Just 'Cause You Can't Let Lies Go Unnoticed...

Dana Perino on terrorist attacks

Talking About 9-11

It's been eight years. And somehow, this year, I've heard more people talking about how that September day changed their lives than I ever have before.

I've met a couple who lived across the street from the World Trade Center. They saw the plane hit; their windows were blown out when the towers collapsed. They're part of an effort called NYCCAN.org, an attempt to get a question on the November ballot calling for a new, independent investigation into the events of that day. They just won a round in their fight against a city that wants to invalidate thousands of signatures: the city has accepted that they have the 30 thousand valid signatures required to petition for a referendum.

I've spoken with a woman who was on the other side of the country the day of the attacks. But as she watched it all on TV, she knew she had to go to New York. She had to be part of the healing. And she's been here ever since.

Another woman lived in lower Manhattan. She said her sense of danger has been so profound since that day that she first moved farther uptown, then out of the city altogether. She's never lived anywhere but New York City, but now she lives in a cottage in the country.

I've interviewed medical experts studying the endless list of health problems suffered by people who were there, who breathed in that toxic cloud of dust, debris and death. I've spoken to first responders, many of whom have watched their comrades die of exotic, lingering diseases in the years since they all worked together at Ground Zero.

I watch "Rescue Me" - and underlying the main characters development is the way their experiences on September 11th distorted who they used to be. They are like trees on top of a promontory - they're stunted, they're twisted, but they're alive.

The words keep coming up in conversation: when 9-11 happened...after 9-11...since 9-11.

Some people are convinced we're not being told the whole story of how and why it happened. Others want those people to shut up and let them move on with their lives. But we're all marked somehow.

For me, the day is a blur. I was already walking in a zombie trance from my mother's lingering death two months earlier. I was a teacher; many of my students were children of successful business people in and around New York. We gathered as a school and watched the coverage, doing our best to help students living at a school too far from their families find out what was happening, trying to assure them it would be okay.

9-11 has defined our generation just as the bombing of London has defined a generation in the UK. But for us, the enemy is still unclear and there has been no closure, no retribution, no sense of justice.

I think the president's call to make this tragic anniversary a day of service is a constructive one. I hope it takes hold. Sometimes, the only way to deal with sorrow is to get busy. And reaching out a hand to someone else is, I believe, the best cure for our national grief.

What Must the World Think of Us?

I've been wondering as I look at reports on Google Analytics that tell me people all over the world have read this blog - what must they think?
Not about me personally - chances are a reader in Micronesia wouldn't feel much different than my next door neighbor. But what about America?
Until just a few years ago I'd never really left the country. Not for lack of desire - it was lack of opportunity and lack of funds. But finally, as a gift to my newly 18 year old son, I hopped a plane and we explored Paris, Rome and some of the small hill towns between Rome and Florence.
It was life changing.
I never considered myself parochial. I've been to most of the states in the US. I've been to Canada (and loved it). I always knew there was a much larger world beyond this country and I longed to get to know it. But I didn't know. I really didn't.
The sense of history, the thrill of hearing everyone around you speak a language you barely understand, the mind shift that occurs when you are truly in a strange land (no matter how Westernized), the chance to sit and watch human beings living a life much like your own, yet somehow very different; it thrilled me and left me often gaping stupidly or grinning like an idiot.
I like my country. It's been good to me and my family. But I'm horrified by the latest GOP campaign tactic - pointing out the 'real' America as opposed to the rest of America.
Jon Stewart handled it beautifully this week - he was clearly offended and he had every right to be. New York City, that hotbed of liberal elitists, is where America suffered its worst terrorist attack ever. And to say that New Yorkers aren't 'real' Americans, to imply that only small town conservatives qualify as 'real' Americans, is to spit on Ground Zero and every family that lost someone in that attack.
So we're fighting among ourselves...not the Blue and Gray anymore, but the Blue and the Red. And our friends around the world, as well as our enemies or those who just don't trust us, are watching us squabble like kids at a toybox. We look immature. We look petty. And we are.
I'm tired of hearing cheerleaders for divisiveness. I don't want to hear any more booing, jeering, no more pep rallies for hate and fear.
I am an American and I want to be able to be proud when I say that. It's time to start acting our age.

9-11 Seven Years Later

I didn't want to do the usual maudlin tribute to the victims of the World Trade Center attacks in 2001. I had to cover the anniversary, of course. It's news. But the story is what's happening today. The people who survived are dying.

Experts tell me that people exposed to the toxic plume resulting from the towers' collapse are seeing their health problems multiply at an alarming rate. They are not only the survivors of the attack, but the rescuers and even people who were there and tried to help.

What they breathed in, usually without any masks, was a potent, lethal combination of carcinogens and poisons that are causing asthma, tumors, and cancers that are usually considered quite rare.

And they're fighting to prove that they're sick because of the 9-11 attacks.

Politicians are beginning to get louder on the issue, calling for more programs to help them, more counseling, more money for medical aid. But so far that call isn't being answered quickly enough to help all the people who need it.

I spoke with Jim LePena...an electrician from the Hudson Valley. He jumped in his car and drove to Manhattan on 9-11, just to do what he could to help. He's able to work now, but barely. He has asthma. He's had benign tumors removed from his brain. He says he has to fight to prove his health problems began after he worked digging through the rubble from the towers.

Tumors grow faster in people exposed to the plume. Their immune systems are compromised.

And federal aid earmarked for responders and survivors who live outside of New York isn't getting to them. An advocate told me Tommy Thompson and Logistics Health, the private contractors hired to administer the money, have swallowed up the money and it hasn't been seen since.

The Red Cross had millions of dollars for programs to help 9-11 victims. There were hundreds of programs. Seven years later, that money has run out. And those programs are shutting down.

And that's what's happening seven years after the Twin Towers were destroyed.