It does not seem like fifteen years.

I am a Canadian. I did not find the twin towers irrelevant. I once worked for IBM Canada and, as a result of Brokerage experience and a case tool called SEER, was in New York and on the 105th floor of one tower, a short time (weeks) before the disaster.

I followed the TV coverage incredulously. Then I went online and found everything I could. I think there were thirty-four videos posted of the towers, their collapse, and the rubble-panicked crowds. One video was from a helicopter checking the roof for escapees. Apparently, the advice to ‘go up’ did not lead to an exit they could open.

I am a poet. Naturally, I wrote about the towers. I kept four poems aside for ten years, working on them only occasionally. Final versions passed muster at writers’ group and are in my fifth poetry book, Retirement Clock. (Published in 2014.) I was afraid of being too sensationalist in Executed, and then too oh-goody for the American determination to prevail, in Speech to the Statue of Liberty. I needed the cold water of other opinions to justify the patriotism and the naked horror.

I did a lot of research. How the four teams were started (two pilots per team came here first), how the lesser (muscle) members were recruited and trapped into needing martyrdom’s reprieve from earthly sins, how the flights were taken a week before for practice. ‘Tighten clothes’ is not something I made up. I did a lot of research.

Research does not make a good poem (it prevents it from going pop at the prick of a fact, eh?) but it supports it and provides needed background feel for the events as they happened to the participants, including the unwilling ones in the planes and towers.

One narrative told of two men who ran and hid behind a large pillar to survive the rubble pouring down from the crashing towers. A woman ran past them. One grabs an arm, fails to pull her into safety in time, and is left holding … an arm. Some things one does not forget. I never put that arm in a poem, but other unpleasant things I could handle.

I usually end a blog post with a dumb question. Today being a serious anniversary, I’ll end with dumb answers as well.

• Who gained from 9-11? You won’t like this answer. President G.W.Bush went from ill-thought of, to tough Commander-in-Chief. Dick Cheney got a Lot of money for Halliburton as provider to the armed forces in Iraq. Bin Laden became a folk hero among radicals.
  It is possible that this empowered Daesh and the Caliphate.
• Who lost from 9-11? You won’t like this answer either. Most ‘civilized’ countries used this (and later) incidents to increase police power, increase surveillance of civilians, increase scope of authorized extrajudicial executions, increase checkpoints / border walls / customs inspection / access to phone, eMail, social media accounts.
  In many ‘civilized’ countries, the rights and lives of fine Muslim citizens went downhill or out the window.
  And, of course, all the victims and their families lost, big time.
• What did we learn from 9-11? Not much. We have watch lists for airline passengers that repeatedly deny infants boarding. We have lone-wolf incidents, and they are extremely difficult to predict (at least in some cases.)
• What should we have learned from 9-11? We could read Peter Scowen, Rogue Nation, ISBN 0-7710-8005-0; or Noam Chomsky, Power and Terror, ISBN 1-58332-590-0. Chomsky is an American. Scowen is a Canadian whose sister was in Tower Two.
  Chomsky’s view of American international actions is, er, disturbing.
  Scowen asked himself, ‘why would anyone do this?’ and the answer, from fifty years of American international actions, is in his book.

It is time to remember 9-11. Remember the loss. Remember the spirit that was able to rebuild. Respect the dead. Honour the rescue workers and others who did all possible under treacherous conditions.

Maybe tomorrow, or next week, it will be time to re-examine 9-11. Scowen. Chomsky.

I could give a quote from Pogo. It’s about meeting the enemy. Maybe next month we’ll ask our governments to think about this.