12 Years

It's been 12 years since the madness of the attacks on New York and Washington on Sept. 11. The nut who started the mess has been found and killed - as have thousands of others, many not in any way connected to the events and some even born after. In my cosmology, he'll have to account for this in a new order; others think we'll all just have to continue to pay a price in this one for his decision.

12 years makes things seem so far away. I'm listening to the FDNY and PANYNJ audio of the event today, but it still has a feeling of a different world, almost like a fiction read in a book. I know it's not. I finally visited the site of the Twin Towers in June and paid my respects at the memorial. A month ago we had an instructor from Rockland County in for training and he spoke of his time working with Andy Fredericks at the county training center.

It is a different world, structurally and mentally. We are all worse for it. I think inside those of my friends who were adults or adolescents at that time are more nihilistic, but outside we just pretend all is well and nothing has changed. Innocence lost. Not so much with my kids, but at the same time they deal with the ripples of that day: bags are checked everywhere, flying isn't fun like it was, violence in places unthinkable and off limits seems easier. I don't think they have the same doom in the back of their mind I have, but they'll have to deal with this brave new world.

I listen to the end of the innocence. I think of the souls in those planes and firehouses and towers and the Pentagon. I think of them in the hour or half before all this happened, getting on their flights for their adventure, having coffee, shuffling reports and tossing out old newspapers to make room for that day's issue with the latest on the Chandra Levy case or how the tax refund checks were doing.

Today I'll do what I do to remember those not here to enjoy life: I tip a shot of whiskey and down a beer for those brothers, medics, cops, office workers, bystanders, and naval and military personnel who can't anymore. As my friend Pete mentioned, also all those lost in the wars and attacks that followed...