Memorial Day

In honor of Memorial Day, below is a post written in Sept. 2001, back in the days of the iNFORMATiON PRESS (which was my blog before such things were called blogs). I wrote this as I was en route to Ireland for a semester abroad. I stumbled upon it yesterday and it served as a nice reminder to me of why, as difficult as it is sometimes, we continue to fight.

What I Saw From The Air

It rises as a testament to the thousands who lost their lives Tuesday - a plume of smoke and dust emanating from that place in Southern Manhattan where three World Trade Center buildings once stood. The angry black clouds of smoke have given way to a rising cloud of somber gray dust. The plume only rises to about the height of the two towers that once reigned there, at which point a southerly wind sends the cloud out to sea.

I did not expect the cloud of smoke. I figured the only clue I would have about where the buildings once stood would be an intangible sense of the skyline being incomplete. Yet when the plane banked left to land, the rising dust was there, compelling the world to remember.

Unlike the Atlanta concourse, Newark gates were abuzz with people. After what I had just seen, it was reassuring. If the people of Newark and New York, along with all the people passing through, can continue to move forward, then so can the rest of us.

On departure, I got a second, more clear view of the devastation at Ground Zero. Our plane followed the river up the west side of Manhattan, permitting an unforgettable view of the island. In the midst of a darkened lower Manhattan, work lights flooded the wreckage. In my mind I imagined the hundreds of exhausted but determined men and women using those lights to shorten the list of the missing, fighting the dust and their own anxieties all the while. All around the area, the red, white and blue lights of the rescue vehicles flashed.

Above 14th Street, traffic flowed, streets lights shined, and the skyscrapers stood tall and proud, all reminders that life must and will move on. Below 14th Street, however, the smoke rises, a reminder of what happened and what we must never allow to be repeated.

You can read the rest of the September 17, 2001 issue here.