Reflections After Twenty-Two Septembers

My kids have become fans of Ghostbusters.  They love the first two movies and The Real Ghostbusters cartoon show.  Proton packs are reality to them. They don’t know who Bill Murray is at first, but they know Peter Venkman.  They can whip out the answer to the question “Who you gonna call?” without hesitating.  And since they’re older now, I let them watch the movies without a ready trigger finger on the mute or fast-forward buttons. 

So upon a recent rewatch of the 1989 sequel, something struck me. At the end of Ghostbusters II, the guys are being honored on Liberty Island for their good deeds. The camera then pans back in a helicopter shot and you can see the Statue of Liberty.  (Somehow, even though they didn’t have Nikes in her size, the ghostbusters had enough positively charged ectoplasm to get her back up onto the pedestal!)  The camera keeps pulling back and you can see the entire Manhattan skyline from the harbor.  Then you notice it right in the middle of the screen: the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.  And then immediately this comedy becomes a unintentionally poignant and sharp reminder of that September 11^th not so long ago.

Ever have that happen when you’re watching a movie or a TV that was filmed before that horrible day?  You’re watching right along without a care in the world and suddenly there’s an old establishing shot of the New York City skyline and there you see the towers, still standing.  There you see a city, a nation, completely oblivious to the tragedy that will befall it in September 2001.  You want to be able to warn them, to get there, to yell for help, to do something…but you can’t do anything except have a sick feeling in your stomach.

That original September morning, I was close to the start of my staff ministry internship in Rapid City, South Dakota.  I moved there in late July, and I was still feeling my way in and around a new city in a new state doing a new job.  The Black Hills are lovely, the Badlands breathtaking, the whole area is a wonderful slice of the country to live in.  I turned on the TV that morning and saw on the news that there was some sort of fire going on in the World Trade Center.

Word was that a plane had crashed into the tower and there were people trapped in the floors above, not to mention those that had perished already.  I just sat there, unable to turn away from the screen, enveloped in the moment.  While the talking heads and pundits and witnesses were all continuing with what they saw, what they speculated, what they didn’t know, I decided I was going to make some breakfast.

Then it happened.  A plane struck the other tower.  The explosion was huge, and millions saw it happen live on TV just like me.  What in the hell was happening?  One plane hitting the World Trade Center in the middle of a clear and beautiful late summer day is unbelievable.  But perhaps the pilot had a heart attack or there were technical failures or maybe even a hijacking gone awry.  That was all conjecture until the next plane hit.  This was deliberate, this was terrifying, this was real.

Other reports starting filtering in of an attack on the Pentagon.  Then another plane crashed in Pennsylvania.  Where would other targets be?  There must be others, right?  The White House, the Capitol, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Hoover Dam, everything was up for grabs at this point.  Who knows what is going on?  Local news broke in because there was a worry of targeting right here in South Dakota.  Why?  Because Rapid City is just a heartbeat away from…Mount Rushmore.  Granted it wouldn’t cause terrific carnage compared to the other targets selected so far, but a landmark is a landmark.

I could then hear jets rocketing by outside!  What’s going on now?  I ran outside my apartment, as if that would make a difference.  Again, so little information known but then I remembered: near Rapid City is Ellsworth Air Force base.  Fighter jets were being scrambled.  Where were they headed?  Was there another attack?  Are there enemy planes in the air as well?  Stepping back into my apartment, I saw a neighbor of mine.  An older African-American guy who was in his Air Force uniform.  We shared a look as he was leaving, and I was going back in.  Just a solemn glance shared between two human beings amid incredible events.  He gave me a nod and I gave him one back as he left.

 
On the streets of Rapid City, it was for the most part business as usual, despite the ever-increasing lines at the gas pumps.  Were we told to evacuate?  Was this a fuel shortage problem?  Why was this happening?  I later went to the bank to deposit a check that day as well.  When I was filling out the deposit slip, I asked the clerk what the date was.  She responded, “The 11^th.  I don’t think anyone’s going to forget that day.”  She was right. 

A generation prior had November 22, 1963 to remember as their day of tragedy.  The generation before that had the day of infamy itself: December 7, 1941.  What was witnessed on September 11, 2001 was an incredible sight.  I not only watched the World Trade Center towers in a blaze, but also saw a jet airliner slam into one of the towers on live TV.  I saw people running for their lives, screaming.  I saw the first responders, the police, the firefighters, the EMTs running towards the danger.  And I saw one tower collapse.  And then the second. 

It was one of those moments where what you are witnessing doesn’t seem real.  No one has any answers at first.  Sure, the commentators had a field day in the upcoming weeks and months and years, but on that day: confusion, pain, anger, death.  There were people jumping out of the windows of the World Trade Center rather than burn to death inside.  Just think about that.  Some chose to launch themselves out of a skyscraper than just sit and die in the smoky, fire-filled rooms.  If you watch some of the unaired footage from that day, you can hear the bodies thudding on the metal overhang below the Trade Center.  Incredible.

For whatever reason, I’m drawn to moments like this throughout history.  I find myself captivated watching recreations of the Titanic sinking or the footage of the Hindenburg engulfed in flames.  I will rewatch items on Mount Saint Helens exploding in 1980 and the Zapruder film from Dealey Plaza in 1963.  And I will watch the planes crashing into the towers and their eventual collapse.  Why am I sucked in to watch these incredible moments of natural and mechanical accidents, disasters, and attacks?

Perhaps I always wonder how I would react in similar circumstances.  Would I run away to try to save myself?  Would I run in to save others?  Would I just accept my fate and be resigned to it no matter what?  Would I cry, pray, scream, run, stand, and/or a dozen other actions that fit the situation?  Would I even have time to react?

Some people that were dedicated to commit evil that day brought the injury and death and destruction to hundreds and hundreds of people.  In a matter of a few hours, they managed to change an entire nation’s outlook, attitude, focus.  They also managed to do something, at least in the immediate weeks that followed, that was incredible as well: people came together in this country.  I can even remember a group of congressional leaders gathering to sing patriotic songs.  Both parties…united in purpose?  Amazing.  Given the current annoyingly heightened political climate and the ones to come, I’m sure witnessing a moment like that was like seeing Halley’s Comet as it fleetingly streaks across the sky.

Yes, today is September 12, 2023.  Yesterday was 22 years from the events of that horrible day.  Was it real?  Did that really happen?  Yes, it was and yes, it did.  It struck me as I watched that final shot at the end of Ghostbusters II: this shot and others like them won’t trigger that same effect in generations to come.  The generations that follow won’t pay this moment the same heed that those of us who witnessed 9-11-01 continue to do to this day.  My kids never saw it on TV.  There will never be that same raw impact.

But I am certainly sharing it with them, just like the generations prior shared with me what they felt on that day in late November 1963 or what they were doing when Pearl Harbor was attacked.  I hope and pray that my kids won’t experience their own day of tragedy, but there’s no guarantee there either.  We live in a world that can sometimes bring out the best in humanity, while simultaneously bringing out the worst.

When I think of this, I see my eldest boy running around the house saying, “I ain’t afraid of no ghosts!” as he grins, imagining beating Vigo himself.  My kids are none the wiser as to what their dad was mulling over.  I have been blessed to witness my kids enjoy Ray Stantz and his proton pack take on a supernatural Carpathian baddie and win.  If only all things in life could be that easy to solve.  But for now, I will enjoy their moment, because I don’t know when the next one might come. 

After all, a life might end after having lived a great many years, after an illness, after a car accident, or after going to work on a seemingly normal Tuesday in September.