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October 2004                                                                            Volume 7 - Number 1

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Perspectives...

9/11 Didn’t Attack The Way We Think

By Elza McGowan

I never felt more naked and alone than I did on September 11, 2001.  It seems surreal now ... the angry orange flames leaping from the roof of the Pentagon – all visible from my balcony. I could smell the smoke, the burning wood, the jet fuel.  I thought for sure my mother would walk right over from her first-floor office there and knock on my door.  I didn’t know she was already dead.

The next morning, I hazily remember being herded into a Crystal City, Va., hotel, where I sat dazed while an Army general informed the victim’s families that all survivors from the Pentagon had been fully accounted for – and that everyone else was presumed dead. I didn’t even have a body to grieve, but within 24 hours, the Department of Defense had already set up a family assistance office where we were provided access to lawyers to help with estate issues, counselors to help us with our grief, and guards to provide a sanctuary safe from media intrusion.  Lastly, to tidy things up, I was assigned a casualty assistance officer to help me navigate the sea of organizations that I would need for aid.   

I was one of the lucky ones; everything was being handled for me.  Or was I the one being handled?  Before I knew it, the right to sue the airlines had been all but obliterated. The Victim Compensation Fund, established by Congress, was now being touted as the best method of recourse – guaranteeing money in exchange for dropping litigation. 

While I understand the need to avoid litigation and the costs associated with it, it disturbs me that the decisions were being made before bodies were even returned to the families. I had to make choices without any perspective.  No blame had been placed on anyone but Al Qaeda, yet I had to disregard the possibility that our government was also to blame and charge ahead.  I felt that my silence was being been bought.  If I took the money, I would have no right to question who, how or why any of this happened, or to demand to know what was going to be done to prevent the next attack. 

The Pentagon was fully reconstructed exactly one year after 9/11.  Like a phoenix, the walls rose proudly and defiantly against those who would attack again.  But those shiny, new walls belie a terrible truth.  Nothing inside of those walls has changed; the prevailing mentality is still shaped by “groupthink” and the “Cold War”.

Three years have passed, political decisions have been made, wars have been started, thousands of people have been killed, yet this country is more vulnerable to terrorists than ever. When the 9/11 Commission was finally put into place, I was hopeful.  Finally the country would have an unbiased view and an opportunity for an aggressive change that would better shape the future safety and security of our country.  How naïve I was.  Washington hasn’t changed.  It will take another attack for that to happen.

Although the Department of Homeland Security was created to protect us from another attack, what does it say that our borders are more porous than ever, our nuclear and chemical weapons factories are vulnerable for attack and our ports still easily compromised?

It’s time for more than a mighty façade or a “bring it on” attitude.  Protecting the homeland is more than protecting land – it means honestly evaluating our current progress and learning from mistakes.  At this rate, we will only get that truth when we are attacked again.  We can’t afford to wait that long.