Mel’s Musings – Where were you….?

For those who grew up during the Great Depression and fought in World War Two, there were two “Where were you …” questions. The first was, “Where were you when President Franklin Roosevelt died?” My Dad was born in 1930. When I began to get interested in history, which eventually became my life and vocation, I asked him about his memories when he was a kid growing up. One of the things he told me was, as a child, he didn’t think anyone else was allowed to be president other than Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Roosevelt was elected for the first of four times in November of 1932. Dad was two years old when FDR was first elected and almost 15 when FDR died. No one else can do that anymore because of the 22nd Amendment which limits presidents to two terms in their lifetime. When I was teaching history, I told kids a good mnemonic device to remember the 22nd Amendment was simply 2 terms – sounds like two two, get it?

The second, “Where were you … “ question for the Greatest Generation was, “Where were you when you heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor?” Pearl Harbor was attacked around 7am local Hawaii time on December 7, 1941. The next day President Franklin Roosevelt in his address to Congress asking for a declaration of war called it, “The date that will live in infamy.”

Most of those folks are gone now. At the end of 2022 there were 167,284 Americans left alive of the more than 16 million who served in the Armed Forces in some capacity during World War Two. Those who remain with us are well into their 90’s and above. For the vast majority of living Americans, the death of Franklin Roosevelt is now nothing more than a history question, without any particular salience or significance. December the 7th has more meaning for historians and those of us who have been to the site at Pearl Harbor and seen the memorial and the sunken funnel of the USS Arizona, still a tomb to more than 900 American servicemen. Those who served on the Arizona but who survived had the option of being interred with their shipmates as opposed to a traditional burial in a cemetery when they eventually died. Lauren Bruner was the last sailor to choose that option. He was sealed with his fellow crew members in the wreck of the USS Arizona upon his death at the age of 98 in 2019. The last three remaining survivors of the Arizona opted for a traditional land burial with family.

There are no memorials, parades, civic events or speeches for Pearl Harbor Day anymore, but there used to be. A few old timers fly Old Glory at half-mast on that day, causing younger people to wonder who famous has died or what the latest American tragedy is that they apparently haven’t heard about yet resulting in the flag being at half-mast. For most Americans, December the 7th is just another day closer to Christmas and Pearl Harbor is our naval base in the paradise of Hawaii, nothing more.

It has been twenty-two years since the events of 9/11. An entire generation has been born after the events of that terrible, tragic day. Another generation was around for the event, but 9/11 has little or no personal meaning for them since they were just children at the time. Either the occurrence was beyond their understanding then, or they were shielded by adults from the calamitous events of the day and the fear and uncertainty it bred. For these people, 9/11 is much like December 7th is for the rest of us.

On September 11, 2001 I was in my classroom in room 200 of Mitchell High School. I had first period as my preparation period that day. I was doing the usual things that teachers do on their preparation period; writing notes on the board, making copies, answering emails, entering grades and otherwise getting set up for the day. I did not have the television on. Doug Ellwein, my best friend and a colleague at MHS who taught English down the hall from me, came to my door and said, “Turn the television on.” “What channel?” I replied. “Any channel” he said.

There on the TV screen was smoke billowing from the still standing North Tower of the World Trade Center. My first thought was – gigantic lawsuit. There had been stories around that time of pilots flying drunk for major airlines and getting caught only after they had already landed at their destinations. Two Northwest pilots, in the cockpit of the same commercial airliner, were to land in Minneapolis. They were sober but so involved in handheld video games that they over flew their destination and landed in Canada (I can’t remember now if it was Toronto or Winnipeg).

I thought of the Empire State Building incident, which occurred back in 1945. when something similar to 9/11 happened. A B-25 was flying over New York City in foggy conditions when it accidentally collided with the 79th floor. The crash didn’t capsize the building, like eventually happened with the Twin Towers, but it did the equivalent of $16 million dollars (in today’s money) of damage to the building as well as killed 14 and injured an additional 24. Elevators were operated by people then who took you from floor to floor, not automatic as they are now, and an elevator operator named Betty Lou Oliver fell 75 stories in an elevator due to a broken cable. She survived the fall and holds the Guinness Book of World Records for it. A record that remains unbroken today.

