Wednesday, February 18, 2004
Martyrs
I stopped for a Slurpee as I was running for my life. It was such a gorgeous, sunny day, I decided I needed some icy refreshment. My coworkers joined me. In a macabre way, we might have been subconsciously celebrating the fact that we had the rest of the day off work, though the circumstances were anything but joyful.
I must have arrived a little late for work that day, because the first plane had already hit before I got there. I watched the events unfold on the TV in the conference room, but I went back to my desk at least once. My “Sent” folder indicates I emailed my friend Chavez about the football game coming up that weekend.
When we heard that the Pentagon had been hit and that the White House, just a couple of blocks down 16th Street, was next, we decided to evacuate. I called my mom (“You haven’t heard? Well, first of all, I’m OK. Now go turn on the TV.”) and decided I would be safer at a coworker’s house in Adams Morgan. I didn’t know what kind of pandemonium was going on in Pentagon City, where I lived. As a few of us headed northward through the quiet streets, we spotted a Seven-Eleven and couldn’t resist going in.
This past Valentine’s Day, late at night, I read an essay about the events of September 11, 2001. The author compared what happened to Flight 77, the plane that hit the Pentagon, and what happened to Flight 93, the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania. She argued that the national defense system needed to be more like Flight 93—voluntary, quick, and decisive. She told me the names of some of the passengers who led the uprising against the hijackers, and some of the things they had said to their loved ones just before they rushed the cockpit. These people knew what they were doing. They knew they might not live, but they could save the lives of a lot of people on the ground.
As a Washingtonian, I was always a little miffed that New York got far more press coverage and popular support for what happened. I understand why, of course; far more people perished, and the collapse of the towers was certainly more spectacular than the hole in the west side of the Pentagon that I so cavalierly posed in front of for a photo at 4:30 that afternoon. Sometimes, though, we forget that there even was a fourth plane.
I set down the essay beside the bed, turned off the light, rolled over, and began to think about the people on board Flight 93. I started asking myself questions. If I had been aboard, would I have done what these people did? In the comfort of my own bed, it’s easy to answer yes. Would I be brave enough to risk my life to (possibly) save the lives of people I didn’t know? That involves complicated conflicts of my beliefs about the afterlife, my non-violent but principled nature, and simple cowardice. Who were the people they saved? The reports I had heard were that Flight 93 was intended to crash into the U.S. Capitol Building.
I paused, my eyes wide open in the dark. I slowly reached and touched the soft arm of my sleeping wife. She was working in the U.S. Senate on September 11. She had been evacuated that day and countless other times. She had been tested and treated for anthrax later that fall. She understandably doesn’t like to talk about 9-11. While I did think quite a bit about my safety that day, what I actually did was email my buddy about football, sip my blue berry Slurpee, watch TV, and gawk at the fiery wreckage of the Pentagon like a tourist. I can’t honestly say I felt fear. But Shelly did—her place of business was the next Ground Zero.
I have always thought that my being in DC on September 11 and “evacuating” my office building gave me the right to claim some connection to the horrific events of that day. But I fell asleep with the realization that my connection is much deeper than that. If it hadn’t been for the martyrs of Flight 93, the beautiful woman lying next to me might not be there.
As I walked from my coworker’s house to the metro that illusorily peaceful September afternoon, the streets and skies were silent and empty. As I walked, a lone figure on the sidewalk grew nearer: an elderly African-American lady. I think she had a cane. On a normal day, we would have passed without noticing each other. We were obviously from quite different worlds. But this day of days, she caught my gaze with her moist eyes and said resolutely, “God bless you.”
That day of days, through the actions of the passengers of Flight 93, He already had.
I must have arrived a little late for work that day, because the first plane had already hit before I got there. I watched the events unfold on the TV in the conference room, but I went back to my desk at least once. My “Sent” folder indicates I emailed my friend Chavez about the football game coming up that weekend.
When we heard that the Pentagon had been hit and that the White House, just a couple of blocks down 16th Street, was next, we decided to evacuate. I called my mom (“You haven’t heard? Well, first of all, I’m OK. Now go turn on the TV.”) and decided I would be safer at a coworker’s house in Adams Morgan. I didn’t know what kind of pandemonium was going on in Pentagon City, where I lived. As a few of us headed northward through the quiet streets, we spotted a Seven-Eleven and couldn’t resist going in.
This past Valentine’s Day, late at night, I read an essay about the events of September 11, 2001. The author compared what happened to Flight 77, the plane that hit the Pentagon, and what happened to Flight 93, the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania. She argued that the national defense system needed to be more like Flight 93—voluntary, quick, and decisive. She told me the names of some of the passengers who led the uprising against the hijackers, and some of the things they had said to their loved ones just before they rushed the cockpit. These people knew what they were doing. They knew they might not live, but they could save the lives of a lot of people on the ground.
As a Washingtonian, I was always a little miffed that New York got far more press coverage and popular support for what happened. I understand why, of course; far more people perished, and the collapse of the towers was certainly more spectacular than the hole in the west side of the Pentagon that I so cavalierly posed in front of for a photo at 4:30 that afternoon. Sometimes, though, we forget that there even was a fourth plane.
I set down the essay beside the bed, turned off the light, rolled over, and began to think about the people on board Flight 93. I started asking myself questions. If I had been aboard, would I have done what these people did? In the comfort of my own bed, it’s easy to answer yes. Would I be brave enough to risk my life to (possibly) save the lives of people I didn’t know? That involves complicated conflicts of my beliefs about the afterlife, my non-violent but principled nature, and simple cowardice. Who were the people they saved? The reports I had heard were that Flight 93 was intended to crash into the U.S. Capitol Building.
I paused, my eyes wide open in the dark. I slowly reached and touched the soft arm of my sleeping wife. She was working in the U.S. Senate on September 11. She had been evacuated that day and countless other times. She had been tested and treated for anthrax later that fall. She understandably doesn’t like to talk about 9-11. While I did think quite a bit about my safety that day, what I actually did was email my buddy about football, sip my blue berry Slurpee, watch TV, and gawk at the fiery wreckage of the Pentagon like a tourist. I can’t honestly say I felt fear. But Shelly did—her place of business was the next Ground Zero.
I have always thought that my being in DC on September 11 and “evacuating” my office building gave me the right to claim some connection to the horrific events of that day. But I fell asleep with the realization that my connection is much deeper than that. If it hadn’t been for the martyrs of Flight 93, the beautiful woman lying next to me might not be there.
As I walked from my coworker’s house to the metro that illusorily peaceful September afternoon, the streets and skies were silent and empty. As I walked, a lone figure on the sidewalk grew nearer: an elderly African-American lady. I think she had a cane. On a normal day, we would have passed without noticing each other. We were obviously from quite different worlds. But this day of days, she caught my gaze with her moist eyes and said resolutely, “God bless you.”
That day of days, through the actions of the passengers of Flight 93, He already had.
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