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Grayson Hurst Daughters: We’re Not Afraid We’re Not Afraid No, I was not afraid during the morning of the terrorist attacks of 9/11. I was angry -- angry with a white hot fury I'd never felt, and I haven't since. I wanted to seek immediate revenge. I wanted guns and lots of money to go and get the people who were killing us. I wished, at the time, that I was a member of the military, with a license to kill our enemy - whoever that was. I wanted to DO something. Anything. I remember wishing fiercely I was a fighter pilot in an F-16.
Instead, I sat in my cubicle at the Home Depot Atlanta headquarters, where I was working at the time, on the phone with my brother, Christopher, who had walked past the Twin Towers just minutes before the attacks, as he did every workday on his way to and from his Wall Street office. I stayed on the phone with him as the North Tower began to collapse. I could hear Christopher' building shaking and rumbling on my end of the phone. Then the line went dead.
I had no idea what was really going on in New York City, other than what was appearing on CNN in front of us all. I had no clue about what had happened to Christopher. I wouldn't find out a thing for another two hours or so.
After the phone connection failed, Christopher fled with the crowds and the smoke through Lower Manhattan and made his way, slowly, up towards Midtown Manhattan where his wife Jane's office was located.
While he was evacuating, Jane and I emailed back and forth frantically until Christopher was able to place a phone call letting Jane know he was alive and headed her way on foot. I thought periodically during the anxious hours that morning of how Christopher had loved to photograph the twin towers from all sorts of intriguing angles.
I was wiped-out with relief when we knew of Christopher’s whereabouts, then more-or-less in a state of stunned disbelief for what seemed like weeks afterwards. I vaguely remember picking my child up at daycare by early afternoon on 9/11, but I have no recall of the hours immediately afterwards.
I assume I just sat in front of ABC and CNN for hours on end, if not days. I remember Peter Jennings and his cool smoothness throughout the days. I remember Mayor Giuliani emerging, through the media, as a strong, intelligent, reassuring, competent leader. I have no memory or sense of George Bush assuming any kind of credible leadership role - ever.
I have visited NYC several times since 9/11. The first time there, I looked back over my shoulder across the Hudson River on my way over to New Jersey, to absorb my first “live” view of the newly-altered Manhattan skyline. The sensation of seeing the skyline without the World Trade Center towers rising up at the city’s end was painful and sobering.
A few trips later, over the passing years, I no longer expect to see the towers when I gaze the powerful Manhattan skyline, but it seems my eyes instinctively search for them, if only for a flicker of the barest moment.
Anger does still flare, momentarily, from time to time, but ultimately I am not afraid of terrorism or the Islamist terrorists. After all, we are Americans, and we will fight them to the end.
Sep 12, 2006 GPD Columnists OPINION
By Grayson Hurst Daughters| spaceygreview.blogspot.com | Bio
