Anniversaries are important to us.
Some anniversaries are happy ones, some are sad, but we always have that need to think back, to reminisce, to remember.
Every day the New York Times has a very small “section” called “On this Day” where, with a single click, one can browse “important events in history” and view the Times’ featured front-page on a particular date.
For example, there is a Times front page with the following headlines:
MEN WALK ON MOON
ASTRONAUTS LAND ON PLAIN;
COLLECT ROCKS, PLANT FLAG
A little quaint perhaps, but unforgettable and to this day awesome.
Today, September 11, the “On This Day” section simply says:
On Sept. 11, 2001, suicide hijackers crashed two airliners into the World Trade Center in New York, causing the 110-story twin towers to collapse. Another hijacked airliner hit the Pentagon and a fourth crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.
Next to it we see a small picture of the September 12, 2011 Times front page with that inerasable image — that inerasable memory — of the Twin Towers engulfed in smoke and flames.
Another click on the image and there is a larger image of that front page, almost large enough to read the fine print, but the headlines are unmistakable and unforgettable:
U.S. ATTACKED
HIJACKED JETS DESTROY TWIN TOWERS
AND HIT PENTAGON IN DAY OF TERROR
In smaller print, the ominous headlines that portended the most drastic changes in our nation’s policies and in our way of life since World War II, for better or for worse: “President Vows to Exact Punishment for ‘Evil’” and “A Somber Bush Says Terrorism Cannot Prevail”
A final click on the “Go to article” words and the reader is taken to the Times initial report on the first attack ever on our homeland.
Much will be written today on this eleventh anniversary of that attack, but this “initial report,” written before the full enormity of the tragedy was known, before the full extent of future repercussions was known, is worth revisiting.
Image: Larry Bruce / Shutterstock.com”
The author is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a writer.