9/11 Thread
- Thread starter NYShoreGuy
- Start date
I hope we as a country never forget this day. Already it seems to be fading.
What Bobby McIlvaine Left Behind
Bobby McIlvaine was 26 when he died in the attacks. Two decades later, his loved ones are still grappling with the loss.
I agree, we should never forget. However, in a few short years it will be a quarter of a century since it happened. That’s an entire generation - and maybe more, depending on how you define a generation - who were born afterwards. Unless they were born in the immediate area or we born into families that suffered a loss that day, it’s just not going to mean that much to them. I am by no means trying to minimize - it’s just the sad truth.
Being born decades after Pearl Harbor, I can appreciate the historical significance and the weight of the event but, having not been alive, it will never impact me the way it has those Americans who lived that day. It just is what it is.
I don’t think any of us Americans who were alive in 2001 will ever forget that day. On the other hand, someone born in 2005, who could already be considered an adult, is more than likely just not going to feel it like we did. Not trying to offend, just my two cents.
This is very true, and you are by no means minimizing the events of that day. It’s just reality.
I can provide a little more insight into your post, which I think is correct. My birthday is Pearl Harbor Day, but the event itself was nearly 30 years before I was born (though not quite). I was only a kid -- 6 or 7 -- when I learned and understood what it was and what had happened, but I was simply unable to absorb the emotional impact of it. I knew it from grainy black-and-white footage, which in my color world, made it seem all the more ancient. That idea was confirmed by the fact that my parents had yet to be born on that day (though both did follow before the end of World War II).
I would mention it on my birthday and none of my friends knew what it was, probably into high school or whenever it eventually crossed their radar. Their parents understood my references to it, but I don't know if any were old enough to have actual recollections of it. Probably not, as I scan through the ones I remember and do the math. By 2001, Pearl Harbor Day had largely been relegated to the history books, documentary programs, and the world of war buffs.
Interestingly, 9/11 reinjected Pearl Harbor Day into the American conscience, perhaps because two newer generations finally had some emotional context for it. There is a pretty wide gulf between knowing intellectually that an event happened, and experiencing it -- even through distance or television. It was much easier then for me to process the horror of learning about an attack in real time, news unfolding over the course of a morning to reveal a ghastly reality I had, to that point, thought was beyond reality.
But that was 23 years ago. Still entirely too vivid to me, but I wonder about how a kid in high school experiences it. They don't recall it if they were born in, say, 2005. They know it like my father, born in 1945, knows Pearl Harbor (though he, as somewhat a of a war/air combat buff, does possess plenty of acquired knowledge of it). On the one hand, I think it's unfortunate that we struggle to impart the feelings of fear and outrage we felt that day upon them, but on the other hand, I envy them for never having experienced a day like that. God willing, they never will. However, in another generation, not many people will have firsthand recollections of 9/11, and the ones who do will be old folks. I was 30 then; should I live another 20 years, I'll be halfway through my seventies. Tempus fugit, and with it goes our collective memories.
A footnote about Pearl Harbor Day, though: From my perspective, there is a great and wider recognition of that event than there was in 2000. Memories of 9/11 seem to have re-elevated it in our public consciousness, even today. It's waning, but still seems to be at a higher level than I experienced as a kid. That's probably good.
Right, someone would have to be 145 years old to Remember the Maine. (And you're not quite that, right?)
That's just how it goes...
Your father's birthday was probably spoiled pretty good for a few years after 1941! Did he serve in the war?
As a survivor of 9/11, this day always brings back some horrific memories. I have told my story a couple of times, but I must say that in the aftermath of 9/11, we helped each other on the streets. we were kind and caring to each other and tried to help our fallen brothers and sisters. Those memories of that small. moment in time reminds me that we as Americans can be brought together as one. We do not have to be so divisive and let us take the opportunity to do kind to our fellow American today and in the future.
Waking up each year on this day, it is somber, gut-wrenching and leaves me with a pit in my stomach. Loss of family and friends that just got up that day to go to work. Being on the conference calls with the command center with a coordinated group of companies to initially get emergency supplies into the city. They had no idea what they were facing on that day and I remember someone on the call saying they may need 50,000 body bags (25,000 in each building)....the call went silent for what seemed like an eternity. Fortunately it was not the case, but that was just one example in the early hours.
The country did come together and that was the most uplifting thing that came out of that tragedy. The human kindness, the patriotism, families helping each other. There is a lesson in our history that should be reinforced and reflected upon.
The country did come together and that was the most uplifting thing that came out of that tragedy. The human kindness, the patriotism, families helping each other. There is a lesson in our history that should be reinforced and reflected upon.
I don’t think it makes it right at all. I think it’s sad. I was picking up on what you were saying at the end of your initial post when you mentioned it felt like it was already fading. I was just expanding upon that and why I think it is becoming that way. No offense was meant.
Thank you for the thoughtful reply. There’s a lot to consider in that post.
My folks were also born in the same decade, a few years after the war ended. My father is a fairly big history buff and he passed that on to me. I can remember listening to the audiobook of Walter Lord’s Day of Infamy in the car on one of our family vacations when I was still a little kid. It was all very fascinating to me, but I never really experienced the tragedy of the event. Like you said, it was history book stuff. And, in a way, it was all tied up in a nice bow because a few years later the war was over and we had won. I suppose 9/11 has the dubious distinction of not being tied up in a bow. Yes, some of the people who were responsible eventually paid…..but was anything won? I suppose different people would argue either side of that.
As hard as it is to imagine, 9/11 is probably destined to one day be history book stuff too. I have actually thought about how history teachers will approach it, and have lively discussions about the event many decades after it happened - the same way our history teachers got worked up over huge course altering events in history. I imagine the kids in those classes will have the same interested, yet distant feelings as when Pearl Harbor or the Kennedy assassination were discussed in our classes.
I’m not sure how it is discussed in school back in the area but down here in Texas my fifth grader’s class read a book about 9/11 and learned about it in school. My daughter knew all about it from me through the years and even brought in a picture of the front page of The Setonian I had with the picture of the city from campus on the from page. But for kids outside the New York area, it’s definitely a history lesson as most have no connection to it in any way. Even the thought of New York City is as this big place far away that many have never and will never visit.
None taken. I think you were correct. And it is sad.
I’m sure this will get me in trouble but we have a member of Congress who described 9-11 as “some people did something”. We must never forget. If we so, the peril is that it will happen again.
Heard an interview with the congressman who is trying to get 9/11 classified as a National holiday. Very thoughtful approach.
Rather than a National holiday, it would be a better idea to devote the entire curriculum on that school day to the history of that day. Not only the events of 9/11, but what led up to it, how the world changed post 9/11, etc.
Rather than a National holiday, it would be a better idea to devote the entire curriculum on that school day to the history of that day. Not only the events of 9/11, but what led up to it, how the world changed post 9/11, etc.
May GOD bless Todd and all the courageous tragic souls of the passengers, the crew, and the families of those on that plane. True Heros. Good overcoming evil with such a heavy price.
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