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Do you remember where you were during our generation’s defining hour? When the towers fell and the Pentagon was ablaze, our nation took pause. Now eight years later, it seems that we are still standing still, frozen in time, and as a country, still waiting for the healing to begin.
On September 11, 2001, I stood on the pile of burning rubble at the south end of Manhattan with thousands of other Americans who did what we could to make a difference. Firefighters, doctors, soldiers, cops, steelworkers, and nurses--we all came together to serve our country in a time of exceptional need. I will never forget the demonstrations of courage and the expressions of sorrow, the sight of the bodies and the smell of the smoke. And I will never forget the bold promises of our leaders, uttered loudly before the smoke cleared.
They stood on the pile with bullhorns, they issued press releases, and spoke at benefit concerts. We heard politicians from every corner of America swear: "Never Again! We'll make them pay! The terrorists won't win! We will rebuild!"
Eight years later, that hasn't happened. And we should all be embarrassed as a nation for one simple reason more than all the others--there is still a mammoth, gaping hole at Ground Zero.
Bureaucratic gridlock, partisan bickering, old-fashioned greed and failed leadership have all been blended together perfectly in one big pot to create a colossal, historic stew of inaction. And that stew has given the terrorists a score that not only have we failed to avenge, but we have failed to fully recover from. The wounds of 9/11 are not healed, the statement has not been made, and the country seems to have forgotten about the recovery of Ground Zero altogether.
This year, we'll get the standard, annual photo ops, bold promises and tough talk. Rudy Giuliani will be celebrated, and plastered on every TV network in America. Emotional remembrance videos will run on a loop all weekend long. But then what? We’ll be left with no monument, no building, and no attention. No one in Washington seems to give a second thought to the south end of Manhattan anymore. Unless of course, it will help them bolster their position on the health care debate.
New York is the city I love most in the world. As I detailed in Chasing Ghosts, I lost friends on 9/11. I recovered remains from the rubble at Ground Zero. I, along with almost two million other troops, were sent to war because of what happened there. And I am sick and tired of walking and driving by it and seeing a stalled construction site. Too many lives were lost that day, and too little attention has been given to memorializing them.
So today, I call on President Obama to pledge to all those that died, all those that served, and all those that remember, that Ground Zero will be re-built by the end of your first term. Blow through the logjam, bring the divided interests together, craft a plan, flex some muscle, and start moving forward briskly. If you want to unite the country as President, this is a perfect place to start. If we can put a man on the moon, create the Internet, and fight two wars simultaneously, I am sure that America can mobilize all its political will, ingenuity and resources to rebuild one of the most important pieces of real estate in the world. And it can start with new leadership under your watch. You can't shake up Washington, if you can't even rebuild Ground Zero.
On September 11, 2001, millions of young Americans like me promised to take a bullet for this country. Eight years later, the least our country can do is make a promise to rebuild a few sacred acres of it.
Crossposted at www.IAVA.org
Note: Tonight, I will join former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke and The Washington Post’s Rajiv Chandrasekaran on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher to discuss the eighth anniversary of the attacks and the current U.S. mission in Iraq and Afghanistan. Tune in to HBO at 10 p.m. EST to watch.
Follow Paul Rieckhoff on Twitter: www.twitter.com/PaulRieckhoff
Rev. Lennox Yearwood and Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins: This 9/11, Urban Communities Remember and Serve
To see people from all walks of life take up service as a way to remember the tragedy of 9/11 is beauty from ashes. It is also part of the solution that will put our nation on the road to recovery, permanently.
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Sonny Rice..I can relate quite well with your comments as we appear to be the same age...Many here are much younger than you or I and cannot relate, but this is universal theme throughout time I suppose...
“The budget should be balanced, the treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt, the mobs should be forced to work and not depend on government for subsistenc
I along with many here are outraged that the decision to rebuild is taking so long. Too many self imposed regulations and turf battles...
