Something Old, Something New: 9/11

 

Wall Street Journal, 9-12-2001

Up until I started blogging in 2007 I used to journal every morning before work. Here's what I wrote on that morning two hours before the plane hit the first tower:

“The eastern sky is clear, but fierce looking clouds threaten us from the west. It may not be a pretty day.” ~ Journal entry, Sept. 11, 2001

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My cousin Gary was a career firefighter most of his life, many of those years a fire chief. His father served his community as volunteer fire fighter and rescue squad worker. What I didn't know was that the actor Steve Buscemi (Fargo, Reservoir Dogs) was once a fireman when he was younger, before Hollywood. 

As it turns out, because of that experience, when the twin towers fell, he called the old fire station he used to work at and when they didn't answer he drove to Ground Zero and put in five 12-hour days aiding in the search and recovery efforts taking place. The experience shook him emotionally. You can read the story here. 

* * * 

Bob Ossler was a chaplain who spent 45 days serving the needs of those at Ground Zero during those first weeks after the tragedy. The book he wrote about that experience was titled Triumph Over Terror. Here's my interview with Mr. Ossler.

* * * 

One thing I recall from that day, besides the lack of interest in celebrating my birthday that night, was how fragile life is and that we really can't take tomorrow for granted. The proverb "Who can tell what a day may bring forth?" became very real, much like Pearl Harbor must have been for Americans who lived through that nightmare.

EdNote: The "old" was the WSJ front page. The new was learning of Steve Buscemi's background as a firefighter and participation in the subsequent search and rescue efforts.

Wordless Wednesday: 9/11

Click

HERE 

and

HERE

Pearl Harbor Day Reflections

When the Twin Towers were struck and fell on my birthday ten years ago, 9/11 was immediately being compared to another Day of Infamy sixty years earlier. What’s striking about the two events is how differently the news reached us. In 2001 Americans across the land were glued to their TV sets seeing replays of the horror and hearing commentaries of related unfolding events as they happened, with varying degrees of accuracy but instantly. With Internet access we could also watch reactions from around the world. Information about the 1941 attack came home to us in a far different manner, as this book excerpt shows.

During World War II my father-in-law Wilmer A. "Bud" Wagner kept a diary which years later he assembled into a book, with the help of his son Lloyd. And There Shall Be Wars is 536 pages in length with 178 original photos and illustrations. In many ways it is a remarkable document by the second man from this region of the country to enter the army, serving for the duration in North Africa, Italy and all points in between. The diary entries were made throughout, but the book’s additional value comes from the commentary added nearly fifty years later. Here is the excerpt from Pearl Harbor Day through the ninth. The italicized portion is commentary from the book.

Sunday, December 7, 1941
Slept until 9:00. Made my own breakfast, which was fried eggs, bacon, and toast.
Went to church in the Service Club. Good service by Chaplain Walker.
By the time church was out, so was the news of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. Probably this will affect my life very much in the future.
Will go to the Service Club and to church again. Nice today.
Chaplain Walker gave a real good sermon tonight as well. There were only 8 of us there. I got both of the Lucas brothers to go, and Sheppard.
Undoubtedly, we will be on the alert or affected in some way. Some discharged fellows are to report back to their local boards.
Off today. Talked and listened to a lot of the fellows' ideas as to how this will affect us in the future. There haven't been any specific radio reports on Pearl Harbor attack that I've heard, but some information comes now and then.
Our first quesion is, "Just where is it?" Of course, in the Hawaiians, and from all accounts so far, it was bad. It puts all of us in a much more sober mood.

Monday, December 8, 1941
The United States declares war on Japan. We hear the news on noon. I am on duty with Ceno.
We have an alert tonight at 5:00. The 125th Field Artillery of our Division is starting to pull out of Claiborne. I'm wondering what the folks at home are thinking. I bought another diary book tonight.
I'm still the newest cook in the kitchen, but Tarman likes me pretty well. I do my job and somewhat more, so there are no complaints.
I don't care too much for the Philippino cook.
He seems he might be a bit tricky, but then it might just be a strong desire for a drink. All our bottles of extract are taken care of by the Mess Sergeant, but the Philippino seems to find something to drink.
An alert is always a lot of work, but Tarman told me later that he caught the Captain's wink, and only loaded a few things on the kitchen, formed a convoy, drove a few miles, then came back to camp.
The Philippino will drink lemon extract as readily as Otto did.

