Reliving the pain of Sept. 11

It has been more than two decades since this editorial page posed the question:

“So why is it necessary to relive this ordeal?”

We asked that on the six-month anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Our memories were raw. “After all, workers at Ground Zero are still finding bodies,” we wrote.

But we felt that the stark images and remembrances were indeed necessary, “to honor the dead, to punish the perpetrators and to ensure such a thing does not happen again.”

On this, the 21st anniversary of what might be New York’s darkest hour, we are looking back at how we marked the tragic occasion in years past.

We do so hoping that the high emotions of the grim 20th anniversary in 2021 do not trail off into mere mechanical rituals.

We do so recognizing that the period since Sept. 11, 2001 is the length of human maturation, the amount of time it takes a child to become an adult. Even the youngest of us on that awful day is now of age … And adults must grapple with the world they have lived through. For them, let this be a first review.

SHIFTING THOUGHTS

We have published many anniversary editorials about 9/11, and many others about the consequences of that day.

Our feelings and opinions have migrated, repeated, even changed, dating to our first blunt assessment the day after the planes crashed that the nation “is now at war.”

We thought in the immediate aftermath that the attacks were “the worst the United States has suffered since Pearl Harbor,” and that “catastrophic terrorism” was something new.

One year later, we felt that “the comparison with Pearl Harbor … does not hold.” The attacks “have not fundamentally changed the world.” And yet, years after that, we continually charted the ways that it had changed, from geopolitics to a Homeland Security "mega-bureacracy."

But our early feeling was one of bravado, echoing the voices of New Yorkers so quickly after the towers fell.

“Show terrorists they can't stop America,” our headline urged a mere six days after the event. “Return to everyday life, refuse to cave in to fear.”

We were preoccupied with foreign affairs and the march to war in the Middle East, often mindful of the dangers ahead, and the need to make clear that we were not waging a war on Islam.

Yet in our push to make sure such an attack never happened again, we sometimes found ourselves grasping for dangerous ideas.

“The way we view covert operations against hostile foreign groups and governments may have to be revised,” we wrote in September 2001. “We may have to discuss changing the presidential directive that prohibits political assassinations.”

So many New Yorkers looked to anchor themselves in practicality after that most unreal day, as did we — advocating for the remaking of the intelligence community and forging better cooperation between rival New York City agencies.

RESPONDERS FALL SICK

For many years and many anniversaries, we encouraged the reconstruction of Ground Zero. After the tower at One World Trade Center topped out at 1,776 feet, we wrote in 2013, “The good news is that the physical city is healing.”

Since 2006, we like most New Yorkers have been horrified about the health problems suffered by first responders and those who worked The Pile.

“People who helped secure, search and clear the mountain of rubble left when the Twin Towers collapsed are getting sick,” we wrote that year. “Some are dying.”

Too many times, we were compelled to write in support of police officers, firefighters and others who were not getting the health benefits they deserve.

We have often turned to the concept of memory, and the afterlife of pain over time. For the 15th anniversary, we wondered what our children would remember. And last year, at 20, we pondered the relative brevity of American history, observing that we “are living still with the impacts, the shadows, of our great tragedies and triumphs.”

Topics of the moment, from ISIS to COVID-19, colored our thoughts about 9/11 on different dates. We cheered when Osama bin Laden was killed in Pakistan in 2011. There were moments we struggled to find words that would work, to measure up to the suffering and the gravity.

It is an almost impossible task. Because always, as New Yorkers approach 9/11, we seek to respond to the unrespondable. We were so shattered, for so long, because it is so difficult to anticipate and digest a shock such as this.

What has always been most true are the universal realities. The consolation of unity. The mourning of loss. The annual liturgy celebrating bravery. So much bravery, so much loss. What else is left but the simplest verities, as we wrote on that very first, one-year anniversary in 2002.

“The task now is to keep the spirit going.”