Tara
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Zeno's
log for 911
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Chicago7
Flash Presentation |
arriving at work my usual 10 minutes late. Normal -- until I realized my favorite morning DJ on the radio was not involved in a “wacky moment”
but was speaking in a very serious tone telling his listeners that there was an “unconfirmed explosion” at the World Trade Center but reports
were coming through it might have been an airplane. Stay tuned for more details.
By the time I got into my office and turned on the television, it was
pretty much confirmed that it was indeed an airplane. It was as I stood
there, staring at the scene before me on the screen, that the world as
I knew it would never be the same – I watched as an airplane flew
across
the screen and directly into the other tower.
The rest of the morning was a panic amid confirmed and unconfirmed reports
of a truck bomb exploding at the White House, a hijacked plane
was headed towards Camp David, an explosion at the Pentagon, a plane shot
down over Pennsylvania, an explosion outside of Wright
Patterson Air Force Base --- the terror just kept playing out minute by
minute, hour after hour.
Then there was the complete and total feeling of helplessness as I watched the towers collapse into oblivion.
I was full of fear.
I don’t know exactly when my fear turned into anger, but I am pretty
sure it was when I learned that our President was reading a storybook
about a hungry goat at a school in Florida while our Nation was being
attacked. Angry at the fact that he knew about the first airplane as he
was leaving his hotel to go to the school yet still went into a building
full of children. Angry at the fact he continued to read for another 26
minutes after learning about the second airplane. Angry at the fact he
hop scotched all over the place to be “protected’ instead of
heading to
the White House to do what a President does in a time of crisis –-
reassure the people.
The White House and the Pentagon have the most protected air space in
the world yet a plane flew right into the Pentagon. That makes me
angry.
I have watched grief turn into greed. That makes me angry.
The trampling of our Constitution makes me angry.
The prior knowledge of September 11th makes me angry.
The Evil-Doers make me angry – on both sides.
The Lies make me angry.
The loss of so many innocent lives makes me angry. This includes those we bombed in Afghanistan.
But it is with anger that I can make changes. When it was simply fear,
I could not do anything. Anger allows determination. Anger allows
questions. Anger demands answers. Anger gives purpose. Fear does none
of those things. Fear is meek. Fear is accepting without question.
Fear is dark. Fear is blind. Fear does not survive.
In times such as these, Anger can be a good thing.
Tara, August 20, 2002