We cannot change the past, but the future is another story

September 10, 2011

Tomorrow is the tenth anniversary of the day the United States was attacked by Muslim extremists in an effort to rain terror on the infidels and bring ruin to our government and our economy.  I don’t mind saying they were Muslims, Whoopi G.  I know many Muslims, and they are great people.  I know many Christians, Hindus, and Buddhists, and they great people, too.  I also know people of all of these faiths who are not so good.  It is not the religion, but the word "extremist", that should be emphasized. Christian extremists bomb abortion clinics.  Just because they are Christians doesn’t mean they are not terrorists.   Extremism in the name of any religion can be an evil thing.  I digress.

There is no need to go into the statistics of how many lives were lost ten years ago.   We all know the story.  It was a dark day for this country.  I remember talking to my aunt that afternoon while we waited for my children and her great grandchildren to get out of school.   Being born in 1918 she lived through countless heartaches the United States has suffered, but she told me the attacks could only be compared to the Japanese invasion of Pearl Harbor.

We all have our “where were you” stories to tell.   My “where were you” on September 11, 2001 story is too boring to tell.  It is my story from about three months earlier that gives me shivers every time I tell it.   When I got home the afternoon of September 11, 2001 I went straight to the television just like everyone else in America.  For the next several days I watched footage of terrible destruction, ash-covered, terror-filled people running out of billowing, opaque clouds of dust and debris; heroic firemen, policemen, laymen and emergency personnel running into the same clouds.  Out of all of these terrible things that were happening on the ground in New York City, D.C., and Pennsylvania it was one face I saw in the news that made me go cold.  It was the face of the terrorist known to have piloted the plane into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.  

It was a face I knew in my heart I had seen before, standing inches from me, talking to me, glaring at me.  You see, I work in a university’s international student office, and my job puts me in close and personal contact with people from all over the world every day.  And one day in early summer 2001 a Middle-Eastern man walked into my office wanting to transfer to my university.  Over the 22 years of my profession I have met so many people of all races and ethnicities it is impossible to remember them all.  But something stood out about this man.  Several things, actually.  One, he was older, not your typical college student or even graduate student.  Two, he was severely unfriendly.  And, three, he wanted to transfer to my university from a flight school.

The prospective students who come into my office want to be accepted to the university, so they put on their best behavior to make a good impression.  This man did not.  He never smiled.  He did not try to make light conversation.  No, he was to the point, and he wanted an answer immediately.  He showed me his immigration papers, and I told him something he did not want to hear.  He was in the U.S. on a visa my university does not support, so the only way he could enroll was to leave the country, get a different visa, and come back.  When I explained this to him he was not happy.  He made it very clear to me leaving the country was not an option.  To appease him I told him I would ask my boss to be sure.  She came in, looked at his papers and told him the same thing.  He glared at us both and left.

I thought nothing of this at the time.  It wasn’t a terribly unusual event.  But looking back I add this incident to my list of things I would be willing to be hypnotized to remember.  My list numbers two; one is my sister’s last words to me, and two is the name on the document that man handed to me.  My gut, my deepest feelings, tells me the name would be revealed as Mohammed Atta.

I’m probably wrong, I hope I’m wrong.  I even told my story to a federally employed law enforcement friend a few years ago just so he would tell me I was wrong.  He just smiled and nodded in a condescending way.  He did not encourage me, nor did he refute me.  So aggravating.

Ten years ago I sat in front of the television and grieved for the lives lost in those planes and in those towers.  My heart was rent for what happened at the Pentagon. But for some reason UA 93 haunts me most.  I think of the passengers who said “no” and fought back.  I think of what might have happened had they not.  Then I think of what might have happened if I had said “yes” to that man in my office.

I will not be participating in September 11 memorial services, nor will I watch news coverage of the events.  The events that happened that day truly hurt my heart, and I’ve known too much grief in my life.  I avoid it whenever I can.  It’s not that I think we should forget what happened, we should never forget, but for me it is more important to look forward with resolve to make diligent changes so it will never happen again.