Yes, I realized it’s September 12th, and no, that title isn’t a reference to Sgt. Pepper. The shock of September 11, 2001, was only compounded the next day, when the country woke up and realized it wasn’t a sick dream. The first day in the new reality, without those who were taken.
The main memory, the feeling that sticks with me from 20 years ago is anger. I wasn’t scared or even sad, I was pissed off. I didn’t know anyone lost that day, but I was mad. I’d stayed in Baltimore that day for a conference on e-books. I was working in the publishing services department at the Heritage Foundation and 2 friends in that department were going to daylong conference on this new thing called e-books. Kindle didn’t exist yet, I don’t even remember what they were trying to say about the concept.
Truth be told, I couldn’t have cared less about it. I worked in publishing services because it was the job open when I graduated college. I just wanted to work in DC and for Heritage, the job didn’t matter much. As I said in my interview, I just wanted a foot in the door, I’d wrestle the rest of my body through on my own.
I lived in Baltimore because I couldn’t afford to live in DC without a bunch of roommates and I didn’t want a bunch of roommates. So this was an opportunity for me to not have to take the early train to DC and be done with work at 1:00, when the conference ended. That and hanging out with 2 work friends for a day was the entirety of my motivation for being there.
A little while into a boring conference, while trying to stay awake, someone came in a whispered to whoever was leading this thing about a terrorist attack. That woke me up. The speaker didn’t stop. Everyone else was seemingly there to learn about e-books, but I wasn’t and had to know what was happening.
I got up and walked to the lobby of the hotel. There, on the giant tube TV that probably weighted 100 pounds (I used to sell those things at Best Buy), was the World Trade Center on fire. Both towers at that point. I couldn’t look away.
After a few minutes, the conference took an unscheduled break so everyone could be brought up on what was happening. After 10 minutes or so, they were going to reconvene this stupid lecture. I’d had enough, informed my friends that I was going home so I could watch (and hear, because the TV in the hotel wall wasn’t loud) what the hell was going on.
I remember thinking one of the towers looked like it was leaning. When I’d gotten home, maybe 7-minute cab ride from downtown, it had fallen. Word of the Pentagon attack came, the crash in Pennsylvania. There were reports of a bomb going off at the Washington Monument and the State Department, along with a whole bunch of other false reports and rumors. Everything was in a frenzy.
I wanted to be in DC. I don’t know why, I just felt that need. There wasn’t anything I could have done, except maybe get in the way, but I had this drive to be there. The trains weren’t running and I didn’t own a car, so going there wasn’t an option. I became transfixed by the TV. I couldn’t afford cable then, but broadcast was enough. All the channels went wall-to-wall.
Over the next couple of days, I slept at some point, for at least a while, but I have no memory of consciously deciding to do so. I ate, too, I assume. I was just angry.
I didn’t really feel anything else until that Friday, the day of prayer President George W. Bush called for. I was back at work, and at lunch I walked to the nearest Catholic church – St. Joseph’s next to the Senate and Supreme Court. In there is where I let the anger go, only for a minute, and embraced the sadness. In a packed church, with VIPs and nobodies like me, we all cried. Some people there lost friends, others didn’t, but we were all in it together. We collectively cried.
The anger came back and smolders to this day. It burns deeper watching this idiot occupant of the Oval Office toss away, in a matter of weeks, all the progress made over these last 20 years because he’s too senile or stupid to have recognized the error of his ways and do anything about it.
So yes, it was 20 years ago today that 20 years ago yesterday became real, when shock and disbelief gave way to anger. That anger seems to have gone away for too many, enough to empower a buffoon like Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats to dishonor the memories of those taken from us that day by comparing it to a few hours of unrest on January 6th where the only life taken was an unarmed woman shot by police. That is a shame I’ll never understand, but have to stop there before I go off on an obscenity-laced rant about how I really feel on the subject.
Derek Hunter is the host of a free daily podcast (subscribe!), host of a daily radio show on WCBM in Maryland, and author of the book, Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses. Follow him on Twitter at @DerekAHunter.