9/11 and anger

Rod,
I have a similar feeling each time I cross over the NJ parkway bridge over the rartain (I don't know the name of the bridge we just call it the big bridge). From this tall bridge I would always look to my right as I sat in the back seat and try to be the first to spot the towers. That was when I was one of seven kids in the back seat of our station wagon. Years past and each and every time I crossed the bridge I'd look to my right, out of habit searching and finding those towers in the distance was comforting, everything was ok ,nothing changes they were standing in the distance tall and majestic. What an empty feeling I have now as I drive across, looking over and not seeing them. It was especially heart wrenching right after 9-11 and still is today five years on. I think living in the shadow on NYC makes it more real, more part of our lives. Tomorrow there will be special Masses said throughout the area. In my parish there were a number of people killed. These people were neighbors, not just someone you didn't know, fellow parishioners whom you greeted at the sign of peace. We here are reminded each day of what happened. I can still vividly recall the emotions that day, that week and the weeks that followed. Reading others remembrances of those days brings tears to my eyes. Thank you for sharing, thanks to Peggy Noonan for sharing and thanks to all those who share and remember. When we begin to forget we must be reminded.>

I'm sorry for your pain, Rod. I'm sure that there are many people in NYC who have a similar reaction at this time of year. I don't know if you have PTSD, but it sounds like you could be helped by a caring professional(as opposed to the one that you tried). It makes me wonder if there are support groups that are still getting together in NYC to discuss this. Sometimes talking about this over and over and over again with people who've experienced the same trauma is very helpful.

I was in Plano, Tx on 9/11. I turned on the tv after the towers had fallen. It was much later in the day when it finally registered in my brain that the towers had fallen.

Don't let people who lack empathy bother you, Rod. Usually, they have other issues that you couldn't know anything about that's feeding the hatred.>

I was working in Cleveland. I got an e-mail from a friend of mine in Manhattan, a mass e-mail sent to all of her friends, saying, "Don't worry, I'm all right!" I wrote back saying, "What do you mean, 'don't worry, you're all right'?" She quickly wrote back, "For goodness' sake, turn on the news! If I told you, you wouldn't believe me!"

***

In the traditional Catholic calendar, tomorrow, Sept. 12, is the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary, instituted to commemorate the victory of Jan Sobieski, the king of Poland, over the Turks, outside Vienna in 1683. This turned back the Muslim advance into central and eastern Europe. (The other great Christian victory over the Muslims in early modern times, the naval battle of Lepanto in 1571, is commemorate by the Feast of the Holy Rosary, Oct. 7.)>

"Anger management" is such a worn out term, that I even hesitate to use it in quotation marks, but it's mundane meaning is apropos here.

For all we (especially I) criticize our government for their handling of many things related to 9/11 and its aftermath, one thing needs to be remembered and understood: our leaders are human, too, and subject to the same reactions we are having. It is not reasonable to hold them to a higher standard, except in that they should be prepared to pause and reflect before acting, but it behooves us to acknowledge that the people on duty, from the air traffic controllers right up to the President, all got angry. Don't fault them for that, or use it to denigrate their actions. For all that hindsight shows us they could have done better, I at least have no trouble seeing that they did try to do their best.

So, with only empathy intended: Rod, welcome to the human race. You are not alone, and if you still feel the need there are plenty of professionals out there who don't have their heads stuck up their arses like the one you described. And I agree, you should have reported him regardless.

As for me, solely on a personal basis, WTC, the Pentagon and flight 93 go on my avoidance list right after the Holocaust. I don't need to be reminded; I am incapable of forgetting.>

One last thing -- I've been grinding my teeth since 9/11, too. Ouch!>

I forgot to mention that I was a New York Post columnist at the time of the attacks. Our office was hit with an anthrax attack that fall. One of my co-workers, Joanna Huden, was the first infected on our staff. She was the secretary to the editorial page editor. The anthrax-filled envelope sat under a pile of letters for a few days, unnoticed. After we knew what it was, it was pretty startling to reflect on how I would lean over that pile of letters, talking to Joanna, breathing the air over that letter, not even 12 inches under my nose.

I got a cold or a cough or something that week, and the doctor put me on Cipro, just in case. Scary times, they were.>

This is what I'd like to discuss. Not to bring up controversy, but I noticed that Rod described ABC's mini-series as being "excellent."

