September 11, 2001

The phone wakes me at 6:30 a.m.

“Mom, turn on the TV,” says my son, a law student at New York University. “Two planes were just hijacked and plowed into the sides of the World Trade Center.”

“What?” Boom. I am suddenly wide awake.  Heart pounding, I head for the living room, my trembling hand fumbling for the remote in the dark room.

There it is – the image of smoke and flames billowing from the towers.  I can’t believe it – it’s like a movie – it feels unreal.

“I just wanted to let you know I’m OK,” my son says. “I was coming out of the gym and looked up to see a great big hole in the North Tower.”

Shock, anger, and overwhelming dismay surge through me.  My first thought: No, no, no – not all those innocent people!  My second thought: This is the beginning of the end. Nothing will ever be the same again. President Bush and Congress will bomb and the terrorists will retaliate in a never-ending spiral that will make the U.S. unsafe from now on – for me, for Jeremy, for his children and for theirs. Like in Israel. No peace ever.

My third response: impotent fury at our government for its past foreign policy that unilaterally thumbed its nose at world opinion. This anger is a continuation of the anger I have experienced for years – ever since the Vietnam War when I first became aware of U.S. policies abroad.

In a misguided and terrible religious fanaticism, some individuals have apparently martyred themselves because they hated our country so much.

I feel an overwhelming need to share my grief and anger with someone. I call Mom and Dad in San Diego. “Have you seen the news?” I ask.

My dad says, “This is big – the biggest thing I’ve ever seen or ever will.  Bigger than Pearl Harbor.”

“I just wanted to tell you Jeremy’s OK,” I said. Then my voice broke and tears flowed. “This is so awful. All those innocent lives. And it’s just the beginning. I know Bush will respond with more force. We may never feel safe again.”

My dad does not contradict me.  I can sense his helpless sympathy.

I sit staring at the TV. “Oh, my God,” says the commentator. “A third plane has just crashed into the Pentagon.” And “Oh, my God,” again as the World Trade Center implodes and pancakes into rubble and smoke. This must be a bad dream. Will I wake up soon and it’ll be over?

I take a radio to work. I’m a high school librarian. The Internet is down, and no one knows why. No antenna can be found for the TV. The radio reception is weak, but I set up the radio at the circulation desk and leave it set on NPR at low volume all day. My co-librarian agrees that our first priority is to get the Internet up, but it takes us all day to figure out what the problem is.

The need to know and talk is overwhelming. Students are saying how sad this is. A number of teachers come into the library. Everyone is in shock and horror.

In a corner of the teachers’ cafeteria someone has set up a TV. The teachers cluster around it. At other tables one hears: “I think we should declare war.” Mostly, though, people are concerned with figuring out the details. Were there four, five, six, or even seven planes hijacked? Is one of them headed for L.A.? The news about the plane crashing outside of Pittsburgh has just come in. I feel numb. The day lasts forever. I find it hard to carry on as usual, but when classes come into the library for orientation, I manage to put the tragedy out of my mind and be a teacher.

I attend my French class Tuesday night at Glendale College. Students are sitting around the TV monitors outside the student store in the warm summer night.

Back at home after class, the images on CNN and CNBC mesmerize me until late that night. It’s amazing to grasp the precision with which these attacks were executed. The perpetrators seemed to catch us totally by surprise and inflict the greatest possible damage. And they did it by turning our own technology against us.

President Bush has finally come out of seclusion. He says that we will attack not only the terrorists but also those who harbor them. I ask myself whom he means. Later in the week it appears that such diverse countries as the Philippines, Germany, and the U.S. have been inadvertently harboring terrorists.

On public television, there’s a roundtable discussion with some clerics – they’re saying we should exercise restraint and try to dialogue with the world – that more violence is not the solution to violence. Their voices seem lost in the clamor for revenge.

On Wednesday morning the Los Angeles Times headline reads:  “Terrorists Attack New York, Pentagon.” I read as much as I can before leaving for work. The images are horrific.

In the teachers’ cafeteria opinions are flying.

“We should rebuild the towers and if they knock them down again, then rebuild them again.”

“I think we should go in there and take out those terrorists.”

