There was a lot of emotion swirling around yesterday. You may have felt it in a different way than the crowd down by the Loading Dock at Refuge Farm. It is understandable, for a variety of perfectly understandable reasons.

DeMille produced a fascinating document that outlined the trauma of one of the Port Authority cops who rushed into the World Trade Center in New York with a small team of fellow officers. They were caught in the collapse of the towers, and two of them were pinned in the wreckage of 220 stories that somehow failed to crush them. It was a remarkable story of survival and courage. So much so that Hollywood director Oliver Stone made a film about it a few years later. But there is more to the story, of course.

The concept of “survivor guilt” is a real thing, and “PTSD,” which used to be known as Shell Shock as repressed anger at cruel fate and sacrifice. The Stone movie story was about the uplifting thoughts of spouse and kids that led the fight for survival. What it did not include was the lingering pain that was reflected in the face of a daughter who was moved to tell the survivor that he was scaring her one day. Or the wife enduring outbursts of emotion about normal things that were not executed with perfection. That was the other part of the story Stone did not tell. The wreckage of survival.

That was something that called out to me. I was at the Pentagon that beautiful horrid morning. I briefly visited my old gym locker down in the POAC, withdrawing the last of the athletic gear left adrift after transferring out a few weeks before. I remembered the beauty of that still-dark morning, just as we felt the glory of the red-tinged dawn today. Back then, the drive to do something was immediate. We knew we had been attacked, and we had no doubt who had committed an atrocity against our nation that had been at peace. We accepted it and went to war.

There was little thought in that process, just as there was little consideration for the consequences of the actions we took to address the stark evil of the act against us. We did what seemed to be the right thing. We harnessed the capabilities of the old collection machine to monitor the activities of those among us who could be part of the terror. We did not realize the justice of our action could be twisted to become a tool in the politics of division.

I remember thinking about it then, moving papers on action-item lists for ”comment” before swift action. That the capabilities we needed could also be used in ways to undermine basic freedoms was a possibility. I do not recall if I wrote those words then, though the revelations of the Pike and Church Committees in Congress had exposed those instruments of government could also be used in political means. A President had been forced to resign over the excesses. But we faced a new and seemingly existential threat after 9/11, and now we have the consequences. Again.

After 9/11, we were in a righteous hurry and we did what we felt necessary. The confluence of technology and crisis made basic issues once considered fundamental rights- like “privacy”- being overwhelmed before even being considered. There are others, of course. One provision in the new pending legislation in this remarkable September that will grant access to our bank accounts for inspection by the Internal Revenue Department. It is said compliance rates for taxation are not sufficient to fund the other exciting programs in the thousands of pages new legislation no one has had time- or been able- to read.

The Loading Dock is a suitable backdrop to this September to Remember. But we may not have time to find out what is proposed in law before it is one.

That is unfamiliar territory for those who can barely navigate some of the apps on our phones. But, forward we go. We hope there may some time to talk about it all, but that somehow doesn’t seem very likely, does it? We are in a hurry. A big swirl of it.

Copyright 2021 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com