Some people disagree.
http://www.workingforchange.com/activism/action.cfm?itemid=21330&afccode=afchp

It seems like it might be a little biased. Does blame Clinton and written by a conservative = "excellent.">

Among the military and ex-military men and women with whom I was working that day, I saw only courage and resolve.>

Rod, I have not by far forgotten 9/11, and like you, I have trouble re-watching anything pertaining to it, especially the coverage of either the burning towers or the Pentagon. I'm also not leaving out that scorched place in the Pennsylvania field. I chose to pass the time quietly last evening catching up on my college coursework after hanging our flag from the front porch. It will come down at nightfall inasmuch as I want all passersby to understand that today is only what it's for. I'm always proud to be an American and fly our flag for the appropriate times, but I wanted to honor the memory of those who died so tragically on this day 5 years ago in my own quiet way.>

September 11 is August 29 on the traditional Church Calendar which is the "feast" of St. John the Baptist (the scare quotes are because his death was such a horror that the Church commemorates it with a strict fast). Orthodox Christians around the world were in church five years ago - and when it was announced, as it was in many places at the end of the Liturgy of the Word, that the Towers had fallen and the Pentagon had been hit, the people stayed and prayed.

The Russian Orthodox Cathedral in DC is dedicated to St. John the Baptist so today is their patronal feast day. A friend of mine is a reader ('Psalte') there and he was chanting when he realized something must have happened because of the stir in the people around him. As a retired Army warrant officer with many friends in the Pentagon, he prayed - and stayed. Where else to be but with God Himself in the Eucharist, praying for those departed and those in agony?

Is there a meaningful connection between the events of 29 August/11 September and the Beheading of St. John the Forerunner? Not in the minds of the terrorists, I'm sure. But what the Church experiences as a feast/fast day in which we celebrate the greatness of the victory of the greatest of the Prophets while acknowledging the agony and injustice of his demise has a parallel in the day and how America remembers it, a tragedy graced by courage, sacrifice, and love.

John>

Mark, you would do well to remember the nature of the enemy we fight, instead of making excuses for it and for the Pat Buchanans of the world on your pathetic blog...>

It seems like the off topic responses are gone so perhaps we can now have a mature conversation.

I completely understand the anger. I also think that people who were in NYC or DC that day can't really understand it. I was living in Brooklyn Heights and I'll never forget talking to strangers on the street. Something that never happens in NYC. The fear is something that I haven't quite come to terms with.>

"The fear is something that I haven't quite come to terms with."

I watched the plane go over my head and crash into the Pentagon. Everytime I hear a lot of sirens, I wonder whether another plane has hit the Pentagon. I always have my cellphone in my pocket when I fly on an airplane.

I have a lot of anger, and much of it is about the government and the willing enablers who have allowed the government to use 9/11 to torture and spy and begin a war in Iraq.>

Rod

I ve been watching the debate between you and your critics since it begin in April. It saddens me since it is an internal one, and does not need to come to written blows. Your personalization of this event is reasonable and normal. You are setting the debate for the post by sharing your feelings. For now, it is our generation s infamous day so it is okay to personalize a bit.

For me it was a day of character and courage. Not mine, but the others around me. The retired military who contemplated ways to once again serve. The reservists who knew at that moment they and their families would soon be called to a deeper sacrifice. The current military who steeled themselves against fear in order to stand against the enemy. All these people with whom I worked that day wanted to give more than they could at that moment.

I suspect when you write about these events in the first person, some people interpret that as narcissistic, but others interpret it as your attempt to identify with the victims and their families. By sharing our emotions with others, especially to the victims families, it is a way to convey our support for them in their suffering. It says to them that we may not carry the burden, but we grieve for you and your loss, and in your weakness we will be strong.

For all of you who persist in rage and anger over 9-11, it is justified to some extent, but please consider that your anger may be your reaction to fear. On-going fear is a debilitating emotion that leads to hopelessness and despair. We have the Holy Spirit within us, and we have each other. You can never be alone, so let go of the anger and be at peace. When you feel the anger recollect yourself, and walk with Our Lady along the Via Dolorosa. It will pass.>

"When you feel the anger recollect yourself, and walk with Our Lady along the Via Dolorosa. It will pass."

Actually, I don't think my God and Holy Spirit wants anger to pass, especially when anger leads us into action. Anger, channeled through faith, can be a powerful tool. We shouldn't let it be washed away.>

God love you, Scott. I can't imagine. They opened up downtown to reporters and workers six days after 9/11, and I went down there with my press pass to look around. As anybody who actually saw the site knows, nothing on TV could prepare you for it. That was the thing -- the immensity of the destruction. That such a unbelievable amount of destruction could be carried out in such a short period of time, without warning, and so easily. To stand there on the lip of that crater and try to take it all in was almost an act of metaphysical despair. Everything you thought you knew about the fabric of reality turns out to be false.

Of course, that's an American speaking. As a friend of mine, an immigrant from China, put it, on that day her immigrant illusions about America as a fortress untouched by the kind of history that the rest of the world lives with collapsed. My friend, a Christian convert, said she also learned that it was futile to put any trust in the things of men, and instead focus on "the only permanent thing," which is God.>

Thanks for sharing your experience on this, Rod. I had just ended college in New Jersey and started graduate school in Tennessee when it happened, but my sister was on Staten Island at Wagner College. She heard the plane hit the tower while she was walking to her office and at first thought that a truck had dropped a dumpster outside. She and her coworkers watched the Towers fall, from across the harbor.

