September 11, 2001

Arlington, VA / New York, NY - September 15, 2002. All text and imagery on website http://aartsen.net/ and its affiliated and subsidiary pages and files that has not otherwise been attributed is © Menno Aartsen.

When you're wounded and left,
On Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out,
To cut up your remains,
Just roll on your rifle,
And blow out your brains,
And go to your Gawd,
Like a soldier.
Rudyard Kipling

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Wednesday September 12, 2001

First and foremost, I must thank the pilots of yesterday's 8am US Airways Shuttle out of New York's LaGuardia Airport, who went through what must have been the most harrowing experience of their careers. They must have already known that jetliners had hit the World Trade Centre, and that two more unidentified aircraft were heading in the same direction we were. They dove their aircraft into Washington National, and got us on the ground safe and sound. Thanks, folks, I'll never forget you.

The most poignant moment of my day was the telephone call I received from a colleague, today, in the early afternoon... He was in process of setting up a conference call to discuss enhancements to the service we create, an enhancement that allows customers with a need for data security to establish a fast data link from New York to New Jersey. My colleague, working away diligently from his home, as I do, because we cannot get to our offices in New York City, for now, trying to get as much done as he could.

I thought about how I was going to tell him there really wasn't any immediate need to pursue this, and then decided I could only be blunt. You see, the customer site that had requested the service essentially no longer exists, and our switching center via which the service would have been established has been destroyed, as well. And while we will certainly come back to creating this tool, it is aimed at the downtown Manhattan financial industry, and much of that was destroyed, in under an hour, yesterday, the brokerage houses, the securities companies, the trading floors, the shops, and most of all, those thousands of New Yorkers that made it all work. It will take time for all of that to be rebuilt, and the people we can never bring back. There will be others, there will be new buildings, new services, everything you ever wanted, but for now, misguided criminals destroyed the equivalent of a small city, yesterday, lock, stock and barrel, think of any town in your home area with 100,000 inhabitants, then think of someone dropping a bomb on it, obliterating the city and all in it. There will be need for the services, but right now, all we can do is try and restore some of the basic stuff of life in downtown Manhattan, telephone service, water, electricity, and we will have to empty and bring down all of those buildings that still stand but are structurally unsafe.

That's what happened.

I would like to thank all of my wonderful friends, here in Washington, overseas and elsewhere, who have been trying to reach me to see if I am OK, calling tirelessly into lines that are overloaded, calling their friends in other parts of the US to see if they could get through, the emails of support, and the folks that came down to the pub tonight, themselves Federal employees in Washington, people with friends in the Pentagon, people with friends in those planes that were used as missiles, and came to hug and talk and be together. Thanks, I love you all, I hope we never have another occasion like this to make us get together.
Little did I know, as I looked at Manhattan Tuesday morning at 8:20am, in the low morning sun, aboard the US Air Shuttle to D.C. on my way to a doctor's appointment in Arlington, that death and destruction was flying right behind us. Not until I and my fellow passengers exited the aircraft at National Airport did we understand why the pilot slammed us on the deck so hard, but he was getting us out of harm's way, already aware another flying bomb was approaching Washington - National Airport is a little over a mile from the Pentagon, and a mile from the White House, on the other side. Our aircraft was filled to the brim - the evening before, US Airways had had to cancel all of its shuttles, due to the storms passing across the Northeastern corridor, and many of us had had to return to Manhattan, book ourselves into a hotel, to try and get out the next morning. That flying bomb hit just as I was getting onto the George Washington Parkway, having seen the harrowing images on the screens in the terminal, disbelievingly heading home to turn on CNN and check it out again, it slammed into the Pentagon somewhere over my left shoulder as I sat in the morning rush hour traffic. Then, my doctor's office called to cancel my afternoon appointment, Dr. Pearl probably already scrubbed in an operating room, waiting for the first of 48 casualties to arrive.

Please say a prayer for all those thousands who didn't make it, for their loved ones, and I hope all of your loved ones made it through allright. Please remember the splendid firemen and -women and police officers, lackadaisical New Yorkers, who went in to save their fellow citizens knowing they might die in the process. These are folks I have seen in action many times, and I am always amazed that when it comes to the crunch, they do not care about their lives, they do their job, they are our front line troops as much as the Marines are. Many went in knowing they might not make it out, and many didn't. Please spare a thought for all those workers in the Towers, vice presidents, secretaries, programmers, brokers, janitors, we all knew the bombers might try again, and they did, a day we hoped might never come. They went back to work, after the bombing, because that is what New Yorkers do, life's a bitch, but you can't let it get you down.

We also remember our own workers, those that stayed at their posts, because they know that in emergencies our telecommunications are needed to save lives. And please don't forget all those others, Con Edison, EMT, construction workers, truck drivers, too many to mention, many of which must have perished after coming to the aid of the injured and dying, when WTC gave up and collapsed on top of them.

As of this afternoon, we are still unsure about the whereabouts of many of our people, from our WTC centers.

I kept my appointment at Arlington Hospital this morning, and was met by cheerful staff and nurses, walking around as if nothing had happened, a couple of police officers and medical staff having breakfast in the cafeteria where I went to buy a capuccino, everything seemed normal except for the security guards, a Secret Service car, and the Channel 9 relay truck outside the emergency room. Since the closure of Pentagon City Hospital the Arlington Hospital Medical Center is the closest hospital to the Pentagon, and coincidentally also the hospital where my doctors have offices. All of those kind and cheerful people had worked all day yesterday and all through the night, only coming off Orange Alert early this morning, then not going home but resuming their normal day's duties.

