Un poco sobre el 9/11

On 9/11 the worst terrorist attack perpetrated against America left over 2970 dead, including 343 firefighters and 72 law enforcement officers. The full story, however, is not about hijacked airliners, intelligence failures, fanatic murderers or conspiracy theorists. Its about lives well lived that were cut painfully short and the endurance of the human spirit.  One way to begin to understand the magnitude of a numbing mass tragedy like 9/11, is not in numbers, but rather, in stories. Today's focus here is one story of many that demand to be told. One life. One set of hearts that were unfairly broken.  Out of the mosaic of thousands of colorful remembered lives today are countless stories of loves lost and heroes big and small. Too often at the wrenching intersection of good and evil, we expend too much time on the latter—but not today.

The only thing Staten Island native son FDNY Lt. Chuck Margiotta didn't achieve in his 44 years was a long life. As his young daughter clutched her father's service helmet at a New York Catholic church eight years ago she heard from another kind of hero, her schoolteacher Uncle Mike, who from that day to this diligently watches over his extended family like a lion over his pride. Mike Margiotta summed up the spirit of this day for many Americans: 

According to Webster, "bravery" is defined as combining confidence with firm resolution in the presence of danger. "Courageous" however is more than brave! It adds a moral element. The courageous man steadily encounters perils to which he may be keenly sensitive at the call of duty. At no time do either of these definitions mention being fearless. Fearless is just the inability to recognize danger.

On September 11th, Chuck had fears…recognized them…called home…and then performed his job with Bravery and Courage; as did all our firefighters and police officers. We thank them all and love them all for being heroes every day.

Packed into those compressed decades of Chuck Margiotta's time on Earth was a love of people and an unquenchable, if not dizzying, zeal for accomplishment. It's hard to believe everything this veteran firefighter crammed into his way too short life: Ivy League football stand out at Brown University, substitute public school teacher, church leader, philanthropist, youth sports coach, television and movie actor and stuntman (Hannibal, Malcolm X, Law and Order), family man, and don't forget-gardener and voracious reader. His brother Mike observed to a reporter, "He wasn't happy unless he was doing four things at once, plus one more thing."

It was that one more thing that took him from us. On 9/11 the devoted married father of a beautiful son, 11, and daughter, 13, had just completed a 24 hour shift in Brooklyn filling in for another firefighter. As he was safely headed home, he saw the orange flames engulf the World Trade Center, turned around, and instinctively went to the nearest firehouse.  There he immediately hopped on to Staten Island's Rescue 5 FDNY truck as it sped to save civilians from the chaotic scene. Right before he reached the inferno he phoned his mother to tell her what turned out to be his last words to her: "Ma, it's bad, I love you. I'll call you later."

Even before 9/11 Chuck was a beloved fixture on the family friendly borough of Staten Island. After impressing Staten Islanders with his football prowess at Monsignor Farrell High School, Chuck attended Brown University, easily one of the nation's most selective universities. After helping Brown win its first of only two Ivy League football championships in 1976, he graduated in 1979 with two degrees—one in English and one in Sociology. He and his team eventually ended up in the Brown Sports Hall of Fame. Like he always promised, he came back to New York to be a firefighter and graduated, not surprisingly, at the top of his 1981 FDNY class.

He left his big footprints all over New York City. Twenty years as a firefighter, fifteen in Harlem, with several years as a running back for the acclaimed FDNY football team. Even after he rose in rank to Lieutenant, he ruffled a few bosses because he was more comfortable with the rank and file folks.

For twenty years, on top of his fire duties, he substitute taught at least two days a week. He was also a private investigator for two decades. He was CYO Athletic Director at his parish and coached kids in four different sports. He was a key organizer of innumerable charity events. He did acting and stunt work across New York in numerous television and movie productions, while still finding time to plant a garden at his firehouse. 

As busy as he was, he was devoted to his family. He'd check on his parents—who lived next door, just about every day to make sure they were all right. The hole in his parents' hearts never really healed. His dad misses the family vacations in the mountains, watching sports on television, as well as the tailgate gatherings at Giants games. His mom even misses cleaning up the constant stream of pretzel crumbs he would leave after helping with chores or home repairs. He adored his wife and kids.

Chuck Margiotta at about 6 feet and over 200 muscled pounds, was simply put, one of those old school New Yorkers who really was bigger than life--the kind of stunningly handsome renaissance guy who is better suited for a lyric by his musical idol, Bruce Springsteen, than this short web posting.

While terrorists, steel, and concrete extinguished his life; Chuck's spirit, like those of others lost that day, is very much alive in his parents, wife, kids and others. A garden he planted flourished, and years later his bother Mike, raises thousands in a scholarship in his name for a deserving student at his old high school. His children and nephew and niece all went to college and follow Chuck's zeal for education, music, and public service. Violence harms the innocent, but as shown here it does not define them. As Bobby Kennedy said the night of Martin Luther King's death, who coincidently shares Chuck's January 15^th birthday:

Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.