I can only imagine what it must have been like for you and Scott. I know that even halfway across the country, I was in a blind rage for three or four days until I realized that, subconsciously, I was fully prepared to beat the living crap out of the next Muslim I encountered. That scared me.>

It's hard to let go of anger, because in some sense you feel that you are betraying your loved ones, or those that were done wrong, by forgiving

I suspect this is not small part of the reason Jesus tells us that we have to hate father, mother, and our own lives if we are to follow him. It's a hard saying. One of the hardest, yet like all the hard saying of Jesus, we find that it is unexpectedly freeing if we bite the bullet and do it. We find that forgiving is not excusing, nor is it somehow spitting in the eye of victims. It is, simply, handing one who has done us real evil over to the mercy of God and giving up our completely futile attempt to make them pay by chewing the cud of our own rage. It frees us to love those who have suffered and it frees us from the power of evil men to continue dominating our lives long after they are dead.>

"most unethical administration in my lifetime. Maybe in American history."

Wow. What about Nixon? "Maybe" we could examine the other 40-something administrations and find some pretty shocking things.

(Note- not saying the current administration is perfect, or even close. Just saying the hyperbole is rather extreme.)

I've thought that one might have to go back to Harding's or even Grant's administration to find the same level of sheer shameless, unembarrassed self-interestedness.>

We find that forgiving is not excusing, nor is it somehow spitting in the eye of victims. It is, simply, handing one who has done us real evil over to the mercy of God and giving up our completely futile attempt to make them pay by chewing the cud of our own rage. It frees us to love those who have suffered and it frees us from the power of evil men to continue dominating our lives long after they are dead.

Mark, would that you take your own words to heart. If you did, perhaps you would stop engaging in unprovoked personal attacks on those who disagree, let alone obsess about them. Perhaps you would stop deliberately distoring their position. Perhaps you would stop responding to legitimate points with vicious sarcasm and venal vindictiveness.

Don't tell me that you don't know what I'm talking about. You know very well what I'm talking about.

And don't tell me that you forgive me or have forgiven me. If you did, then you wouldn't engage in the above behavior, would you?

Besides, we as Christians have greater responsibilities than being freed from the power of evil men to control us. We have the responsibility to defend the innocent from such evil me. We have the responsibility to defend society from them. Unfortunately, sometimes we have to use nasty and untidy means to do so (see WWII).

Then again, like most Catholic bloggers, you've never let such mundane things as reality and behavioral consistency interfere with your fleshly desire to spin webs of esoteric, etherial rhetoric -- and to trap those you don't like in them.>

Well, Rod, among the issues is whether a popular and respected Catholic blogger (i.e., Shea) has any credibility when it comes to his opinions on the War on Terror. Among that blogger's positions is the following:

1. The torture of captured combatants is more important than the willful murder of the innocent through terror (given the amount of time and passion that the blogger in question has spent on the respective issues).

2. JPII's interpretation of "just war" theory as applied to Iraq would have spared the United States much misery (while ignoring the fact that JPII's interpretation on "just war" as applied to Iraq would have kept a sadistic tyrant in power, a tyrant that likely would have aided Hezbollah in its attack on Israel and has been known to support terrorism elsewhere)

Of course, the blogger's position also conveniently ignores these facts:

-- JPII also opposed the 1990-91 Iraq war that was designed to extricate Saddam from Kuwait -- a war that had U.N. support. Had the world listened to the late pope, Kuwait would be an Iraqi province now, and Saddam would be emboldened to commit more aggression.

-- Much of Vatican diplomatic policy toward the Middle East is designed to protect Arab Christians at all costs, even at the cost of appeasing Arab dictators, as was the case under JPII. It also allows anti-Israel (and anti-Semitic) forces within the Vatican to express themselves.

3. The blogger in question disregards (even mocks) the idea that the religion sponsoring much of the terror in the world is radically totalitarian -- despite the fact that the religion's scripture demands that its adherents adopt warfare as a divine duty to bring the world by force under the influence of this religion.

4. The blogger in question routinely and with approval links to sources (Buchanan, Sobran) whose views toward Israel and toward Jews are, to put it politely, questionable.

I know that the blogger in question is your friend, Rod. But don't let friendship blind you to the truth about his ignorance concerning geopolitical matters.>

Funny that you mention my uncle, John, in your story. I'm glad so many people remember him when he could not remember his own family and made it hard for us to even have a memory of him. Isn't it nice that he could take people from half his family on trips to Europe, but when he called his own side of the family, if he called, he announced himself as Mr. John Rigo wishing to speak with Mr. or Mrs. ____ and couldn't even say hello to his other nieces or nephews. It helps to know that someone remembers the more upbeat side of him.>