Seven Years Later...

It doesn't happen very often, but I get this way every once in a while. You know, sentimental.

Anybody who has read the blog long enough to suffer through my Pamplona gibberish and mourning of the passing of President Hinckley has figured out that on the rare occasions that I get this way and write about it, it is self-serving; for me, I find my scattered thoughts take on the semblance of something cohesive as I write them. This guy's article also may have been part of the impetus (if you don't want to read further, at least read the article).

Stick with me here for a second, if you don't mind. This won't get political (as I hate politics).

On 9/11/2001, I was in the MTC (Missionary Training Center for the LDS Church) preparing to serve in Japan for two years. That day was a blur -- but not for the same reasons that it was for most Americans. All days in the MTC are a blur of classroom instruction, lectures, cafeteria food, etc.

The only news we received in the MTC that day was a brief announcement from the Mission President: That the WTC and the Pentagon had been crashed into and nobody knew much else. That was it. Rumors abounded,* but in my information vacuum of an environment I got nothing tangible. I mean, technically, my geographic location was in the United States, but the life of a missionary is so detached from the world of media (no TV, news, phone calls, or internet) that you're as informed about current events as someone living in the jungles of the Amazon. I went from the MTC to Japan in October. I didn't see images or video of the 9/11 attacks until Aug 2003, when I got back from Japan. Almost two years removed. That, combined with my teenage naivete, prevented me from fully grasping the significance of what happened that day.

I wasn't here to witness the tragedies of that day and what came in their wake. How it affected Americans. I guess I have a decent grasp of the "big picture" effects 9/11 had on America, but I have no personal perspective -- I just don't feel it to the extent that those who watched it all unfold do. In some (perhaps strange) way, I want to. I want to feel more, because I feel I owe it to those who were victims, and to every American that was so deeply affected by that day. But I can't. I was too far removed to ever form a strong personal connection.

Maybe that's why any opportunity I get, I try to form one. Maybe it's why I made sure to go to Ground Zero on a visit to NYC, and why I bought and (partially) read the 9/11 Commission's report. Maybe it's why I constantly ask people "What do you remember about 9/11?" and I listen, fixated, as their eyes go out of focus and look off into the distance as they vividly recall where they were, what they saw, and, most importantly, what they felt that day.

Maybe it's why at midnight this past Friday, I found myself at the Pentagon 9/11 Memorial, hoping maybe this time I could feel some stronger connection.

I think it came as I sat next to the bench -- there is one for each victim who died at the Pentagon -- of the youngest victim. He was born in 1998. I just sat there, silent, staring at nothing, finding myself fighting back tears for this child and all of these victims that I didn't know. More than that, though, I was saddened by a different realization: That the building of this memorial -- as beautiful as it was -- was even necessary in the first place. That hatred was the driving force behind 9/11 attacks. That that hate still exists today. That 9/11 seems to be exploited to divide us rather than unite us. That we forget more easily, seven years later... (half the articles I wanted to read off of news sites were gone by the next day)

As I dragged myself away from the memorial, I resolved that I would try harder to remember that day. Up until last Friday I found it difficult to, both because I wasn't here for that day, and because each day further removes me temporally from 9/11/2001.

I will need memorials like this to help remind me...


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You can see some pictures I took while there.

*My personal favorite was another missionary's far-fetched speculation that he heard "Salt Lake [was] going to be attacked next"; as Seinfeld says: "The egotism of the average human being is just astounding..."