I've been through the German airports after Bader-Meinhoff, when the police started carrying submachine guns, the Dutch airports when Palestinian attacks gave rise to armoured cars and 50mm machineguns at the terminals, the British airports when the IRA began its bombing, smiling unarmed Bobbies replaced with Special Branch officers with Heckler & Koch submachine guns across the chest, it's been a rough fifteen years.

(copyright Associated Press)
As of today, the friendly cop in the airline terminal in the US, helping people find their plane, having a coffee at Starbucks, will be gone too. We hung in there for a long while, but it eventually got here too - and like everything American, it was bigger.

Thursday, September 13, 2001:

This is the view from my former Manhattan office, 140 West Street, the building still stands, but I am told it is heavily damaged - miraculous, considering the WTC collaped around it. When I first came to "lower Manhattan", as we call it, to attend a meeting, I was overawed by the sheer size and scope of the enterprise that is Wall Street - much of the World Trade Center was occupied by financial firms. I have never been in a situation where you not only lose the ability to help your customers, but where your customers have simply ceased to exist, their offices, telephone numbers, and IT managers.

I have no doubt we'll rebuild, who would have thought that someone would drop a 110 story building on one of your switching centers? These are the kinds of pictures I grew up with, devastated cities during World War II, I never thought I would live to see this brought to my doorstep, in the civilized and powerful West. I guess I may simply be repeating things others have said before me, but there isn't supposed to be a war on, right now, nor is there a volcano or hurricane or any of these other things you know will wreak havoc. An unseen enemy, who has invented new weapons of mass destruction.

Americans are amazing and powerful people. Everyone is sad, but everyone suddenly stops for a moment, has a kind word for someone else, every conversation begins with "How are you?", but the intonation is different, and the caller waits, so you can commiserate about this evil that happened. I am one of the few people in my street who diligently flags on national holidays, that's something Yankees do, in New York and Massachusetts, but here, below the Mason-Dixon line, the Stars and Stripes weren't as ubiquitous.

That has changed. There are flags everywhere, on houses, on cash registers, on trucks.... Whoever was stupid enough to do this deed has just united all Americans into an angrily buzzing horde of 280 million people bent on revenge. Kind of a dumb mistake, the Japanese made the same mistake, all those years ago, whoever thought up this crazy scheme should have paid better attention in history class. If they think they know what a Jihad is, they are about to see it reinvented.

I am not angry - yet. I am mostly numb, managed to wade through my work today, then trying to make sure tired and upset colleagues, locked up in a city with sirens wailing around the clock, acrid smoke in the air for two nights and three days, could get home to their loved ones, and trying to make sure our colleagues from Middle Eastern countries understood they could work from home if they wanted to, if they did not feel safe traveling, or in the street. But it's all done, by Monday morning there will be a sense of normalcy, people will be back at work, the markets and airports will be open, and we'll begin spending the $20 billion the Federal Government is making available for reconstruction. Dozens of telecommunications equipment manufacturers have called us to ask what we need, don't worry about purchase orders or payment, tell us where you need it, we will send you what had been committed to other customers, they can wait. The trucks are already rolling, the switches being assembled and put on the loading docks.

Our workers downtown are installing free payphones for people working there to call home on, while AT&T is giving the thousands of rescue workers free cellphones to use for the same purpose. Another company is giving $10 million to the relatives of the rescue workers, firemen and -women, and police officers that perished in the disaster, so that they will not have to worry about their future, now insecure because their breadwinner didn't come home from work. All that money eventually comes out of our pockets, of course, but we don't mind, it is unfortunate jobs have to exist that can cost you your life, and there is very little else we can do to show them their brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, uncles and aunts did not sacrifice their lives in vain, that these people are our heroes. These aren't brash eighteen year olds that run into the battlefield with their high tech weapons, these are 30, 40, 50 year old people that take their 50 or 60 pounds of equipment, put a breathing mask on, and begin climbing a 110 story stairway in 110 degree heat, flaming jet fuel cascading down on them, because there are people up there that need their help, what you gonna do.

The pictures you see here were taken by a colleague downtown, one of the folks that work at 140 West Street and the WTC, and show both that building (the older one, it is a Landmark building) and its surroundings. I don't know who he or she is, the email came to me this morning, and you should not copy these photographs, as they are owned by someone, but I wanted to share the view from within, these workers, firemen and cops standing around, waiting until they can go into action, literally within yards of Tower North, as first its twin and then itself collapse around and on top of them. And then they are still there, because that is what they do, it's their job, and you don't walk out on your job, your job is your pride, it is, here more than anywhere else, what makes you you. Harrowing shots, from a coureagous colleague, I am sure he or she will not mind my showing them to you.

God Bless America. I am not sure how to explain this, but through the tears and sadness I am proud I can be a small part of all this, there is a purpose to building and recovering, as we all must, throughout our lifetime, through adversity and turmoil. Let's roll up our sleeves, my friends, and let's go to work.

Saturday, September 15, 2001:

For most of us, this is a human drama, this is all about our fellow man. The prize for the worst comment I have seen all week goes to Peter J. Davorn, senior vice president of Turner Construction, who I think needs to either get immediate sensitivity training, or be handed his notice. Speaking to the New York Times about the construction workers working for his company, who were allowed to go downtown and help in the clearing of the rubble, and are probably still there assisting the rescue teams, he came up with the following gem:

"It was the biggest mistake we could have made, it was really upsetting. It left a void in the construction of our current Midtown projects. They are so important because that real estate needs to be on line immediately to free up other space for the dispossessed."

