By Vincent F. Safuto Staff writer
August 16, 2002
The flames are all long gone,
But the pain lingers on.
"Goodbye Blue Sky" Pink Floyd, 1979
The news media are preparing to run stories marking one year since the Sept. 11 attacks, and I agree with some readers who've written to question why the media insist on doing this.
I don't want to relive that day, a day that began with a telephone call that woke me up and ended with me watching a nighttime scene of what used to be the site of a number of buildings a familiar part of the skyline I grew up seeing looking like something out of Dante's "Inferno."
I said to someone in the newsroom at one point, "I just keep waiting for the alarm clock to go off, or to see the words The End' and the lights come up." I didn't want it to be real. But it was.
"How We've Changed" is the general theme of the media's look back, and I think it's redundant to use valuable space and newsprint to tell readers that. Things have changed in our world. All around us, we see the growth in suspicion, fear and mistrust.
We're more cynical than we were on Sept. 10, 2001. We've seen the aftermath of an unimaginable tragedy: the lives ruined, the lives lost, the tears, the suffering and the sadness.
But we have also heard stories of bravery and selfless courage. I've said it before and I'll say it again: For all the babble about how people in America are so self-centered and evil because they want a good life for themselves, a look at the events of Sept. 11 shows that we can rise to the occasion when need be.
Rescue personnel knew they were needed, and many paid the ultimate price for their dedication.
We've seen people try, in their own way, to heal the unhealable wounds. People who've never been to New York or ridden the elevator to the observation deck of the World Trade Center gave for those who call the city home. People who have never been to the Pentagon gave to help the families of those who died there.
And the story of a very brave group of people who may have prevented another devastating attack, and died in a field in Pennsylvania, has inspired a nation.
The thousands of victims, aboard the four flights and in the towers and the Pentagon, were the real heroes of that day. They died with their murderers, and we need to recommit ourselves to the punishment of the leaders of those monsters who decided that their version of reality trumps all others.
The families of those people who died should just be left alone to grieve in private. We know they're in pain, and you the reader or viewer know they're in pain. You don't need to open the newspaper or turn on the TV to find that out.
Vincent F. Safuto is a copy editor for the Press Journal. Reach him at (Vincent.Safuto@scripps.com).
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