America Under Attack: September 11, 2001

We're coming up on the five-year anniversary of 9/11 and, no doubt, countless thousands of new words will be spilled trying to make sense of that day and where we've come since. Newsweek went strong on pictures in this "EXTRA EDITION" and the picture on the cover was titled, simply, "9:03 A.M. TUESDAY, SEPT. 11, 2001: Hijacked United Airlines Flight 175 explodes into the World Trade Center." Take a moment and look at this cover, CLICK IT if you want to see the full size, you saw it on the newstands, you may even have bought several copies.

Cover Photograph by Kristen Brochmann, New York Times

Try for a few moments not to think about all that has come since and how divided our country has become, again. Remember instead how it actually seemed in the aftermath of 9/11 that we would pull together, as we have done many times before, into a united country.

Nothing like this has ever happened to America before. With chilling skill, terrorists struck at our heart last Tuesday, hijacking commercial jets, then crashing into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon -- cold-blooded murder on a mass scale. The human toll is beyond imagining, the psychic costs difficult to calculate. We always thought we were safe. We were wrong.

The magazine devoted its special coverage into only four sections: IN PICTURES; AN ACT OF WAR; THE AFTERMATH and A DAY OF AGONY. After an extended spread of photographs, the opening article, "A New Day of Infamy," began with the story of Jeremy Glick on the doomed United Airlines Flight 93, a telling that has seen two versions come to film this year, one on TV, the other in theaters. But after the Flight 93 story, the article kicked in:

A victory for courage over cowardice, but forces of terror carried the day on Sept. 11, 2001. The date, like Dec. 7, 1941, will live in infamy. The audacious air assault on the political and financial capitals made a mockery of Fortress America and ended the illusion that its citizens can somehow float above the hatreds of the world. The thick clouds of smoke and dust billowing from the spot where the World Trade Center once stood were eerily reminiscent of the photographs from the Japanese attack on Battleship Row in Pearl Harbor -- only the clouds were engulfing lower Manhattan, where hundreds of thousands of civilians live and work.

The coverage then goes into the differences that sixty years have brought: no enemy army to be declared war on, and a fight that will, at times, resemble one against shadows.

There's so much in this issue to contemplate. Of course it would be easy to go back and point a finger at President George Bush who famously said, "Make no mistake: The United States will hunt down and punish those responsible for those cowardly acts." Even Newsweek pointed out then that it was 90% likely to be Osama bin Laden, but that finding him would be no easy task. Five years later, he is still at large, but Sadaam Hussein is in jail. It's funny what lead to what.

Jonathan Alter got to write the article that ended Newsweek's coverage. Always eloquent, he began:

Summer is over in America. Fat and happy is history, a closed chapter in our national experience. By midday Tuesday, with the surreal horror sinking in, the sense spread widely that life in the United States will change as permanently as the skyline of New York City. But change how? Despite the unspeakable carnage, maybe we shouldn't change so much after all... For the past decade, we've lived in a golden age. Peace and prosperity -- as good as it gets. Now that feels like past tense -- as good as it got. But life on a downward slope is a profoundly un-American notion. As we grieve and heal, let's not let a horrible day open a horrible era in the life of this country.

Well, the truth is, even though we said that "everything changed" on 9/11, many things have gotten back to normal. We're still obsessed with vacuous celebrities and reality shows. But the road to retribution took a left turn into Iraq and we have the same old blue/red division we had when Gore and Bush tied on election day 2000.

Maybe everything hasn't changed. I wonder if Alter got it wrong and that maybe everything should have. For what it's worth...

Comments

[CAROLE SCHICKLER]

FROM LOGAN AIRPORT, I WAS WAITING FOR A FLIGHT TO NYC AS I WAS ON MY WAY BACK TO MY JOB IN RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA.

I WAS TO MEET MY SON, HIS WIFE AND TWO CHILDREN WHO LIVE ACROSS THE RIVER IN BROOKLYN, TO SAY OUR GOOD-BYES.

MY DAUGHTER-IN-LAW WAS TAKING THE CHILDREN TO SCHOOL AND DEBRIS WAS FALLING FROM THE SKY ON MY GRANDCHILDREN.

WHEN SHE FOUND OUT WHAT WAS GOING ON, SHE TOOK THE CHILDREN OUT OF THE SCHOOL AND LEFT THEM AT HOME TO GO TO THE RIVER WHERE SHE WATCHED AS THE TOWERS FELL. SHE SAID THAT PEOPLE WERE SOBBING IN THE STREETS AND AT THE PARK, AND SHE COULD NOT CONTACT HER HUSBAND, MY SON.

WE COULD NOT REACH MY SON'S CELL PHONE UNTIL 4 PM THAT DAY.

IN ONE INSTANT, I FELT I COULD HAVE LOST MY ENTIRE FAMILY AND FOR ME, I LOST MY LIVELIHOOD AND HAVE NOT BEEN ABLE TO BECOME EMPLOYED SINCE.

IN THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED, I LEFT MY APARTMENT BUILDING TO LIGHT A CANDLE, AS WAS SUGGESTED. I SANG AS LOUDLY AS I COULD "AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL", "THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER" AND EVERY PATRIOTIC SONG I COULD REMEMBER. I LIVED IN MANCHESTER, NH, DOWNTOWN AND I WAS THE ONLY ONE ON THE STREET SINGING AND SOB BING MY EYES OUT.

MAYBE IT HIT ME SO HARD BECAUSE I HAD WORKED WITH SAUDIS FOR SIX YEARS AND I WAS SO CLOSE TO ALL OF IT -PERHAPS EVEN SITTING NEXT TO THE TERRORISTS AT THE AIRPORT THAT DAY.

I TRY NOT TO SEE MOVIES OR SHOWS ABOUT TERRORISM AS I WAS AFFECTED TOO PROFOUNDLY TO GO THROUGH IT AGAIN.

JUST TODAY, I READ THE EXTRA EDITION, "AMERICA UNDER ATTACK"

AMERICA HAS ITS FAULTS, BUT IT IS MY HOME AND WILL ALWAYS BE MY COUNTRY.

MOST SINCERELY