I went to pick up my prescriptions tonight, at my local pharmacy in Rosslyn, chatting a bit with one of the pharmacists, Aida, a middle aged Egyptian woman who I caught studying for her Citizenship exam the other day. Halfway in our conversation she broke down in tears, telling me about the many folks who did not come to pick up their prescriptions this week. You see, many of the military personnel that work at the Pentagon live in Rosslyn, a district of Arlington, as the apartment prices are reasonable and there is a Metro connection with the Pentagon.

I don't know how I am going to get to work, to New York, on Monday, as Washington Reagan Airport is closed indefinitely, even though U.S. Airways insists it'll reopen. If it won't, I may have to take the Amtrak train, but they are so busy I can't even get departure times from their website, and there probably isn't a seat left on the Sunday evening train anyway.

I'd like to go to New York, see my colleagues and friends, I have been cooped up working from home since Tuesday. I need some people around me, office hustle and bustle, and I need to go and pay my respects to the dead, in that dreadful place that I would so enjoy walking around in, the place that made me proud of my achievement, a Dutch kid from The Hague that made it all the way to New York. And I hope I can downtown soon, and remember my colleagues who lost their lives in this senseless attack. In the lobby, there is a memorial plaque for the New York Telephone and AT&T staffers who lost their lives in World War II, it is sad we must now add another, "killed in the line of duty". I wouldn't know how to word that, but I guess peacetime is at an end.

It worries me, this attack. This attack was carried out by military men, with military precision, there are no Mujahedin in the Afghan desert that can commandeer a 767, override the Flight Management Systems, and manually guide three large and sluggish fly-by-wire airliners to a destination that isn't programmed in the aircraft's computer, then hit two buildings on an island, and another near a river, with pinpoint precision, right on schedule, only missing one of the four targets. Quite a feat, one that you don't get to do more than once, should you sort of miss a bit, lose a wing trying. Not something you learn at a flight school in Vero Beach, FL.

This is not a Bin Laden Special, cooked up by a bunch of terrorists with a bomb in a panel truck. Perhaps someone used Bin Laden to do the fetching and carrying, perhaps he was their front, but that is as far as that goes, if you ask me.

Finally turning off CNN tonight, I found that BBC America was broadcasting U.K. memorial services live, it was very moving to see how much support we have abroad. I am sure this happens in other places as well, that just doesn't come to my satellite dish. Thanks, folks, we will not forget who stood with us in our time of grief.

Americans are very understanding that retaliation will not solve this problem, that that will only express our anger and get our revenge, but it is very worrisome there are folks out there that hate America to the point they are willing to carry out an attack of this magnitude. I don't even want to think about what they can do if they have another seven years to plan. And hearing the Battle Hymn of the Republic at the end of the Memorial Service in Washington Cathedral is worrisome to - this isn't saber rattling, we're going to go out there and get them. And that will be on the ground, these aren't folks that build high buildings.

Some good is coming of this, though, America, a fractious land at the best of times, is united as I have never seen it. The Stars and Stripes are everywhere, and the normally reserved citizens of this country talk to total strangers, make a little time for each other. It is kind of stupid it takes well over 5,000 dead bodies to make that happen, but then that's the nature of the beast, the human animal isn't necessarily anything you can understand with logic.

It has just occurred to me I have been lucky, after all. Talking to Ann Marie, last night, who as it turns out arrived from Chicago at the same time and the same terminal where I arrived from New York, on Tuesday, I learned that just after I left the airport was evacuated. They weren't allowed to take their luggage, cars or anything. She eventually got home on the Metro, I guess that my European bombscare training took over when I saw the second hit on the WTC on a screen at the airport, something in my head started screaming: "Get out of here!". Hm. If he'd been heading for the airport rather than the Pentagon, or missed his target, I might not have sat here, the Pentagon is a little over a mile from where we were. Strange thought.

Well, God Bless, be safe, wherever you may lay your head tonight.

Sunday, September 16, 2001:

Needing to get back to New York on Monday morning, I called American Express, the company Verizon has an exclusive contract for travel services with. The Amex Verizon office only operates weekdays, at weekends there is an emergency travel team, all I was doing was retrieving the tollfree number from their message center.

That didn't work. Our dedicated tollfree weekday number is being answered, this Sunday morning, Dana explained to me American Express is making sure my company has Amex' complete support, at a time when we have lost both workers, and tens of millions of dollars in infrastructure.

We talked, and she told me American Express lost eleven people that worked in the Amex Travel offices in the World Trade Center. Dana and I cried a little.

Thank you, Amex, and Amex employees. We stand together.

Monday, September 17, 2001: Day Seven

From the air, at seven this morning, as my plane flies North along the East River on its way to LaGuardia Airport, Manhattan is a harrowing sight. It isn't that the WTC is missing, it looks like a war zone, an enormous plume of smoke coming out of most of lower Manhattan as if there were a bomb crater or volcano, it really does look like a battle zone. For the first time since I have come to live in the USA, military personnel in fatigues patrol the terminals, together with the Washington Airports police. At Laguardia, all security staff has been replaced, and behind the woman scanning the luggage stands a large police officer, doublechecking the images on the monitor in front of her, his Glock at the ready. Nowhere is there a holster strap in sight, every gun is ready for quickdraw. Coming into Manhattan out of the Midtown Tunnel, SWAT teams in blue fatigues are directing traffic. My driver always ignores the cop's directions, this is New York, after all, but not this Monday.

