Richmondites reflect on September 11
by Kerri Jones
As the sun set on Friday, Sept. 4, I set out to ask Richmond residents about an important topic: the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Naturally, for this task, I could find no better place than local bars. Wandering into one such establishment, I requested of the bartender a bottle of Guinness or Killian’s, and she conjectured that [”]I do[did] not know where I am[was].[”] Nevertheless, dodging the beat of loud music and a somewhat off-kilter, haphazard strobe light, I begin asking locals about the events of that particular Tuesday.Henry, who sat to my left at the bar, helped me to order a nondescript beer. When I asked about his own experiences on Sept. 11, 2001, Henry was quick to comment. “People was wrong what did it,” he said. Equally as quick, he added, “they [the military] should have went just to Afghanistan instead of going to Iraq.”
I interrupted his sudden criticism of the Second Gulf War to remind him that the topic of the conversation was Sept. 11; perhaps the music was too loud, and he misheard me. Nevertheless, he continued, saying that “Bush killed a lot of American soldiers when we shouldn’t even been there. They got the world so screwed up we might never get out of this mess.”
From Henry, I turned to the fellow on my right. He identified himself as Doug. When I commented that the beer tasted like “sh-t,” he asked me if I’d ever tasted excrement. I shook my head. When I mentioned the infamous date, Doug shook his head, and in a voice dripping with sarcasm, replied, “What a wonderful government we have.”
He went on to call the day a “horrible waste of lives,” and to say that he was “shocked, but not surprised, either.” I paused to digest these statements, especially when combined with his opening remark, and then asked him if he believes that the United States government was somehow responsible for Sept. 11. He nodded.
“Yeah, actually they were. Yes.”
He elaborated, arguing that the U.S. military, CIA and other organizations could’ve gathered enough intelligence prior to the attack to at least know that there was a possibility for something like 9/11 to occur. Doug then turned his attention, somewhat abruptly, to the same subject dwelt upon by Henry: Iraq.
“We kinda put our hand in the lion’s cage,” he said, alluding to America “trying to change things that been going on for a thousand years over there.” Just what these things are, he never exactly said, and the loud music did not help. The bartender returned, and, as our conversation was ending, he added, “Hell, they knew about Pearl Harbor before it happened.”
Thus far, it seems that the subject of Sept. 11, 2001 cannot be properly separated from the eight years of warfare that followed it, as if that day were just the first cog in an elaborate Rube Goldberg machine into which America and the world were forcibly thrown. The last individual with whom I spoke, however, offered a different take on the day.
A gentleman named Terry joined me just outside of a popular nightclub, wearing a large ornate headdress colored green, purple, and yellow. He called it his “pimp hat.” His reason for wearing it, he said, is that “there’s a lot of craziness in the world, and I want people to smile.” Indeed, one cannot help but smile at the fanciful design, but soon our conversation turned serious.
When asked about Sept. 11, Terry immediately mentioned his two brothers, both firefighters. “That’s how I feel it,” he said, and one is reminded that many of those who died on Sept. 11 were firefighters or other rescue personnel. Not unlike Doug and Henry, however, Terry’s impressions of that day extend beyond it, reaching through the past eight years into the present. He reminds me that first responders are out there, “fighting for lives every day,” just as they were on Sept. 11.
For people like Doug and Henry, Sept. 11 will always be indelibly linked to the ongoing wars that it spawned. For others, like Terry, it will remain a reminder of the continuous struggle of human existence. Though Sept. 11 will awaken in each individual unique emotions, memories and sentiments, my talk with these three Richmondites suggests one thing; that Tuesday never properly ended, because the struggles that defined it continue indefinitely.
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