating terror suspects.  CIA agents are facing potential prosecution.  The war on terror is being turned over to lawyers.  It all begs the question, “have you forgotten?”

Have you forgotten that Tuesday morning in New York City with the brilliant blue sky that would soon be blemished by the ugly black smoke rising from the World Trade Center?  Where were you that morning?  How did you hear the news?

Were you driving to work, listening to the radio, when you heard that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center?  Like me, did you remember that a plane in bad weather had once crashed into the Empire State Building?  Did you wonder what the weather was like?  I recall the radio telling me the weather was clear.  I remember wondering who had made such a bad mistake that they hit a building in clear weather.  I still thought the plane was small.

Then came the awful, stunning, news.  A second plane had crashed into the other tower.  Like me, did you know instantly we were under attack?  Do you remember the combined feelings of fear, sorrow, and rage?  Do you remember the knot in your stomach; the fear rising in your throat?  Or were you perhaps watching on television?

Were you watching the sad, spectacle of one of the world’s great buildings engulfed in flames?  Did you see, live, the second plane approach, bank hard to the left and slam into the second tower?  Do you remember the huge red-orange explosion that erupted out the other side of the building?  Did your jaw drop?  Did you blink as if you couldn’t process what you just saw?  Did you cry?

Do you still recall the string of horrific images the rest of the day brought?  The agony of watching people jump to certain death because that was better than the unimaginable hell they were facing on the floors above the fire.  The ugly black smoke and orange flame.  The police and fire fighters struggling valiantly to get people out;  going in, going up while others were trying to get down and out.  The constant stream of victims jumping, one after another.  The man and woman, co-workers, holding hands, jumping together, as if their was some solace in being connected to another human being in their final moments.  The desperate, ultimately unsuccessful attempt to hold on as they fell.

Do you remember the desperate calls from the trapped to their homes?  They wanted to tell their wives, their husbands, their kids they loved them.  Some were answered.  Some said brave, tearful goodbyes.  Some got only answering machines and left that final, fateful message, “I’m trapped, and I don’t think I’m getting out.  I love you.”  How many desperate calls never got through?   Can we really allow ourselves to forget these people?

Can you forget the face of President Bush as he visited with young school children in Florida and was given the news?  Can you still see his eyes?  All the pain, anger, and resolve that we as a nation felt was in his eyes as he processed the information.  Do you remember how his jaw clinched as he knew we were at war and his presidency had been changed forever?  Do you remember how he tried to get the reporters, desperated to ask about the attack, to hold off until he was outside, away from these young children, as he instinctively sought to shield them from this awful news?

What about Washington?  Remember the Pentagon, the nerve center of the most powerful military force in the world, under attack?  Remember the scenes of Capital Hill and The White House being evacuated?  Can you really forget what it felt like to watch those who work in our nation’s capital, doing the people’s business, running for their lives?

Can you still close your eyes and see that long, slow, almost as if in a dream, fall of the first tower?  Steel and concrete being pulverized before your eyes in a slow motion descent of hell.  And peoples lives being snuffed out as it fell.  Bodies being crushed into nonexistence.  All those people, all those police officers, all those fire fighters.  And then the second tower fell.  The people on the street running for their lives, trying to escape the great choking cloud of dust and debris that seemed to flow down the streets like an angry river, engulfing everything and everyone in its path.  Can you still hear the screams?

Have you forgotten flight 93?  Can you really forget those ordinary Americans who got on a plane that morning for business or pleasure and found themselves on the front lines of a war they never asked for?  They heard about the other flights, processed the information, and became our first counter attack.  “Let’s roll” was their call to action.  Their flight ended in a smoking hole in a Pennsylvania field.  They probably saved the Capital building and many lives with their sacrifice.  They may have saved some fighter pilot from living with knowledge that he had to shoot down the airliner.  God Bless everyone of them.

There were so many images on that day and those that followed.  Most painful, heart breaking, but some inspiring.  The courage and sacrifice of the first responders, the fire fighters hoisting a flag over the ruins of the World Trade Center.  A flag that said we are bloodied, but not beaten.  A sign of defiance amid the carnage.  Can anyone truly forget that?

Can you forget the excrutiating search for survivors?  The hospitals on full alert for the flood of injured that never arrived.  What about the faces of the family members gathered at the scene brandishing pictures of their wives or husbands or sons or daughters or brothers or sisters?  They were desperate for everyone to see the pictures.  “Have you seen this person?”  They wanted news, any news about their loved ones.  There were thousands of photos.  The photos would begin to put haunting faces on the tragedy.  These were our friends, family, neighbors, countrymen and they had been slaughtered by people whose chief aim was to regress civilization to the 12th century.

Do you remember the miracles every time someone was pulled alive from the wreckage?  Do you remember the solemn, dignified way they treated each body that was recovered?  Can you truly ever forget that horrible day?

Tell me Mr. President, as you turn the war on terror over to the lawyers, and make it a law enforcement problem again, do you remember?