Friday, Sept. 11, marks the 19th anniversary of the most devastating terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.
The attacks were the start of a global assault on the civilized world that has defined the geopolitics of our planet for nearly 20 years. American soldiers who went to war in Afghanistan in October 2001 to avenge those attacks and bring terrorists to justice are now old enough to send their sons and daughters to the same seemingly endless war.
At the peak of U.S. involvement in 2011, 10 years after the terrorist attacks, there were 100,000 American troops in Afghanistan, now down to 8,400.
For the Afghanis, two decades of U.S. involvement is only half of their story, as the country has been involved in a series of endless external invasions and civil war for 42 years.
After 9/11 and attacks in Madrid, London, Paris, Brussels and Boston, the people of the United States, Spain, Great Britain, France and Belgium openly displayed cross-cultural solidarity as petty domestic political disputes muted in the face of a more terrible foe that could strike anywhere, anytime.
“Boston Strong” — a spontaneous motto that arose after the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings — is perhaps the most succinct expression of this unity. The suffix “Strong” was added by residents of cities in the aftermath of natural disasters, mass shootings and other incidents that caused citywide trauma and loss of life to show unity transcending all demographics.
In our hyperpartisan political environment, we have not heard that unifying suffix in many years as we Americans cease to view outside natural disasters or man-made forces as the real threats to our nation and instead view those “other” Americans with a suspicious eye.
There was a time — one morning — when that type of suspicion was unthinkable.
On an idle Tuesday morning 19 years ago, workers filed into their office building like the days and weeks before. Firefighters and police officers donned their uniforms to serve the public of their city. Airline passengers boarded aircraft to either head back home or go away on vacation and business.
But on that working Tuesday morning, all those everyday people collided violently high above the streets of New York City, in the bustle of the Pentagon in the otherwise quiet city of Arlington, Va., and a field in rural Pennsylvania.
Sept. 11 belongs to 2,240 New York City civilians, 23 police officers, 343 firefighters, 125 Pentagon workers and 246 airline passengers — everyday people just like us who never saw Sept. 12.
Among all those people who went to work that morning were a man and woman who worked in the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Who exactly they were will likely never be known, but it is believed they worked for either a French bank, a risk management company or a futures investment firm in the rented floors just above the point where American Airlines Flight 11 struck the building and killed hundreds in an instant. Wiping out the stairwells and elevators, the impact left hundreds more people trapped.
Did this man and woman know each other before that morning? Were they strangers who found themselves trapped in the same corner of a burning building with no hope of rescue? They were among dozens who smashed out windows to get fresh air as smoke and fire filled the offices behind them.
The South Tower was struck 17 minutes after the North Tower. Some with cell phones may have guessed the burning buildings were targets of a terrorist attack, but many on the north side of the North Tower were likely unaware.
Shortly before the South Tower then North Tower collapsed from the damage, this man and woman fell or jumped from the 92nd floor.
In their final 8.54 seconds between window sill and the earth, a photographer captured the unidentifiable man and woman falling to their inevitable death — holding hands. In those seconds, I almost guarantee they were not thinking about politics, nor skin color, nor who won the last election.
The true terror of that morning is to contemplate what you would think about in your last seconds of life:
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Christopher Fox Graham
Managing Editor
