We swore to never forget. And we have not forgotten.
Nineteen years has dulled the pain to a dull ache, turned the absence from a void that swallows us whole to a cavity we’ve learned to live around, but on Sept. 11 every year, we feel the loss more keenly.
The Twin Towers in New York; the Pentagon in Arlington, Va.; and the downed plane near Shanksville, Pa. We mourn every one of the nearly 3,000 lives lost that day.
The attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, changed everything. It changed the way we traveled, the way we saw our neighbors, the way we perceived the world beyond our borders. It was one sudden, stark, horrific day that burned its images into the memories of those old enough to witness it.
But in the process of remembering — of never forgetting — perhaps the memory has become distorted, the lessons warped. In the wake of 9/11, we as a nation looked at the nearly 3,000 deaths and said never again. We launched a war on terror — a vague goal, the work toward which never seems to end. We agreed to be subjected to stringent measures just to board an airplane — still to this day. It’s a collective national memory that haunts us all. We may not remember every detail in HD clarity, but we remember enough to understand why and how a single day changed the world. Sept. 11 has become this monolith for everything the U.S. stands for and stands against and the 3,000 have become martyrs in whose names we continue to act.
And yet … we, as a country, look at over 190,000 deaths in six months — which averages to a little over 1,000 deaths a day — and shrug in comparison. One incident resulting in 3,000 deaths: We vilified a whole religion; we waged war on an entire region; we sacrificed individual freedoms in the name of national safety. Six months of a pandemic that has killed nearly 200,000 Americans and will likely kill more than 300,000 by the time it has run its course: We argue over whether the potentially deadly virus is even real; we wage war on information and science and each other; we prioritize individuals freedoms — the “right” to not wear a mask — over national health and security.
We made the victims of Sept. 11 martyrs and built monuments in their memory. We’ve made the victims of COVID-19 collateral damage in a war between politics and science and have built mass cold storage for their bodies. Perhaps someday we will recall the images of our people on ventilators, clinging to life, with the same clarity and horror we remember the images of bodies tumbling from the windows of the Towers like debris floating to earth.
The loss of 3,000 lives slashed a wound into the heart of this country that has still not fully healed. But in the 19 years since 9/11, have we become so callous, so impervious to death, that we don’t feel the agony of 190,000 people — family, friends, lovers — just … gone?
We have not forgotten the day. But we have forgotten its lessons.
