The 9/11 Memorial Feels Different Now
In the spring of 1986, I visited Washington, DC with my father and my oldest sister, Kim, who was considering colleges in the area. After touring several campuses over a long weekend, we had time for sightseeing and visited the Vietnam Memorial, which had opened only four years before our trip. Though my father was drafted into the Army and could have been sent to fight in Vietnam, instead, he was stationed in Germany for the duration of his service. However, he had many friends who went to Vietnam, including his best friend, who was awarded the Silver Star and Navy Cross as a Marine. His friend talks about how my dad organized the welcome home party for him that began at Kennedy Airport with a bottle of whiskey and a load of friends and then continued into the wee hours of the morning at the bars in Throggs Neck (the Bronx.)
I don’t think I’d ever been to a memorial of any kind before that day, or if I had, I certainly didn’t have any sense for what was being memorialized. As I experienced the black sculpture on that overcast April day, I thought about how quiet it was, almost like a church, even though it seemed as if there were hundreds of people with us. I watched as many took etchings of names on the wall using paper and charcoal. Others bent their heads and wept while touching names. There were bouquets of flowers on the ground. It was a somber place and my father spoke to us in a low voice and my sister and I followed his lead.
I was intrigued by the people taking etchings of names and wanted to try to create one myself, so I pestered my dad for names of guys he knew who had died during the war. It never occurred to me that visiting the Memorial might have been hard for him. He lived through a time when 58,000 men of his generation were killed in war and his own name could easily have been on the wall had he been stationed in active combat. Reflecting on all the young men he knew who had died must have been an emotional task, but he handled my request with his typical grace and patience.
I was 10 and wanted to take an etching because it looked cool — there wasn’t any more to it. As we examined the books listing the names of soldiers who died along with the corresponding location of their name on the Memorial, a man around my father’s age walked over to us and said, “Freddie!” (This was not uncommon. My father ran into people EVERYWHERE.) This particular guy — whose name my father couldn’t remember, (also not uncommon occurrence) was an old acquaintance from the Bronx. As I listened in, I gathered that this man was a Vietnam vet and had woken up the previous night with bad dreams (maybe flashbacks). It seemed as though it wasn’t the first time this had happened because he said that when he woke up, his wife looked at him and said something about “You better drive down there ” — meaning to the Memorial. The man kept looking at me while he talked, as if he didn’t want to say too much that would be upsetting to a kid. Unbeknownst to him, I was a precocious 10 year old and picked up what he was laying down without any problem.
At the time, visiting the Vietnam memorial felt like a field trip commemorating some long ago event. It could have been a Revolutionary War monument for all I could relate to it. I didn’t understand that the events of the Vietnam War were relatively recent for the adults in my life. For them, it wasn’t a distant or historical event. They lived it. Friends died in Vietnam. Real people, whose names ended up on a wall. Ever patient, my father tried to find names of guys he knew but his poor spelling kept us from actually finding any of them and we left without an etching. Come to think of it, maybe that was intentional on his part.
Recently, it struck me that my experience visiting the 9/11 Memorial now must be similar to what the Vietnam Memorial is like for those who lived through that war. This past August, on a beautiful sunny day, I attended an early morning event at the New York Stock Exchange, which is located a few blocks from the 9/11 Memorial. When my meeting ended, it was still mid-morning so I walked over to the pools to find my dad’s name. I’ve visited the memorial many times over the years, including when it first opened in 2014 and family members of those who died were able to visit before the public.
The first thing that hits me as I get close to the Memorial is the tourists. They walk through as if they are visiting an historical site commemorating an event from long ago, which I admit, at this point it is. I find that most tourists are respectful and quiet. Yet, when I see people posing at the pools, using selfie sticks, consulting maps, or following a tour guide, it reminds me of vacation and holiday, not a resting place for thousands of people and certainly not a place where two skyscrapers crumbled as a result of the worst terrorist attack in our country’s history. After weaving through the tourists to the place where my dad’s name is, I always stop and try to ignore everything going on behind me. I close my eyes and think about what his morning must have been like and what happened.
Though it’s been over two decades since the World Trade Center was attacked and my dad died, it is still very personal to me. In my mind, 9/11 is not an event where someone should need to take a tour to learn about it and it doesn’t feel like something that should be in a history book. It is my father’s story. My family’s story. My city’s story. The stories of the firemen who died and those who lived, of the people who didn’t make it out of the towers, of my dear friend who has suffered anxiety ever since she witnessed the attacks on her way to work, of the thousands of people who fled covered in dust and are now sick, of Charlie, Frank and Tommy — all firemen friends who worked on the recovery and suffered through cancer as a result of their heroism.
I am the survivor now, the same way my father’s friend and to some extent my father himself were the survivors who visited the Vietnam Memorial. The memorial to the Vietnam War represented their lives, not history. Now I am on the other side of something similar and I feel like I am living through a movie where people eat popcorn and walk in and out, while I relive the events of that day through my own lens. How can they be casual in the last place my father was seen before a skyscraper collapsed on him?
Twenty three years have passed and 9/11 is an historical event, these are facts I understand. Tourists will continue to visit the pools and museum to learn about the attacks or because it’s on a list of interesting places to visit in NYC or for other reasons. While sitting on a bench at the 9/11 Memorial this past August, I ended up surrounded by a tour group who sat on the same bench and the benches around me. I listened to the guide’s explanation of the 400 white oaks trees that were selected for planting at the Memorial because that particular species is found in New York City, Somerset County, PA and Arlington, VA (something I didn’t know.) I also listened to his description of the memorial glade, featuring sculptures made to look like ramps which represent the ramp used to transport equipment down to Ground Zero during the recovery effort. These sculptures were placed in honor of those who got sick or died as a result of exposure to toxins on 9/11 and during the recovery (also something I didn’t know.)
In May of 2002, when the recovery effort was ending, I travelled to Ground Zero with my mother, sisters, brothers-in-law, and our family liaisons from the firehouse. We drove down the ramp and then gathered in the footprint of the towers where we held hands, said prayers, and wept. The recovery effort was ending shortly after our visit and no trace of my father was ever found. I thought of that moment in 2002 while the tour guide shared that the recovery effort was supposed to last two years but was finished in less than nine months. His description helped me to appreciate the memorial glade in new way.
Though I didn’t sign up for the tour and at the time I wasn’t thrilled that the group picked my bench for their stop, as I reflect, I like connecting my story with the story being shared around me. The visitors were solemn and respectful. They listened intently and when the guide finished, they made their way to the next stop. I’ve come to appreciate that they took time out of their day — maybe their vacations — to learn about 9/11. I hope they went home feeling more connected to 9/11 and will share what they learned with others. I often see bumper stickers and hear people say “Never Forget.” At the memorial, no one has forgotten and in fact people are curious to learn. I learned to be grateful for their interest and I hope others will continue to visit and come to know our story.
