t is now 25 years since Sept. 11, 2001. The question of how to remember that day, and that time, is still unresolved. Do we turn on the TV again, to horror-watch those fateful morning TV moments, when a beautiful September sky turned dark and ominous? Or do we attend something, to share in the sadness?
Florida played a unique role in the leadup to that day.
It is now renamed Patriot Day, after a presidential declaration, though there are none that call it that, except for the pre-printed calendars. It is always just 9/11. Perhaps the issue with this whole historical event and time is that it is not resolved. Unlike V-J or V-E Day, it was not won. There are still questions out there about the events, people and money connected to it. And we now live in a security apparatus and monitoring state that makes us wonder how long we will all be the victims.
Even today, the intrepid online publication Florida Bulldog is still reporting on 9/11 stories, still seeking redress and answers to questions. We commend this sort of online journalism. If you want to see current patriotism, look at the long list of Floridians and friends of the effort who support the Bulldog’s research each year, such as a Miami Buick/GMC dealer. Dan Christensen and his 501(c)(3) are still breaking news, not only on 9/11 but on Epstein, and the whole sordid world of privilege.
Want to feel unresolved? Go online to the CIA’s own reading room, where the few documents released are highly whited out. Particularly telling and galling is the infamous August 2001 report of the DCI Counterterrorist Center, or CTC, which warned of threats, but was only released much later.
One phrase not redacted?
“CTC owes its success to a number of factors.”
The 9/11 story is a story of here, this area, including that fateful school visit to Emma Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, as George Bush read “The Pet Goat” to Mrs. Daniels’ second-grade class. Remember that the chief plot instigator, Mohamed Atta, came to Venice in mid-2000 for flight school training, living on Laurel Road. It is a tiny house; he found it after he was kicked out of his first rental because of his rudeness. Along with him were Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad al-Jarrah. The Venice Gondolier has done excellent reporting on the local angles.
It was only later, and after dogged reporting at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune and later Freedom of Information Act releases, that we learned more about Atta’s visits to a house in Prestancia, in Palmer Ranch, and how the family of Abdul Aziz and Anoud al-Hijji left the house mysteriously, with food in the fridge. None of that information made it into the final report of the 9/11 Commission. The late Florida Sen. Bob Graham was deeply critical of omissions in the report.
There are also the survivors. A good updated account of one is by D.C. writer and reporter Karen Feld, who has often interviewed Michael Tuohey, the US Airways ticket agent who checked in Mohamed Atta for the first leg of his flight in Portland, Maine. He told Feld, “I want to be the man I was before 9/11 – the man open to wonder and spontaneity.”
Don’t we all.
There is not space to recount Tuohey’s whole story, as he has been interviewed many times. But what can be recalled is that Tuohey had to ask the “stupid questions” about whether bags had been out of sight, etc. As he thought that “if those guys don’t look like Arab terrorists, who does?”
We all know the rest of the story. Tuohey could do nothing, or it would cost him his job, and he talked himself out of the reaction. The attackers should never have been here in the first place, but for Immigration and Naturalization Service incompetence.
There is a place to remember.
Venice has Patriots Park, which is next to the Legacy Trail crossing over U.S. 41 Bypass near Pinchers Crab Shack. At 800 Venetia Bay Blvd., there is a piece of the steel of the World Trade Center, stuck in a monument in the ground. It took years for the community to get that piece of metal.
Venice has an extensive program planned for the ceremony, including keynote speaker Kevin Hanley, with a tribute to his brother, late New York firefighter Sean Hanley, as well as keynote speaker Mike Caposella, retired battalion chief for the Paterson, New Jersey Fire Department, which responded in a mutual aid pact. There are also student essays, an effort to continue to tell the story, however unfinished.