There are no smiles, people go to work but there is no joy, as if we are all wading through some kind of molasses you can't see, but it's there, it slows you down. The sun shines, but it doesn't seem to matter, the pretty young secretaries no longer make eye contact. And colleagues talk, brief conversations, you hug those close to you, run into others in the elevator, eyes soon brimming with tears.

There is little traffic in the streets, one can cross against the lights, restaurants are empty at lunchtime, and young Americans speak of being afraid to come to work, to get on the train, to enter a building, an elevator. Men speak of their wives begging them, in tears, to please find another job, never work in New York City again, think of the children, John.

Downstairs at 1166, security has tripled, and an unmarked police car sits across the street on 45th, keeping an eye on things. Security guards scan the crowds on each corner of the building. In the deli across the street, my Italian friends have incredible Meditteranean anger in their voices when they describe watching the WTC roof lined with hundreds, hundreds of people that jump (they didn't show us that on television), and when they talk about the customers from my building that have stopped coming in for breakfast.

In the lobby, people at tables, each table marked with the name of one of the tenant companies here, hand out leaflets to employees, with guidelines where to find the lists of missing (Marsh McLellan in particular lost hundreds), where to call to report missing coworkers and loved ones (it is unbelievable how many families are involved in this), and where to find the grief counselors.

We now know which of our coworkers were killed in the line of duty:

Donna Bowen, 42, Waldorf, Md. Pentagon communications representative, Verizon Confirmed dead, Pentagon, at/in building
Derrick Washington, 33, Calverton, N.Y. technician, Verizon Confirmed dead, World Trade Center, at/in building
Leonard Anthony White, 57, New York, N.Y. technician, global communications division, Verizon Confirmed dead, World Trade Center, at/in building

Rest in Peace, Friends.

Tuesday, September 18, 2001

I always make a point of saying good morning to our porter, Jose, the stocky Hispanic worker who takes care of our building needs, mail, package deliveries, he makes the coffee at seven in the morning, makes sure there is water in the cooler in the pantry on the 22nd floor.

This morning he looked at me, as he was putting milk in the refrigerator, and asked me: "I would really like to know if we are doing the right thing. Do you know?". I started formulating one of my usual glib and erudite answers, then told him I don't know any more than he does. I guess we're all going to find out. It is a good question, I thought to myself later, as I was grabbing a smoke outside the building, on 45th St., watching two large black Secret Service SUVs with District of Columbia license plates drive past. I am used to seeing those, in Washington and Arlington, where I live, so it didn't dawn on me I shouldn't be seeing those in Manhattan until they were crossing Sixth Ave.

I don't know, Jose, this is when we find out if we elected the right President, I suppose, the proof of the pudding, as always, is in the eating.

I usually have dinner at a small Irish pub, in the Theatre District, when I'm in town, and yesterday was no exception, friendly Irish barmaids, good simple food, it is where cast and stagehands from Cabaret, at Studio 54, across the street, and workers from the Ed Sullivan Theater, around the corner, where the David Letterman show is taped, take their breaks, and pop in for a drink after work. It is unusual to find a neighbourhood bar in Midtown Manhattan, most of them are far over on the East and West sides, and uptown, not in the commercial areas.

Yesterday at Dillon's was different, when I got there it was full of off duty New York City police officers. They were passing a copy of the New York Post around, checking the list of fallen and missing fire and police officers, checking who they knew - "Shit, this is Johnny's cousin", and "When is Duane's memorial service?". I got to hug some of them, there really isn't much of anything you can say to these guys that hasn't been said, and we drank rivers of beer. I was eventually elevated to the status of "brother", which is unusual in that this moniker is normally reserved for union members, which I most definitely am not, and helped two big Irish cops drinking Coors Light tease a third drinking Corona, the theme being that drinking beer with fruit in it is unamerican. A uniformed officer stopped by, handing out fliers for a memorial service at St. Patrick's Cathedral, and then the sergeant rolled in, and we got him drunk too.

Getting back to my hotel,I found dozens of Verizon technicians from New England checking in, worker boots and hard hats instead of French executives in natty suits. The New Englanders are all volunteers, coming in to help our local technicians and engineers rebuild the downtown infrastructure, after they already put something like 250,000 new lines into Wall Street over the weekend. Downtown, new fiber optic cables, as thick as your arm, are lying in the street, connecting the trading centers, there is no time to get them underground, we'll do that later.

The little public park next to my building has been cordoned off for months, it is being redesigned, but there are no workers there now, I guess they are downtown helping clear the rubble. Most of them, that is, not all of them, there is a small memorial in the passageway, fresh flowers every day, I guess some of them went downtown too fast, when it all started happening.

They got into the PATH train concourse, underneath the Towers, yesterday, incongruously undamaged, the shops, restaurants and fast food places could be reopened tomorrow just by turning on the power and cleaning the floors and counters, hastily abandoned shopping and half full coffee cups sitting around on restaurant tables. But there are no survivors, there weren't even bodies.

In the elevator, riding up, I asked a gentleman going to the 23rd floor with a bunch of manila folders under his arm how he was doing this morning, he pointed at the folders, and said "This is my office, what's left of it" - one of the ones that got out. He said he would be able to take care of his children after all, I shook his hand.

