September 11 2010

Nine years ago I walked up the two steps to the "bridge" at Channel 9 (WWOR) and looked somberly at the assignment editor. "Everything's changed," I said. "Life will never be the same."

We both knew I was right.

Nearly 3000 people died in the coordinated attacks on that bright September day. More than 1100 of them are still not identified. Imagine. Your husband, son, wife, daughter, mother, father, sister, brother --- to stay only in the nuclear family - went off to work as usual that day and simply never came home. Obliterated. Pulverized. Disappearing into thin air. Not even enough remaining for his or her DNA to be tested.

It's almost impossible to think about it. And as a reporter I tried hard --then and now - to maintain the emotional detachment that allows me to do my job. But when you are NOT being a reporter but simply being a human being --- the awful truth rushes in and overwhelms you. I had never seen war, never been a war correspondent, never experienced any major attack on my home or anyone else's. Until that day in 2001.

So here we are nine years later. Two misbegotten wars later. Many, many more people dead on all sides from terrorist attacks, battles, corruption, outsourcing and stupid mistakes in countries we are not - so far at least - leaving in better shape than we found them.

What would we be saying today if we had gone only after Osama Bin Laden and his henchmen? If we had not left the hunt to untrustworthy "others" but had used our own forces to blast through the caves where we tracked him? If we had followed every convoluted path until we found him? If every effort had been concentrated on wiping out Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, Pakistan and wherever we could find its cells. No more. And no less.

But trying to rewrite history is a useless endeavor. What's done is done; you cannot take it back. Nine years later we are still the victims of our own ignorance and panic. With so-called Christians threatening to burn the Qur'an. And make us all victims yet again.

But even within that reality -- we must move on.

And so finally buildings are rising at the World Trade Center site. 16 of 400 or so trees are already planted on the ground which by next year should be a full-fledged memorial. The much-delayed and much-discussed "Freedom Tower" is now quite visible above ground -- now sensibly named simply One World Trade Center. The two square holes marking the outlines of the original towers are lined with black granite tiles. By next year they will be reflecting pools.

Yes everything is different. It will never be the same again. But of course that would be true even if the terror attacks had never occurred. Maybe there would have been something else. Or not. You can't blame the housing bubble and the resulting financial crisis and Great Recession on September 11th. And for those caught in the rubble of those implosions - the world is certainly a different place.

So let's move on. For change, as we now know, is the only constant.