Amen.

http://chuckmargiottascholarshipfund.com/

http://www.chuckmargiotta.com/

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/memorial/lists/by-name/

 

The short answer to this question is yes and no. Yes, in the sense that terrorism was never a global phenomenon that could be defeated by a "war" as proposed by George W. Bush. No, in the sense that the United States will be attacked again someplace, sometime.

For those who say that the $40 to $50 billion we spend each year on homeland security has achieved its purpose, namely that we have not been attacked again, it is only necessary to remind ourselves that eight years passed between the first and second attacks on the World Trade Center and eight years have passed, today, since 9/11. So, for those of us who, like Richard Clarke, have always had "our hair on fire," another attack by some group, probably related in some way to al Qaeda, is to be expected.

On a scale of 1 to 10, we are not yet at 9, or probably even 7. The greatest danger in terms of potential damage to life and property is still the nuclear threat. But if, as I suspect, the most likely and easiest future attack involves biological agents, our borders are and will remain porous, defenses against viral agents borne by human "bombs" are and will remain inadequate, and post-attack response is insufficient. Response plans, involving quarantine, suppression, mass casualty victim treatment, and other measures can always use improvement.

And, though we happily haven't heard it lately, the false security brought on by the nonsensical maxim "we're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here" is exactly that: false.

By abandoning the "war on terrorism" paradigm, especially as an excuse to invade Iraq, President Obama has done our strategy a favor and has taken us a long way toward the understanding that acts of terrorism will continue in parts of the world, that we must continue to make such acts as difficult as possible here in the United States, that most attacks will still be against other countries, and that quick damage-limitation response at home will still be highly important.

As we remember those who died, unnecessarily, eight years ago, let us also continue to combine vigilance with realistic appreciation for the new age of the 21st century in which we live.

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

I finally understand what it really means when people say "no good deed goes unpunished."

About seven years ago, the 9/11 community came together to support the wonderful idea that the anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks on America ought to become a federally-observed, national day of service and remembrance, rather than become just another day on the calendar. Most would say it was a no-brainer.

I guess not.

This past August, a few months after the 9/11 community finally secured passage of bipartisan legislation that established 9/11 as a National Day of Service and Remembrance, a writer for the American Spectator published an article entitled "Obama's Plan to Desecrate 9/11."

The opening sentence read this way:

The Obama White House is behind a cynical, coldly calculated political effort to erase the meaning of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks from the American psyche and convert Sept. 11 into a day of leftist celebration and statist idolatry.

An awful lot of people who read that article concluded that the 9/11 Day of Service and Remembrance was hatched by President Obama, not the 9/11 families at all, and furthermore, that our group, MyGoodDeed, was a front for "pinko commies." In an instant, what we had spent years building from scratch with the help of conservatives and liberals alike, not to mention very senior members of the Bush Administration, was transformed into a leftist political conspiracy to trick Americans into supporting President Obama's socialist agenda. Holy crap!

Not being one that reads the political media all that much -- I prefer the sports pages -- I had no idea what was about to happen next. First, a bunch of other blogs picked it up. And then Fox News got ahold of it. I'm sitting at home with a pizza watching TV one night, and all of a sudden there's Laura Ingraham blasting us for cavorting with guys like Van Jones and some other "commie" guy I never met or talked to in my life. What the heck?

Then our website, meant to be a peaceful place for well-meaning people to post their good deeds for the day and other service projects in tribute to the 9/11 victims, starts getting hammered with pretty scary comments from more than a few angry conservatives... things like:

"You BASTARDS. How Dare You!"

"This is so disrespectful to the thousands of people who died on September 11th. How dare you try to co-op 9/11 from a National Day of Mourning to some cheesy Obamabot service day."

Up until that point, most of the posts were things like, "The Boys & Girls Clubs of Augusta will make cards of appreciation for the local veterans and distribute them on September 11th," and "I will be displaying two flags containing the names of the civilians that died on 911 along with the names of the firefighters and rescue workers..." Wow!

Now everyone is entitled to their opinion -- this is a free country. And we don't mind it if some people think that establishing 9/11 as a day of service and remembrance is the worst idea in the world. Although our view is that the 9/11 families themselves ought to be able to decide what the observance should be, people certainly can disagree. That's what makes America great.

But more was going on here than that. The real problem was that 9/11 Day of Service and Remembrance had become somebody's political ammo, in this case aimed at the Obama Administration. I felt a little like I'd walked into convenience store in the middle of a freakin' hold-up.