“Take out whom exactly?” I ask.

I want to hear people’s opinions about why terrorists are so angry at us.

“They’re jealous of us,” says one.

“We’re imposing our secular Hollywood culture on their fundamentalist society,” says another.

“We support Israel.”

“We represent freedom and democracy, and they are backwards feudal monarchies.”

“They believe they will be assured a place in Paradise.”

“They are madmen.”

“They are evil.”

To me, none of their explanations suffices. Why do they target the U.S. and not Japan or Germany? Why is the hatred so intense that they are willing to kill thousands of innocent civilians as well as themselves? And is there nothing the U.S. can do to modify its behavior in the world?  Does that signify bowing to terrorism?

Thursday I read the article on page 12 of the Times by Richard Boudreaux :  “A Superpower’s Sorrow, Comeuppance.” Its topic is the long history of unilateral actions by the U.S. as policeman to the world and how other countries regard us as arrogant. The sidebar lists many actions the U.S. has taken that have created resentment. Whether the acts were righteous or not, the article says, they have aroused world ire.

Until now, however, American actions have been carried out with impunity.

I read about one lone voice in the House of Representatives, a Congresswoman from Oakland, California named Barbara Lee, who voted against giving President Bush the power to respond militarily “in any way appropriate.” After “agonizing,” she says, she was forced to vote against the measure because she is not clear that a military response is the best course of action.  I am enormously moved by her courage. I feel fortified by her act. I email her, “You are my hero.”

An email message from a Jewish friend has an attachment from a Canadian, Gordon Sinclair, who says “It is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possibly the least appreciated people on all the earth.”  There follows a list of things America has done for the world and how we’re superior to the rest of the world. It ends with the words, “I’m one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them get kicked around….”

I email her and others an attachment from MADRE, which calls for restraint and outlines the long history of U.S. involvement in other countries that may have contributed to the attacks. A succinct email awaits me the next time I log on:  “In light of the events of Tuesday, this is obscene. Don’t clog my email with this garbage!”

I am stunned at the ferocity of my friend’s response. I feel like answering in kind, but I restrain my response to “Let’s agree to disagree.” Will our friendship withstand this?  Another casualty of the terrorist attack?

Friday evening I visit my ninety-year-old German-American friend Marta (not Jewish but had a lover who was killed in a concentration camp), who is bed-ridden, deaf, and suffering from a stroke. Her housekeeper Rosie says she’s been told about the week’s events but can’t remember them. We decide not to upset her, but the TV is on and I can’t keep my eyes off it, so Marta asks me what happened this week.

I sit next to her and shout the story into her ear. When I tell her that six thousand people may have died, she says, “Six thousand? Six thousand? Oh, that is really something!” Perhaps she sees images of the bombing of Berlin or Dresden. I wait but she is silent.

Leaving her apartment later, I stop at a candlelight vigil in West Hollywood on a grassy area where three streets intersect. Everyone is seated on the grass with candles. People speak.

“We all need to hug someone,” one woman says. “After this is over, hug someone and hold on until you feel like you’ve gotten what you need. We’re so isolated from one another here in L.A.”

Another woman reads a poem about how special each person is.

Driving back to the East Side in the dark, I pass many people lining the streets with candles and flags and banners. Car horns beep. On Franklin Avenue, so many people with candles create the effect of Halloween. A lone woman stands on a corner with a huge banner and candles. The banner says, “United We Stand.”  Tears stream down my face as I drive past.

The headline Sunday morning tells me that “Bush Warns of Long War.”  War is what I figured would happen, but war against whom?  Every time we bomb another country, for whatever reason, innocent civilians are killed. They call it collateral damage. Then more people come to hate us. Terrorism spreads like weeds. An endless cycle. Like in Israel.

I think of the courage of the Congresswoman from Oakland. If she can stand up for her beliefs, I must be able to as well. I don’t know when I’ll stop crying every day. But I’m also angry. And I want to turn that anger into energy. Energy towards creating a peaceful world.

by Kitty Kroger

(Note: This was written shortly after 911. I was a school librarian at San Fernando Library in Los Angeles at the time.)