Wednesday, September 19, 2001

Walking back to my hotel, last night, a hooker sidles up to me across the street from St. Michael's Church. Young, pretty, Asian, immaculate English, university education. "Hi.... would you like some company? A massage?" and then, after a pause, "a blowjob?". There are tens of thousands of lonely hurting men in town, tonight, and no undercover vice cops. They are downtown, collecting putrefying bits of stockbroker.

When I regain my composure sufficiently to blurt out "Honey..." as I needlessly wait for the light to change, there is no traffic in Manhattan, she looks me right in the eye, I see the understanding set in, and she smiles a little and says, softly, "You have a good night now", and walks back to the corner she and her colleague occupy.

I have never seen a prostitute in Midtown, after almost fourteen years here, they're in hotels, in bars, never on the street. The word is out, men need comforting all over town, but somehow I don't think they'll be getting much business.

On 2nd Avenue, around the corner from 53rd Street, where I used to have an apartment, only one restaurant has customers, in all of the others the wait staff stands around talking, perhaps there's one lonely diner in the back. Here, there are some people at the bar, but it isn't so busy that I can't slide into an empty space. In front of me, two young Manhattanites from uptown slide onto stools, to my right, there are more, to my left, a mix of couples and friends, by the street, the house band plays 70's California rock.

My Amstel Dark arrives, and then I notice - to my left are two young firemen, Ladder 44, staring vacantly at the baseball game above the bar, to my right are five uniformed crew cut young men in fatigues and black barets. Guardsmen don't wear barets, and they look like citizens in uniform?. Governor Pataki sent some 5,000 Guardsmen and -women into the city, but these are not. They're United States Marines. The Marines are in town?

The girls to my right hit on the uniforms, the Marines are clearly enjoying themselves, one walks over to the band, borrows a guitar, and joins in the music. They have not been downtown.

The firemen have. I buy them another beer, tell them I work for the phone company, give them a hug. They acknowledge me, and we toast the grief and despair this town has become. The girls in front of me, seeing that each Marine has at least two young women competing for his attention, decide to try the firemen, well built men in their late twenties, McDonald's hasn't set in yet. They can't understand why neither is much interested in a pretty smile, firm young breasts and a tight ass. That has never happened to this generation. The firemen and I say goodbye, their eyes meet mine, we understand each other, this is all the love any of us in New York City need, today, or can handle. Maybe the girls don't have CNN?

I must have spent three hundred dollars on beer for cops, firemen, phone company workers, in two nights. There is nothing else I can do for them, help them stay in the fog that you need to do your work, because if you woke up even for a minute you would scream for days.

Hopefully I will be able to go home Thursday night, I wanted to be here, but I need to sleep - me, the guy who jumps out of bed at six, raring to go. For the first time in over thirty years, this week, I do not want to get up in the morning, but we have to kick this town back into gear, we owe that to the dead. I make plans to bring high speed Internet to the New Jersey side of the river, where many companies are relocating their evacuated staff, I call our war room (that is what we call it) to request immediate escalation, and within the hour Gene emails me to ask me what I need.

We're here for you, I don't know what we can do, but if we abandon this town it will collapse for real. A colleague calls to ask if it is safe, he has not been in the office since last week, but Tony has issued a directive that anyone wanting time off, counseling, wanting to work from home, go ahead, do what you want, we cannot mandate anyone to work any more. I laugh, tell him not to worry, this is the safest city on Earth, I have never seen Guardsmen and -women, State Troopers, Marines in the streets of New York City, F-16s circling overhead. And aircraft carrier sits off Staten Island, a grey shimmer in the channel where normally container ships glide up to Newark, I don't know where they are. Every ship that does come in is met and boarded by the Cost Guard, far out to sea. I call Eric in Operations, but his voicemail says he has been called up for active duty, take care, y'all, see you the other side of Armageddon. If any author would have submitted this script to Sony Pictures they'd have laughed him out of the office.

I can't understand why Mr. Bin Laden doesn't just get in his Land Rover, drives over to the nearest U.S. Embassy. We won't chop his head off, he'll get good lawyers, a chance to defend himself in Court, we're fairly civilized, we can't afford to be barbarians, right now. Because if he doesn't, we'll have to go pick him up, and that will get very ugly, very quickly. Pick him up we will, and all those others that think they can hide, in deserts, in gleaming offices, in religious establishments and mountain villages. Call any Jihad you want, we will come to you, and we will explain to you that you have fucked with us enough. And then we will not do to you what you did to us, because we are not perfect, but we are not barbarians, either.

Unless, of course, you decide to fight. Then, we will vaporize you. You will not exist any more. Because most of the coffins here are lowered empty, there is not enough left to bury.

Please don't fight, because if you do, I will not be able to restrain my fellow countrymen. The stropping young men and women from Idaho, each of which controls more destructive power than Mount Etna. They are very angry, and they will use it on you, and I will not be able to stop them. Don't. It's not worth it. You've made your point.

Friday, September 21, 2001

I need to again thank everyone who is keeping in contact for their messages of support, emails, calls, notes, it is overwhelming. To some extent, I am hoping things will get back to normal again, and New Yorkers return to their normal ways of rudeness (most of which, actually, is more the fast pace of the city than a lack of care and compassion, you now know that), because New Yorkers, today, are the most polite, friendly, and supportive people in the world. Nobody jumps the queue any more, people simply say hi to each other in the street, to total strangers, the sort of stuff you normally only see in small villages in the Midwest. Cops and firemen are treated with tremendous respect, and I think that once you get to see the statistics, the past few weeks in New York will show an almost complete lack of accidents. Sitting on a conference call with people in NYC at my home in Virginia, a few weeks ago, I counted over thirty fire engine and ambulance sirens in the space of three hours - I can't recall a single ambulance, this past week, and maybe two fire engines.