Apparently, we were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I talked to the writer later and he explained what he was trying to do -- bring to light information that he said indicated that the president was orchestrating a plan to manipulate 9/11 for political gain. (We've been there before, BTW.) Later, in a subsequent post, he clarified his position and provided excellent and accurate information on our group and the 9/11 family origins of the observance, which thankfully stopped some of the more vociferous attacks.

But I sure learned that it's not a good thing to get into anyone's political cross-hairs these days.

Which is exactly why this observance is so important and right.

The whole idea is to encourage all of America to remember the way we were immediately after the attacks -- we weren't red states or blue states. We were Americans, and we were powerful. Because we were unified. Today, we are anything but. Ordinary citizens who might find themselves sharing coleslaw at a weekend BBQ are throwing punches at one another in the middle of town hall meetings on health care reform. Geez!

I'm not saying there aren't serious issues at hand. And people are going to disagree. But if 9/11 taught us anything, it was that we need to remember that we have so much more in common as human beings than we have differences. We have to find ways to debate our views, and solve our problems with the 9/11 spirit of unity in mind.

For the record, the 9/11 Day of Service and Remembrance is widely backed by the Left, Middle and Right and is not, in any way, a government led or funded initiative created by President Obama or any government agency. It was started by the 9/11 community eager to leave a lasting and positive legacy honoring their lost loved ones, and is supported by respected nonprofits such as the Points of Light Institute, founded with the help of former President George Bush Sr., AARP, America's Promise Alliance, City Year, ServiceNation, and many other wonderful and nonpartisan groups listed on our Web site at 911dayofservice.org.

Lest we all forget, almost eight years ago, 2,974 people were murdered. Forty percent of the families of these victims never recovered any remains. Nothing. They buried empty caskets. Since then, nearly 800 first responders who raced to the scene have died -- 27 percent from cancer. Thirty-one of the 800 committed suicide.

Needless to say, 9/11 is not a day that should ever be politicized or used to flame the fires of partisanship. Not by The American Spectator or Fox News. Or by supporters of the Obama Administration or MSNBC. It must always be a day of unity, patriotism, and reflection, along with remembrance. And yes, if a person chooses to do so, voluntary service as well. Let's honor the 9/11 heroes by putting the boxing gloves away, at least for one day.

The September 11 commemorations have increasingly become a family affair. The rest of the country seems to have moved on, leaving New Yorkers to hold the ceremonies and revisit their memories.

Perhaps that's inevitable. And on one count, it's the way we ought to want it. The whole world was watching back in 2004 - that would be the year the cornerstone for the Freedom Tower was laid. It's not necessarily a bad thing that the crowd will be smaller when we gather this year to admire the Rising Beyond Sidewalk Level of the Structure That Will Be the Freedom Tower Someday Or Maybe Not.

We've made few deadlines and kept precious few promises in the years since the World Trade Center fell.

As things stand now, the memorial to the victims of the terrorist attack is scheduled to open in 2011. The much-debated museum is supposed to be ready to receive visitors in 2012, although what it will ultimately wind up displaying is anybody's guess. The Freedom Tower and the transportation hub are supposed to follow within a year or two.

A recent poll found that 60 percent of New Yorkers don't believe the tower and the memorial will be open by the current deadlines. The only surprising thing is that 28 percent of the people questioned actually thought the Port Authority and its many partners could make it in under the wire.

Control over the Ground Zero projects has always been divided. Developer Larry Silverstein owned the much-leveraged lease to the World Trade Center when the towers fell, and he is determined to be the one to rebuild the towers. But Silverstein is equally insistent that somebody else pay the bill.

The Port Authority, which is supposed to be in charge of the whole project, is a slow-moving bureaucracy with control divided between New York and New Jersey. If you want evidence of its ability to handle complicated problems quickly and efficiently, take a look at the ruined Deutsche Bank building which it now owns, and still has not managed to get demolished after all these years.

At the center of all the squabbling is the governor of New York, the one person who might be able to prod everyone into concerted action. Most people think George Pataki tried in his own way, but unfortunately his own way was lethargic. Then Eliot Spitzer came and went. Now there's David Paterson, who can't even get his own office under control.

In retrospect, maybe we demanded too much. There's no reason we have to build five huge office buildings in the middle of a collapse in the commercial real estate market. And the theory that there had to be a tower exactly 1,776 feet tall, or the terrorists won seems much less impressive now than it did six or seven years ago.

The terrorists lost. We're still here; the city endures. The wounds we suffer right now are far more the product of the irrational exuberance of investment bankers than religious fanatics.

But eight years after the tragedy, there still isn't even a memorial. That's the kind of factoid that makes you stop in your tracks.

And the buildings are only one part of September 11's unfinished business.

The people who ran down to the site to volunteer to help on 9/11/01 - the construction workers and the emergency responders - are continuing to suffer from ailments that almost surely were caused by their long exposure to toxic air at the site.

