September 11 is not the primary topic of this blog, but my previous post reminded me of this story:
I had several different desks at the Wal-Mart home office. My favorite location was at the back of a pod – the term we used to refer to an aggregation of six cubes – where I could arrange the screen of my computer away from people approaching from the front of the pod. The arrangement allowed me to keep my screen hidden from view, unless I specifically wanted someone to see it. As such, I was able to, from time to time when I grew tired of working, distract myself by viewing one of the relatively few websites that Wal-Mart permitted everyone to view.
I’ve often spoken to my father about where he was and what he was doing when he heard that President Kennedy had been shot. From speaking with him and others in his generation, it simply was a life changing moment and they naturally remember where they were and what they were doing. For my generation, I think that the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 are the same kind of event. At any rate, I seriously doubt I will ever forget what I was doing when I heard that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center.
When Tanya came around the corner that morning, I was pretending to work but I was actually reading a website about travel in Ireland for a trip my wife and I were planning for later that year. She said, “A plane just hit the World Trade Center.” Not considering that it was terrorism, I asked her, “Was it an accident?” She said, “I’m not sure if anyone knows.” I said, “Let’s go to the break room and see what CNN is saying.” “Okay, but the one downstairs is packed with people. Let’s go upstairs.” When we arrived in the upstairs break room, we found it packed with people as well. Fortunately, there was a big screen television in one end of the long room so, despite the crowd, we were able to see the television. I don’t even recall what CNN had to say. I do remember, though, that news of the second plan hitting the other tower broke while we were in the break room. I also remember that everyone was, like the rest of the nation, utterly shocked and dismayed.I’m not sure how long we watched the news. It became repetitive after a while and we returned to our desks. I started pouring over news websites to try to garner more information.
A few minutes later, the president of the division of Wal-Mart I was working for spoke to everyone over the public address system. His speech was astounding. He discussed the attacks, of which we knew little at the time. Much of the information he passed along later proved to be false. Rumors are pervasive in large corporations, apparently even at the highest levels of management. The information he passed along, however, did not compare with his attitude. His message, other than informational, was this: He thought the attacks were a terrible thing and that we should pray for all the victims’ families but he didn’t want the incident to interfere with our work.
He literally called it an incident. War had been waged upon our country. With the exception of Pearl Harbor, United States citizens live in a country that had no armed conflicts on its soil through two world wars, and he called this attack an incident. I wanted to stick my middle finger up at him.
