Remembering Sept. 11

Days of infamy revisited

EDITOR'S NOTE - Tom Raum has covered Washington for The Associated Press since 1973, including five presidencies.
By TOM RAUM
Associated Press Writer

That's when the horror sank in for me.

Driving home to suburban Virginia at about 3 a.m. after reporting on the terror attacks for nearly 17 hours, I was jolted at the sight of that massive building still on fire, flames jutting from the shattered roof.

I later learned that hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 had flown low over our neighborhood in its final moments, nearly grazing treetops. Our son could have looked up from his schoolyard and seen it go by. Neighbors had lost friends and family in the Pentagon conflagration.

As America reflects over the Sept. 11 anniversary, each person remembers individually that terrible day which claimed 3,000 lives in Washington, New York and Pennsylvania.

There are only a few days in U.S. history with such import - those that literally changed the nation and history.

Clearly, one of them was Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which devastated the U.S. Pacific fleet, killed nearly 2,400 Americans and swept the United States into World War II. It was, President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed, "a date which will live in infamy."

Many Americans can still recall other days of infamy - where they were and what they were doing when they learned of the Nov. 22, 1963, assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the April 4, 1968, assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

Earlier generations just as vividly remembered Oct. 29, 1929, Black Tuesday, and the days surrounding it - the wrenching stock market crash that prefaced the Great Depression, the worst economic slump in U.S. history.

Another day that helped change the world was May 7, 1915 - when a German U-boat torpedoed the British luxury liner Lusitania, taking 1,195 lives - 123 of them American. The loss provoked widespread outrage in the United States and led to a shift in mood that drew the United States into World War I.

The April 14, 1865, assassination of President Abraham Lincoln was such a day. And some historians would include Sept. 17, 1862, the Battle of Antietam in Sharpsburg, Md., the bloodiest day of the Civil War. Nearly 23,000 soldiers were killed or wounded in the battle, which ended Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's invasion of the North and began the long path to national reconciliation.

The British sacking of Washington and the burning of the Capitol and the White House in 1814 was an early day of deep national despair for this then-young nation.

In the three decades I've been reporting on Washington, there has been no shortage of crises to rivet the nation's attention: the Watergate scandal and Richard Nixon's Aug. 8, 1974, resignation; Iran's taking of U.S. embassy hostages in Tehran in 1979 and President Jimmy Carter's abortive April 1980 rescue attempt; the March 30, 1981, attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan; the Jan. 28, 1986, explosion of the space shuttle Challenger that killed seven astronauts; the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building; the Clinton impeachment trial; the extra innings of the 2000 presidential election.

But the consequences of the 9-11 attacks have been more farreaching, bringing major changes in foreign, defense, intelligence, economic and budgetary policies. Heartland defense has become a priority. Travel has become more complicated. Some civil freedoms have been restricted. And there has been a shared loss of national innocence, a recognition of a new vulnerability.

Many details are now known about that fateful day and about the 19 militant Islamic hijackers who seized the four U.S. passenger jets.

But, as the day itself unfolded, it was marked by confusion and seeming contradictions.

President George W. Bush's whereabouts - as he zigzagged between military bases while returning to Washington from Florida - were not always clear. Smoke drifting onto the National Mall from the Pentagon fire led to speculation of more attacks. There were erroneous reports of a car bomb at the State Department and explosions on Capitol Hill. For a while, it was thought there might even be a fifth hijacked plane still in the air.

Eventually, a clearer picture emerged - and by evening the president had addressed the nation and lawmakers, who had been evacuated earlier from the Capitol, linked arms on the steps singing "God Bless America."

As a new day dawned, soldiers in combat gear were patrolling the eerily deserted streets of the nation's capital and smoke from the smoldering Pentagon still filled the air.

Uploaded September 8, 2002