I joined some friends in the pub to watch President Bush address the joint session, last night, the place came to a standstill, diners trooped into the bar area, and all three TV sets were turned up high. That otherwise only happens for the Superbowl, and on New Year's Eve - but needless to say, no funny hats and champagne right now.

It is beginning to look that the Administration will be very selective in terms of our counterattacking those who attacked us, and that is a good thing. At the same time, I find some of the "be careful with the women and children" messages disconcerting, and sometimes downright offensive. I think at least some of the blame need to lie with those who hide among the women and children, and I must honestly say I find it funny that, in our day and age, women are still deemed to have no say in what their fighter men do. You may want to try that in Israel sometime, attack women and children, you'll find mothers with Uzi's that have excellent aim and plenty of ammunition. If you let your mate go out and kill people, you have a measure of responsibility, you don't have to be the wife of a killer, you have a choice. And if you allow your mate to expose your children to harm, you are putting them in harm's way, there are, in the world, fewer innocents than we think.

On my way to New York's LaGuardia Airport, yesterday, my driver turned around, introduced himself, and told me he was a Pakistani Muslim of Persian extraction (people from Iran often refer to themselves as Persian, so as not to be confused with sympathizers of today's Iranian regime). He was visibly upset, and lectured me for half an hour how there wasn't any way the attackers were Muslims, Islam does not allow the taking of innocent lives. Although I am sympathetic to his plight, Islam certainly allows the annihilation of infidels, but then so does Christianity, not really surprising since Islam and Christianity really are offshoots of the same religion, with the same roots, from the same ethnic background. But it is clear that Muslims around the world are beginning to recognize their religion has been hijacked by religious fanatics, the problem with religion is that you can interpret it just about any way you like, the Western world thought, after all, that it was perfectly fine to spread the word of God sword-in-hand, or there would have been no Crusades.

But back to my driver, Muslims are beginning to talk to Christians, and that is a very good development in all this, there was no dialogue of any significance, especially important for the many blacks in the United States that have adopted Islam as their religion of choice.

Walking up Broadway on my way to dinner, I encountered two tour buses pulling up at the Marriott Marquis, unloading a large number of elderly Americans from the Heartland, a somewhat incongruous sight, you don't expect tourists in the middle of a siege. Coming closer, I noticed they weren't tourists, but Red Cross volunteers, men and women in their sixties and seventies, relaxed and talking and smiling. I walked up to two of them, shook them by the hand, and said "Thank you for coming". One said "Thank you", and walked on, the other paused ever so briefly, looked at me as if I was from the moon, and Said "Sure!". Stupid of me, really, what else would you do when you're retired and content with your life, kids all grown up, but leave your home and your lawn, get on a bus, drive for ten or fifteen hours, put on a Red Cross sweatshirt, and go help people digging bodyparts out of a bombcrater?

I had taken the precaution of leaving for the airport early, remembering the warnings that security checks will necessitate leaving a couple of hours minimum before you take a flight. And that was certainly true on Monday morning, but as it turns out, that was only because there were still so many stranded travelers trying to get home. Arriving at the United counter at LaGuardia, I found fourteen ticket agents - and four passengers. The airports are completely deserted, nobody is flying any more, there were eight passengers on my flight, a 5:30pm departure from one of the busiest airports in the nation. A gate agent stopped as I was waiting to board, did I want some cake, she had some left over that she thought was too sweet. She stopped to talk, one minute, two minutes, three minutes - in New York? The world is upside down.

I still can't quite fathom what happened, and am having a hard time finding words to describe it. I am not in disbelief, I saw it happen live, and knew immediately what was going on, I did not even for one second think the first plane was an accident, as many people assumed. And I am throughly affected by it all, while I work and my brain continues to function, the evenings have a paralyzing darkness to them that I cannot make go away. Of course, in New York City you cannot get away from the disaster, whether you turn on the television, access the Internet, or go for a walk, it is there, larger than life, twenty-four hours a day. When you wake up you immediately know what happened, from the first morning after. And when you think you have finally regained your composure, a friend sends you a website with pictures of memorial events around the world, and before you know it you sit there, crying your eyes out.

So I hope we can sew up the memorial services, get rid of the talking heads on television, and start rebuilding. My team is already at it, it'll be a good excercise in disaster recovery. Don't get me wrong, there is a need to grieve, but I hope we will not prolong it, there is much to be done, and only us to do it. If you want to help, come and visit New York, the rates are reasonable, the natives friendly, you'll get to visit a firehouse, and your visit will help our economy, and lift our spirits. Don't worry about your safety, either, the skymarshalls are already on our flights, and the city is protected by Marines at its gates, and the world's most sophisticated fighter jets over it. And, new to America, those jets have their missile systems enabled, up until a couple of weeks ago such a jet would have had to return to base to do that.

Ghastly thought, that, because next time a plane gets hijacked it will be blown out of the sky, with all its passengers and crew....