This is the dark heritage of 9/11. Whenever we gather to remember, we celebrate the responders' heroism. But we still haven't quite acknowledged that our leaders, from Rudy Giuliani on down, never adequately warned the men and women working around the smoldering site that the place where they were flinging themselves into duty was a toxic landmine.

The Victims Compensation Fund that was set up by the federal government after the disaster worked well, but it stopped accepting applications in 2003, before many of the men and women who were disabled realized that the respiratory problems they were having weren't just symptoms of an allergy or long-running flu. Eleven thousand of them are currently suing the city and the construction contractors. But this is not the kind of situation you want to see settled through lengthy, bitter court suits.

The government needs to step up to the plate, reopen the fund, and show it's willing to compensate the disabled and sometimes dying men and women of Ground Zero. This isn't the kind of action we're supposed to take grudgingly, because a judge tells us to.

It won't be all that long before that tenth anniversary of 9/11. I'm willing to hazard a guess that the memorial still won't be completed. Most of the construction plans for Lower Manhattan will still be gauzy promises. The city can wait, perhaps not patiently. But we have to deal with the human part of the equation. The people who answered the call on that terrible day need to be taken care of.

And every politician who shows up on September 11 looking sad should be able to tell us what he/she did to make that happen.

Rumors have circulated for months in Washington that the US commanders in Afghanistan want more troops and would be sending a formal request to the President. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is supposedly sitting on such a request until later in the year. Vice President Joe Biden and National Security Advisor Jim Jones are said to have expressed doubts about a further troop escalation. It is likely that President Obama will soon face a decision whether to increase US forces in Afghanistan above the 70,000 he has already authorized. When he does, what questions should he ask, what decision criteria should he use?

Before we suggest a way of thinking about this decision: As government officials in the 1990s,we advocated US military intervention in Afghanistan and advised candidate Obama on the need for increased US resources and troops for Afghanistan in 2008. Specifically, we recommended and Senator Obama proposed adding two brigades, about 8000 personnel. Since then, President Obama has authorized over 30,000 additional troops.

This is not, however, a numbers game. There is no precisely right or wrong number of US forces that should be in Afghanistan. Some number will be needed for several years. The issue is whether we are pursuing a strategy that defines our goals and tailors our means to them. Thus far, none of our publicly articulated goals seem to reflect what we are actually doing. Depending upon what you think our goals are, we are either doing too much or too little. If our goal is to deny al Qaeda a safe haven in which it can prepare and plan attacks, it might be possible to achieve that outcome with a much smaller US effort. US Special Forces, tactical aircraft, and drones based in and around the capital of Kabul could target and eliminate the terrorists. A nation building effort would not be necessary for such a counterterrorism strategy.

Yet this is what administration officials have proposed: a counter-insurgency program, creation of a national government, a national army, a democratic process, an economy not based on narcotics. If our goal is foster a strong central government, then we are knowingly pursuing something essentially at odds with Afghan history. A strong Afghan national army would mean doubling the number of trained Afghan military personnel that the US is now struggling to field. According to metrics developed by Gen. David Petraeus, a counter-insurgency campaign in Afghanistan would require 1.3 million troops for a decade. That is five times the size of US, NATO, and Afghan government forces today. No one thinks this is feasible and we are not attempting to do so. A classic counter-insurgency strategy therefore is not in the cards.

Apart from the question of strategy, how long can we sustain a deployment of 75,000 troops, the funding, and the public's casualty tolerance If the US presence in Iraq is cut by two-thirds over the next year, the US presence in Iraq and Afghanistan would be about 125,000, more than President Bush deployed. To support that number, a force twice as large would be constantly either preparing to deploy or recovering. Thus, half of US ground forces would be committed to Iraq and Afghanistan for the indefinite future, while Afghanistan emerges as the largest recipient of US foreign aid. An effort of this size enjoys domestic support if the public thinks we're going to win and Congress, the White House and the pundits line up behind the policy. These conditions are already fading. The Administration would be wise to consider a glide path to lower casualties and reduced spending over several years.

In the short term we should continue to attack Taliban and al Qaeda commanders, while offering security to more Afghans. The goal would be to induce Pushtuns in the south and east to disengage from terrorists or violent opponents of the Afghan or Pakistani governments. The Pushtuns must believe that backsliding would cost them financially and militarily. Some US forces would needed as the hammer to enforce these deals for the foreseeable future, but not on the scale required for a nationwide counter-insurgency.

The Obama Administration may not want to say publicly that it is pursuing such a strategy, wanting instead to convince Afghans of all stripes that we are willing to keep a large presence indefinitely. The truth is, however, that we cannot. In deciding whether to accede to requests for more troops, the President should prepare the ground now for an approach that meshes the threat to US security, prospects for success and a sustainable level of funding.