NYC-WTC_000230571

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

Washington post, fridaV, September 2^. 2001

Jim Hoagland i I ‘Look at What They Did to Us’ NEW YORK-SmaU fires still smoldered this gola, Iraq or other places 1 have seen overrun by en- week in the twnbling ridges of twisted steel and put eiiiy armies—come to New York’s financial district, verized concrete at Ground Zero NYC.. A covered I silently ask. At least here there is no panic, flight but incandescent anger also bums in this city even from an advandiig army oi chaos as I gaze out on as it dresses its war wounds with dear and present the destruction visited on thousands 1 did not know, heroism. Do not lose sight ot that heroism, or of and on one person I did. that deferred anger. That person was Neil levin, a genuinely good President Bush is said to have found a mission in man who gave his lite to public service for New York responding to the Sept, 11 acts of mass murder. To state. Named as head of the Port Authority of New visit Ground Zero is to understand that the Amer­ York and New Jersey a few months ago, he died try­ ican nation has found a duty; to remeniber what ing to help his employees escape their offices at the happened here every day forward and to inflict me- World Thlde Center. 1 joined hundreds of others in thodiral and terrible retribution on those who killed fighting back tears through a memorial service or helped kill members of the American family. Tuesday night at Temple Emaiiu-el, Then Mayor The ruins of the World Trade Center twin towers Rudy Giuliani stood up to speak and our tears resemble the crisis itself: You focus on the details stopped. that arc relevant to you and make what you will of Giuliani has throughout the crisis found words the rest. Etched in the broken girders and smashed and gestures so authentic and simple that they tran­ skyscraper terraces hurled to earth is the easily dis­ scend eloquence. He asked the rabbi's pertitission to cernible terrorist message of hatred and fury. have the audience rise and give Neil the standing also need to comprehend and heed the mes­ ovation we would have given him in life. A cathartic sage of human decency, determination and love lifting of spirit followed words from Giuliani that written by the rescue werkers, police officers, fire- were sorrowful but rallying for his New Yorkers: fi^iters and others who ding to this site two weeks Took at what they did to us." on. They still work throu^ numbing eahauslion to Look at what they did to us ail. As the nation find bodies, limbs, clothing, mementos, anything works its way throu^ a response, it must never for­ amid a million tons of debris that might comfort the get the people who have labored through their grieving families of their missing or dead brethren. shock and grief at Ground Zero to help and to honor There are families that want enough to fill a cof­ others, who have deferred their anger to cope with fin and end terrible uncertainty,' a policeman tells more urgent demands, who speak with heartbreak me as we stand in the unearthly silence of the ruins and heroism in those accents the rest of us so often of Wrrld Trade Center Building S. mock. The abstractions that rule Washington's official President Bush and his aides deny that the Unit­ response—the building of ‘coalitions of the will­ ed States seeks vengeance. Politicians have to say ing,’ the disputes over releasing or concealing evi­ that kind of thing when they are assembling "broad- dence to other nations, the rearranging of bu­ based” coalitions abroad. reaucratic fiefdoms in the Cabinet—seem remote But the police officers, the firefighters, the iron and unreal here in the hole cut into Maiiluttan by workers snd others at Ground Zero have earned suicide pilots from the Middle East more than diplomatic footwork or other farms of War damage is suddenly part of New York’s phys­ temporizing. They will wait, but they will not wait ical and emotional landscapes: To walk or drive near for very lung if their anger seems to go unrequited. Ground Zero for the year it may take to dear the site will be like traveling through Berlin or Hamburg four decades ago, when a ghostly vacant city block - would suddenly pop up between gleaming new sky- scrapers. It is as disorienting as a missing front tooth in a beautiful smile. Wiring, snapped beams and smashed ducts twist out of one comer of the American Express building jutting into the sky and disrupting the universe like a broken bone sticking up through akin. A cavern purrehed through the building wall next door by a flying Trade Center beam grins crazily down from the loth floor. How has Beirut—or the villages in Pakistan, An-

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NYC-WTC_000230571