I have included in today's "dispatch" a couple more pictures that have reached me from downtown, they show the East side, where WTC building 7 came down, and the remains of what was once one of the largest capacity telephone switches in the world. The third picture shows you our building from above, it is the building immediately to the right of the words "World Trade Center Site". As you can see, it is kind of amazing the building still stands, everything else that was this close to the towers is gone. Our folks have been working inside that building, verifying what still works, what equipment is salvageable, and if the building can be salvaged, for a week now, the remains of building 7 burning away next door.

Friday, September 28, 2001

In as much as we can, we are all trying to get back to normal, whatever that is. But easy it's not. Tom and Cindy grieve for their friend, the captain of United Flight 93, ending up in a field in Pennsylvania, who became an airline pilot after a distinguished military career. Joe and Ann are getting married next week, reception at the Army Navy Country Club, folks here in Washington's suburbs are generally very connected to the federal government or the military. Cathy is still in shock from seeing the airliner slam into the Pentagon, as she was driving past there - The Pentagon is a constant in our lives here, I drive past it two or three times a week, going to Macy's to do some shopping, at the weekend, or when I drive to my rheumatologist, whose surgery is on Army Navy Drive. The manager of our local pub had laid on a buffet tonight for us, just as a gesture of care, in this time of pain and turmoil. Thanks, Scott.

Much to my amazement, the airports and the airplanes of this nation are still empty, nobody is flying except for those of us who have to. Coming back from New York, yesterday, together with one of my staffers on his way home to Boston, I found colleagues from my last position with Verizon, on their way home from fixing the long distance lines to Canada, up in Rhode Island, and a manager from the real estate company that manages our buildings. We sat in the bar at LaGuardia, waiting for our flights, hitting the juice. for security reasons, you get to the airport two hours before your flight leaves, but as nobody is flying, there aren't any lines, and you end up spending those two hours sitting around.

The airlines are in a complete state of paranoia. Flight cancellations are not announced until you try to check in for your flight, and security keeps an eye on who then leaves, and you do not get the seat you ask for, so you cannot control who you sit next to. Once you board, of course, you can sit where you want, there's maybe eleven passengers on a plane with 120 seats. Once airborne, the flight attendants keep handing out coffee and juice and snacks, there's plenty to go around. I keep my Verizon ID around my neck when traveling, it helps airport security when they can see you work for the phone company, and are traveling on business.

I found a friendly cab driver who comes out at all hours to pick me up, however far he has to drive, the cabbies are hurting right now because they have lost more than 50% of their business. His name is Don, he has a little white poodle whose email address is on his business card. When he picks me up from Dulles Airport he wants to hear the latest from Ground Zero, and I pass on the gossip I hear in the bar in the Hotel Sofitel, where I stay when I am in New York. He tells me what's going on around the Pentagon, not realizing I am on almost daily calls with our engineers dealing with the data circuits there. Details of the work are not discussed on conference calls any more, though, but on secure lines, need to know only, and only with people you know.

The hotel has been transformed completely, hundreds of our emergency crews have more or less taken it over, from executive vice presidents from New Jersey and network engineers from Baltimore and Indiana to union workers from Springfield, Mass. The consequences of a disaster of this magnitude are far reaching for us, being the local phone company we tend to tie everybody else's line facilities together, and right now, that's a big mess, we are still rerouting trunks and long distance lines, seventeen days later, work that goes on around the clock seven days a week.

New York City is still full of relief police, helping out NYPD. Walking across Times Square, I encounter cops from Rhode Island everywhere. I stop and introduce myself, thank them for being here, these are volunteers, and they don't get overtime. The sergeant introduces his men, I shake hands with all of them, then they notice a group of Nigerian watch sellers congregate across the street, and roll straight into them, no time to breathe. NYPD normally leaves them alone, know who they are, but our friends from Rhode Island don't, and they are not taking any chances. The watch sellers decide this ain't worth it, and leave, there aren't any tourists anyway. On my way out of town, by the tunnel, ten police cars from Homestead, Florida, are parked on the sidewalk outside a hotel, guess that is where that patrol is staying. Each group of officers has been assigned a section of town to police, and they roar through Manhattan at all hours on their way to their post, or on their way back to the hotel, in large convoys. You can tell they're from out of town, they're not used to stopping for pedestrians, but this is New York, you wait your turn, buddy. Some of them come from towns I've never heard of, bigbellied sargeants with incongruous moustaches, the Glock riding high on the hip, thank heavens they have their website address on the patrol cars they drive. They have that selfassured cop look, but underneath, you can tell they worry, they don't like being here, heading back into their hotels to call home - sure, Ma, we're doing fine, the burgers aren't as big, but they'll do.

On the South side of my office floor all of the window shades are open, as if the people working there have to convince themselves every day it is really true. In the almost three years I have been there, they were always three quarters down, we have a pretty fierce sun in New York, nobody had ever seen them open.

This episode has scared America, you can see it in the eyes of security people, flight attendants, gate agents, and in the tunnels and on the bridges leading into Manhattan armed police teams stop trucks in mid-traffic, take the driver out of the cab and inspect the cargo. SWAT officers look into every car, pull cars out, check the driver's ID and the occupants. Traffic jams are massive, but people don't mind, I have never heard New Yorkers not honk their horn, in traffic, but even the Puerto Ricans in their big SUVs don't turn up their stereos any more. A chauffeur driven armoured Mercedes with Florida license plates deposits a businessman on Fifth Avenue, nobody wants to fly any more.