Tuesday, December 9, 1941
Another alert at 12:30 a.m. Hard to get up, but off-duty cooks always
have to help load. Most of our personal things go along as well, except for our foot lockers.
Had a bad headache. My things are in a mess. We left at 1:30. Got somewhere around Leesville to the firing range at 4:00.
Tarman and I put up our tent together. The situation is non-tactical, so we built a big bon-fire tonight.

As we gathered together around our fire, and after, we had an arousing talk by Captain Genung. Some of the things he said were, "This is it, men. We go for the duration. You will learn to bayonet the Japs and Germans as they sleep in their tents. It's all-out war now. Be prepared to go and do what you are told."

After that, we wondered if the Germans could see our big fire, and maybe come and bayonet us.

The United States and Great Britain had both declared war on Japan. In his address to Congress, President Roosevelt described the events at Pearl Harbor as the forming part of a "date that will live in infamy." Roosevelt did not ask Congress to declare war on Germany or Italy. Australia, New Zealand, The Netherlands, The Free French, Yugoslavia, and several South American countries all declared war on Japan. Also, China declared war on Germany, Italy, and Japan.

Some sobering facts had come in since Sunday's attack on Pearl Harbor. At 07:55 local time, Japanese carrier aircraft attacked the main base of the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. There was complete tactical and strategic surprise.

Six Jap carriers were sent with a total of 423 planes. Two waves of attacks were sent in. All eight U.S. battleships in port were damaged, five of them were sunk. Also, three cruisers and three destroyers were sunk. We lost 188 aircraft to the Japs' 29.

Words and accusations were flying. The Admiral in charge of the Pacific Fleet would be dismissed because of having all Anti-Aircraft (A.A.) guns locked in peace-time. Then it was Sunday, and many officers and crews from ships were ashore.

We had a lot to talk about, and wondered at how many more mistakes we would be going through for the "duration?" There were some. And those who made the mistakes were sure to try to cover them.

All in all we were able to say, as we could many times in the future, that "Error is Error, and Truth is Truth."

If you or a loved on has an ongoing interest in World War II history, this book would make a great addition to any library and a nice Christmas present. It is still available at Savage Press.

Something To Talk About

Anyone who has had even the most remote brush with the media knows that 9/11 is coming upon us very rapidly now. Until ten years ago the significance of this date was pretty much a non-event, except for those of us with birthdays on the 11th, like myself.

In 1964 when I was reading the backs of some of my baseball cards I noticed that Larry Bearnarth, a relief pitcher for the hapless New York Mets, shared the same birthday as I. I was turning 12 and he was turning 23. The Mets, a new club that became part of the National League the year before, were embarrassingly bad, and it must have been tough to be a pitcher on a team whose claim to fame was playing in New York, along with being the losingest team in baseball.

Larry grew up in New York, in a city where there were no "twin towers." And when the Mets came along, and later when they became amazing, there were still no twin towers. In fact, it wasn't until 1973 that the official seven-building World Trade Center complex officially opened with its 13.4 million square feet of primo office space. (Think of all that rent!) Considering all the architectural wonders in Europe that have lived through centuries of war and weather, this building complex is almost like a child that dies in its infancy. It never reached its 30th birthday.

So with the tenth year anniversary of "the infamous" 9/11 approaching we're seeing lots of magazines beginning to re-visit this event, its impact and its significance. Here are a couple stories that seemed worth sharing. The first is from the India Times, an article about the bullying and abuse directed toward Muslim and Sikh youth in American schools after the 9/11 attacks. The second is a review of Jason Burke's The 9/11 Wars, which summarizes the impact of the ten years that followed in the wake of that disastrous day. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that a lot of journalists used Burke's book as a resource for fresh insights on the seemingly unrelated but interconnected events of these past years.

Meantime, life goes on....