As I was coming around to something in a more charitable line of thought, like a medical emergency among the cabin crew, the second plane appeared on the screen and that one crashed into the South Tower. Then the news was the Pentagon had been hit. Flight 93 went down in Pennsylvania after the passengers valiantly tried to take back the plane from the terrorists. Their sacrifice saved either the White House or the US Congress building in Washington, D.C. from destruction. Then the Twin Towers fell, creating chaos and death on the ground in addition to the havoc already wreaked in the Towers themselves.

There were approximately 3000 casualties that day, including children – some merely toddlers – the kids were passengers on the planes that crashed. Can you imagine the pain of those parents, helpless to save their children and trapped by the cruelest of capricious circumstance?

In hindsight, 9/11 might have been prevented. The FBI in Minneapolis intercepted and arrested the so called “20th hijacker” Zacarias Moussaoui. He had enrolled in flight school but was only interested in learning to take off and to fly, landing wasn’t a priority for him. He said he didn’t need to know how to land, which raised red flags with the flight instructor. He called local authorities who brought in the Minneapolis based FBI agents. They arrested Moussaoui on suspicion of terrorism and reported to the head office in DC saying roughly, this could be the tip of a terrorist iceberg. President George W. Bush, in his August daily briefing on terrorist threats about a month before 9/11, received a threat assessment that terrorists could use a fully fueled commercial aircraft as flying bombs against targets. The threat assessment was particularly concerned about things like atomic reactors used for commercial power creation being a terrorist target rather than just a building, even a prominent one like the Twin Towers.

The signs were there but, to be fair, there are projections, “what ifs”, “could be” and “look out for” of various sizes and shapes that come across intelligence officers and a President’s desk every day. 9/11 led to our involvement in Afghanistan and, at twenty years, America’s longest war. It led to the security theater we go through at the airport every time we fly and the metal detectors that are required to enter major public buildings many places around the country.

9/11 led to enhanced identification cards with holograms and metal strips etc. in an attempt to weed out the foreign terrorists who try to blend in amongst us. 9/11 led to massive eavesdropping and surveillance, domestically as well as abroad. 9/11 led to passports being required to get into neighboring Mexico and Canada, places that used to more like going to Wisconsin than to an actual foreign country.

9/11 has led to an erosion of American freedoms. Younger generations have given up privacy, accepted major intrusions into their lives and other heavy handed government practices that used to be associated more with Iron Curtain countries than the United States, all in the name of security. Ben Franklin once said, “Those who would give up liberty for a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

9/11 also led to the 9/11 Memorial Site and Museum. I’ve been to both. The Memorial is majestic. The Museum is appropriately commemorative and horrifying at the same time. We used to have speakers and parades to recall the events of 9/11 and those who died that day. There used to be a yearly somber ceremony in the Corn Palace in remembrance of 9/11. No more, because the memory is fading. American outrage has dissipated. The urgency of the threat of foreign terrorism is gone. Most of our horror stories regarding terrorism of one kind or another is now of the domestic variety. 9/11 is on its way to December 7th status for much of America these days.

All these years later, 9/11 has not just come to mean those who died on that day and the damage wrought. It also means commemorating the First Responders who came to the scene, some of whom died in the collapse of the Twin Towers and the others who have died subsequently. An estimated 410,000 first responders and others came to help save those who could be saved, to clean up the rubble and put back together New York City, the Pentagon and the Pennsylvania countryside. There were 2,977 people who died in the 9/11 attacks and now two decades later 4,343 survivors and first responders have died from diseases that were a direct result of their service on and the days following 9/11. Surely, all that is worth remembering – especially on 9/11 itself.