Lessons We Must Never Forget"The hole in the skyline
is symbolic of the hole
in our lives."
Ten years after 9/11, we need to come together again as a nation and remind ourselves of the lessons we learned on that long day
By Tom Brokaw
From time to time, my flights into New York City are routed out over the harbor and the Statue of Liberty and then steered north, beginning at the southern tip of Manhattan. Before 9/11, I looked forward to these aerial tours of the world’s greatest skyline. But no more. Now I am immediately reminded of the missing piece: the World Trade Center. And my heart sinks again as I am pulled back to that long day of violence, terror, death, confusion, grief, and rage. The hole in the skyline is symbolic of the hole in our lives, that moment that took so many of our fellow citizens to their death, plunged others into a lifetime of loss and bewilderment, and blasted all of us out of our comfort zones.
We have the same reaction when we see the evocative memorial next to the Pentagon or the wound in the countryside of Shanksville, Pa.
Sept. 11 was without a doubt the single most challenging day of my journalistic career. From the moment I went on the air that morning, I had no idea what would happen next. There were so many more questions than answers. Who were the hijackers? How could this happen? What was the next target?
At one point, I referred to the burning towers and said, “There is so much structural damage, they may eventually have to be brought down.” Instantly, I regretted my words, thinking, “Maybe I’ve gone too far.”
Moments later, the buildings began to collapse on their own, and we all watched in horror, fearing that as many as 20,000 people might still be inside. I kept reminding myself, “Stay cool, tell viewers what you know, not the rumors, and don’t let your emotions spill over.” (I have Irish ancestors on my mother’s side, and those genes take me to the brink of tears pretty easily.)
I was doing relatively fine until later that day when a survivor from one of the towers began to describe his colleagues in wheelchairs who never made it out. I couldn’t stand the thought of those poor souls trapped by their paralysis, waiting for an elevator that never came. I choked up and passed our news coverage to another correspondent who carried on until I regained my composure. On Sept. 11, it took everything I’d learned in 40 years as a journalist, husband, father, friend, and citizen to make it through.
I came to know other survivors, as well as many family members of the people who died. Their strength steeled me. One was Beverly Eckert. She’d met her husband, Sean, when they were teenagers at a school dance in Buffalo, N.Y., and they called their marriage Camelot because they felt it was a fairy tale.