Glenn Beck showed pictures taken on a yearly basis at the site....Ve
Granted this is complicated project period...B
I found myself tearing up as I watched the event happen all over again on FOX last night. I prayed for all the victims again and slept not a wink. I remember going into the city from Long Island and picking up rubble. I was crying then too. I did not lose anyone myself, yet each and every life lost that day, deserved more then my tears. They were my countryman and innocent. Killed in the name of someone else's god. If such a god really existed I fear the planet would be empty of all life. The followers of such a god must really fear all Americans to attack the unknowing without care. They are not strong enough to stand side by side and face freedom head on. They can never win so they hide. Too cowardly to face even one of us in the open. Plotting and planning and losing. No hope of ever winning a great battle. To afraid to show their faces. Too scared of the American sprit I say. One nation under a god of love. A land filled with those so strong of heart no enemy could ever overcome in a fair fight. I pity them. I fear them not. I pray for their souls. I challenge any of them to a one on one. I may be old, but by God I am American and proud.
Building something on the 911 site at the scale they wanted would have
been the worst thing, economically, they could have done. The commercial
R/E Mkt is going to get worse, much worse as will everything else.
IMHO the delay has been caused by mixing business with a civic memorial. Not a natural mix, and probably not smart real estate either. The latter sadly trumps further progress. Leave the hole, it has unmatchable power. Enclose it, subtly enshrine it, but let onlookers watch as nature take its course (with minimal human intervention) within. Let the healing of both site and the traumatized families proceed at its own dignified pace.
They should have rebuilt those towers first chance they had. They would have been done by now. Huge leadership failure. I guess they really don't want us to forget.
There could be no finer or more plush memorial to the victims of the trade centre demolition.
Think about it. In the very centre of the most dollar obsessed town in the most dollar obsessed country in the world is a blank.
On some of the most expensive real estate in the world, no one is making money.
Also, just like the preserved twisted remains of Hiroshima, there is a constant reminder of what happens when bad people are allowed to have power over others.
No amount of donations or girl scout cookie drives could pay for such an extravagant monument. Leave it as it is.
Greed and politics
1. We are rebuilding Iraq billions for that.
2. All the people who lost someone during that horrible day, because of their tragic loss believe they have the right to design, build, control what will happen on the site.
Respectfully, the families who suffered a loss should step aside and let the city get on with its affairs.
Many of us donated to help the families get on with their lives and the fact that they had a loss does not give them any special rights. That comment is not intended to be cruel but blunt and factual. The entire country lost something and at least 4,000 new families have lost loved ones in the war we have been fighting because of 911.
Glen Beck said the same thing last night
Who said what, when?
Heck, dude - our parents and grandparents won a whole world war using 1930's technology and were busy re-building Germany and Japan in the same time we've been playing our childish, deadly war games in the desert.
Hole? Who gives a flip about the hole in Manhattan - we got a LOT bigger hole we're busy digging in the sand over "there". Fill it with dirt and make a memorial park - it was good enough for the Greatest Generation, should be fine for us...
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Saw you on Bill Maher last night. Just wanted to say you were great. Keep up the good fight.
If we rebuild and move on, we can no longer be the "Queen's of Tragedy".
2900 civilians died 9/11/2001. I think we have achieved at least a 100-1 reprisal ratio in Afghani and Iraqi civilians. Is that enough blood to sooth America? Or do we need more? How much more?
We can fill in the hole and still kill people. Filling up the hole won't stop us.
REBUILD THE TWIN TOWERS! The new plan, including a beautiful Memorial, is SHOVEL READY! Please check www.twinto
what is also truly despicable, more than glenn beck (he who called the president of the united states a racist) and fox news (owned by a non-ameican) using the memorial of 9/11 to advance their own careers and political agenda, but in many VA hospitals across this land and many military installations all across the globe, the only tv shown in the officers mess, px, commissary and other outlets continues to be fox news.
the same fox news that defended the conditions at walter reed, pushed an unnecessary war killing thousands of young men and women, railed against the new gi bill and demeaned joe biden for insisting on up-armored humvees.
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