We Will Never forget . . what?

Many people say "We Will Never Forget", yet no one yesterday really talked about 911.  A few comments here and there but mostly one or two sentence small talk.  People on Face Book saying "We Will Never Forget" but little conversation about the event.  Never forget . . WHAT!

I did not watch the collapse of the towers live even though a TV was only a short way away.  Weird, I was busy working.  Oh I kept up to date.  The internet was FUBR but it was still young.  I remember Sly, a leftwing zealot on a Madison radio station who called a caller a freaking asshole and slammed the phone down on the guy when the caller had the gall to say it was not a small plane but an airliner.  He went on and really insulted the guy.

I never listened to Sly again. 

How will we never forget if we try to take it out of our memory. If we don't talk about our feelings.

I've watched over 40 hours of documentaries on 911, every show I can find. Maybe it's guilt for not watching it live. Maybe it's some sort of guilt for me being nice and cozy and never really feeling threatened in anyway by terrorists.  Even though the government tried very hard to scare us. I don't want to forget.

Tonight I learned why the south side of the Marriott, directly under the South Tower did not collapse and how 14 people survived.   I followed those 14 people and lived their terror for that hour.

I also watched a show last night called  102 Minutes that Changed the World.  All video was shot by amateur's and none had ever been seen before.  It's was like a REAL Blair Witch Project.  Of all the documentaries I have seen, that one was the most . . . .it is the one that I want to remember.  Not the how or why, but the what. What was going through peoples mind, right there, right at that moment.  Seeing their faces, hearing what they were saying. Their confusion, disbelieve, denial.

From the family a mile away watching and taping and telling their little girl to go into the bedroom, the business men on the ground running for their lives.  Firemen calling their wives.  Hearing what their reality was. I don't want to forget.

Seeing a video of a woman videotaping her feet as a plane slams into the tower in the background window.  Watching people in complete shock and disbelief on Times Square watching the scene on the jumbo tron, one man saying "I used to work right around there".  A person watching in disbelieve as he was 15 minutes late to work that day because he watched Monday Night football telling a stranger that he would be dead right now. 

Hearing two woman on the 32 floor of an apartment scream in complete terror as they tape plane #2 hitting the towers eight blocks away.  A white dust covered man saying "It collapsed, it collapsed" and then with a smile "I might be 69 but I can still run".

Hearing a guy filming the towers and even from 10 blocks away making some sort of connection with a guy waving a flag on the 100th floor. "Look, there is a guy waving a flag on the top tower, I can see him, get out of there get out of there"  And then minutes later he watch's as his unknown friend with the flag . . .  jumps.  I won't forget, I don't want to forget.

But what I want to remember was a time when America, all America, came together as one unit. We were ONE. When was the last time America was ONE. Even during the Revolutionary War we were not ONE.   When flags waved from mail boxes.  When strangers were no longer strangers, they were fellow Americans.

We were one Nation. 

Don't you wish it was always like that?

rm 

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