Psalm 9/11
“I think people have moved on. I’m heartbroken to think they’re not remembering. They’re going about their daily lives, which they’re supposed to, but they are still supposed to remember.”
– Irene Ross of Jamaica Plain, Boston, whose brother Richard was on American Airlines Flight 11, via today’s Boston Herald.
Prior remembrance, Boston Herald column, August 13, 2006, written during a heightened terrorism alert. “Psalm 9/11, I Will Fear No Evil.”
Do you know anyone whose Sept. 11 fears have returned? Someone with a sick feeling and a tightening of the chest, bordering on panic? Someone distraught or perhaps just withdrawn and distracted in the past few days?
What do you say to calm their fears? We drive each day on highways where the likelihood that a dumptruck will veer into our path far outstrips the possibility that we will find ourselves on an airplane targeted by terrorists. The chances that we will get it in any number of benign but equally deadly ways are exponentially higher than the chances that those who want to kill us will, in any given case, succeed.
Logic is irrelevant in combating these fears, as it is with children who fear monsters under the bed. This is not to disparage these fears. The threat is real. And while statistically remote, there is a factor that elevates terrorism beyond the many mundane fates we all dodge daily. It is the malice.
There are men out there who want us dead. This is undeniable. They want to see us all dead. Each and every one of us. They don’t know our names, they don’t know what our thoughts are about their grievances. They don’t know what our actions are and how we’ve lived our lives. They don’t care. They just want us dead.
I wish I had a sweet, comforting post-Sept. 11 lullaby to sing the ones I love to sleep when they experience fear of these evil men. But I don’t. Lullabies combat false monsters. Real monsters require something different.
Psalms, like lullabies, give comfort. But they don’t mask or deny the threat. They embrace it, and show the way to strength and ultimately comfort from within. What might a psalm say to anyone whose 9/11 fears have been reawakened?
As Orwell once noted, strong, ruthless men and women go long hours without sleep for you. They do everything they can to keep you safe. They are your shield. They will kill for you, and die for you. You can take comfort from that knowledge and draw strength from their example.
But that is not enough. There is something you have to find within yourself. It may be that one day, our shield will fail, and the insidious foe that operates from beyond our borders and even within them will penetrate that shield and kill some of us again.
You must decide for yourself that you will not let them deter you from your path. If they rise against you, you must be prepared to meet them. Prepared to be ruthless in defense of what you love. It may mean that you will die. We all do someday. As a friend of mine who knew what he was talking about once said, it’s not a matter of whether we will die,but how we will die. And when the time comes, the best we can hope for in this life, the one thing we might be able to control, is that we die well.
Each of us must look within ourselves for the strength that pushed the passengers of United Flight 93 forward against their hijackers on Sept. 11, in a successful if tragic assault that prevented further death and destruction.
We must look to the bravery of men such as Rick Rescorla, the British-American security executive and Vietnam war hero who shepherded thousands of people out of the World Trade Center but who stayed back himself with the last and ultimately died in the wreckage.
They are towering figures, but each of us has a little, just enough of that in us that we can draw on, to carry us through. We honor them by endeavoring to live up to their example. It begins by repeating to ourselves the words from which others have drawn comfort in time of war and peril for more than 2,500 years.
I will fear no evil.
Dedicated today to all of them, with respects to a couple of friends who lost people close to them. Herald photog Matt West’s beloved father Peter West, Cantor Fitzgerald, North Tower;
And 2/7 Cav Bravo Co. 1st Platoon leader Rick Rescorla, then Morgan-Stanley’s security chief, South Tower, a towering figure in modern American history from Vietnam to New York City, who feared no evil, loved and admired by those who served with him at the Ia Drang.
The Dissident Frogman’s chilling must-view vid, Seven Years, Seven Verses. FDNY scanner chatter soundtrack and Koranic verses as chapter headers on the terrible footage of the day.
Neptunus Lex, “Remember,” with the haunting art no one wants to see but everyone should.
Vanderleun’s 9/11 notes from Brooklyn Heights.
Castle Argghhh!!!, Where were you?
Malkin: Seven years later, remembrance and resolve, with the following message in bold, easy-to-read Arabic type: “I will not surrender.” Malkin has separate, detailed posts on United Flight 175 and American Flight 11.
Reynolds with a couple of links says he’s spending the day they way he spent that day, blogging.
Mudville Gazette, “9:59,” with a stunning sequence art of the unimagineable.
Dollard: The First Martyr.
Jawa with vid: Never forget, never forgive.
Sister Toldjah: Gone Too Soon, a remembrance witha roundup.
Riehl, with a roundup and haunting art of a remembrance in winter.
Deafening Silence at Poligazette, on self-hatred, and what didn’t change but was revealed.
Ace cautions his is a ”politicized remembrance,” examining that self-hatred and how it played out.
Lawhawk with today’s groundview from lower Manhattan.
Surber: On 9/11, McCain and Obama need to aim high.
Gateway: Palin sees her son off to Iraq today. With a link to the DCExaminer, which notes the biggest news today is what has not happened in the last seven years.
Several of the above via Cassandra at Villainous Company, who has a good roundup.
Last year’s 9/11 post at this site, for some perspective on how far we’ve come in the last 12 months, and some other things we should never forget:
It’s overcast today, which is appropriate for my mood. Yesterday, Gen. Petraeus prevailed in Congress. He stood his ground and threw them a bone. The anti-war faction made its speeches, denying and disputing everything he said before he said it, calling for shameless retreat and abandonment to no end. But it seems clear they are no more likely to manage that today than they were last month, or any time in the previous 9 months.
But I’m in one of those moods where, prevailing over such absurdity … American leadership that wants to surrender shamefully with no thought to consequences … is no cause for celebration. It may be uglier work than war to have to deal with cowardice and treachery. “May be,” because the cowardice and treachery have thus far been thwarted, stifled, pushed off, and the people who have embraced them are revealing themselves to be shallow whores who lack conviction or principle … too gutless even to be true to the shameful cause they profess. Beneath consideration, a nuisance to be dealt with. ”May be,” because they would throw away and dishonor the sacrifices of the dead and the maimed who constitute the real tragedy and ugliness of war, and condemn untold numbers to a terrible fate.
Six years in, I’m tired and feeling a little down. That happens in war, and you have to pick yourself up and keep going. Our country looks almost like normal most days, though for many of us, it will never be as it was, and the fight is far from over. It’s as normal as it’s going to get for me now, war the new normal. But I am out of combat for now. Others who are in it have all of this and more to pick themselves up from, and keep going. I hope they know some of us want it to be worth it.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:34 am on Thursday, September 11, 2008
3 Responses to “Psalm 9/11”
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September 11th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Cheer up, Infidel.
Things could be worse. You could have 150,000 camel-humping Americans dogging your every move. Impudent sons of a diseased camel! May the Fleas of a Thousand Camels infest their jockey shorts for all Eternity!!!!!
September 11th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
In loving memory of Charles Austin McCrann (1946-2001), who was in the first tower hit. We still miss him.
September 11th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Amen.
And a memorial.