Downtown, our folks have managed to get almost all of our equipment to work again, but as the wiring is largely destroyed, it'll be a while before it can be used. Our cabling normally has pressurized gel in the mantle, to keep water out, but the pressure equipment failed after the power went out and the batteries drained. All electronics have to be carefully cleaned, because the concrete dust that has invaded everything would prevent the cooling systems from working, but staff, contractors and vendor personnel are cleaning every square inch of every switch and computer.

There are still plenty of jokes flying around about bombing Afghanistan, but here on the East Coast most folks understand you can't fire 50 caliber machineguns at animals that burrow. So our military is out there, somewhere, trying to find the burrows, we'll go in after them. I personally would not sleep well if I knew that the British Special Air Service was after me, backed up by American Green Berets and French Legionaires. I hear the Gurkha Regiment is on the move, too, and they know the terrain, and the people. I think our adversaries have bitten off a bit more than they can chew, problem is, what will their children do once they grow up? Can we get to their minds before it is too late? Probably not.

I spend a fair amount of time explaining to folks what terrorism is like, having had the European experience, you never know when or where it will hit, be vigilant, but get on with your life, don't give in to "them". It will be a while before Americans understand that, I guess it must have been the same way back when in Europe, I don't remember. I also note that many Americans think the terrorists tried to take as many lives as they could - this is worrisome, because it means they do not understand what happened here. This wasn't an attack on the American people, but an attack on our neo-imperialism, on the new religion of capitalism, they attacked and destroyed the symbols of power and wealth. It worries me because until we understand what they hate about us, we won't be able to talk to them, and we won't be able to work on a solution. Is it really so hard to understand that in many cultures the omnipresence of HBO and visiting American aircraft carriers is perceived as threatening? That some folks out there have misgivings about their economy being run out of an office in downtown Manhattan? Perhaps our ability to bring down the Wall, and communism, has given us the false sense of security that we do good by everyone, without ever asking the folks over there if we did right. Russians now have civil liberties, but no food. Hmm. Let's think about this, please, folks.

Joe and Ann are definitely getting married next weekend, wonderful caring friends, I wish them all the happiness in the world. If work allows, I will attend the wedding, although I probably won't make it to the bachelor party, darn. But there'll be others....

Sunday, September 30, 2001

Some life is returning to the East Coast. Coming into Washington Dulles Airport, tonight, it's busy with cars outside, and there are a fair amount of people in the terminals. The Shuttle to LaGuardia is half full, a little over fifty passengers. A colleague at the bar in the hotel tells me Times Square was crowded last night. Thank God, America is coming out of shock. Summer is over, though, last week I had the airconditioning on, this weekend temperatures drop more than twenty degrees, it's the way autumn normally sets in, on the East Coast.

Checking into my flight at New York's LaGuardia Airport, last Thursday, a couple of the desk agents recognized me, and we talked and hugged, first time through there since September 11, I've flown United until they moved the Shuttle to Dulles Airport. They tell me they won't be there much longer, most of them have been laid off as of October 15. Federal financial aid for the airlines began being paid out today, but at the rate at which the airlines are burning money, it will likely do little more than help them pay for the cost of downsizing. I will miss my US Airways friends, after over three years of seeing them a couple of times a week.

Curiously, though, America is doing this to itself. We seem to be still in such a state of shock that we don't want to go back to normal. It will be interesting to see if all of the commercial hustle and bustle will come back, or if the American public has decided you can live a quieter, and more secure life, this could potentially be a long recession. We thought we had built a nice surplus, during the dotcom years, but what with the fleet at sea, 50,000 reservists called up, and people buying gas masks and chemical suits instead of theatre tickets, our collective savings will rapidly dwindle.

The economic effects of all this are staggering. The standard retirement savings vehicle Americans have, the 401K, is generally linked to the stock market, and after they had already taken a bath due to the collapse of the dotcom world, last year, September 11 has made that far worse. Many Americans holding down jobs with mid-sized and large corporations have seen their life savings reduced by 50% or more. Which reminds me, I had better check mine, thankfully Verizon stock is not doing as badly as other companies', I guess the way in which we made it possible for the markets to reopen "the Monday after" has given our reputation a considerable boost. And I must say, having had the opportunity to work with the New York folks for over a decade, they are the best telecommunications workers in the world. Part of that, naturally, is that they get to solve problems, and work on an infrastructure, that is unique in the world, but there is a significant amount of gritty commitment in these people that always gets the job done. We don't even think of these things as all that special, in New York, you gotta do what you gotta do, just like the firemen, the police, the brokers, the deliverymen (ever order Chinese during a snowstorm? In NYC, it gets delivered), the secretaries and the meter maids.

By the way, dear folks, if you're thinking of buying a gas mask, by the time you know you need to put it on, it's too late already. During World War II, the population had advance warning of an approaching air raid, and would don gas masks and go to the shelter, but advance warnings aren't part of the program, today, so save yourself the money and buy something useful like an emergency generator or flowers for the wife. During a real emergency, you would normally not have power, gas, telephone, and often no water, so those are the first items to take care of - emergency lighting, plenty of candles, plenty of canned food, and a couple of retired standby cellular phones - any cellphone ever made will let you call 911, whether it is activated or not. Having a gun around to protect oneself from looters isn't a bad idea either - even if you don't like firearms, a .38 Special revolver requires no maintenance, you can leave it locked up forever, but it can be nice to have around when the cops aren't. Growing up in Europe, after the war, that's what I remember my Dutch relatives had, a bomb shelter, and most of the above minus the generator, those were unaffordable, then. They did have the gun, just in case the Russians came, their T-52s were after all parked in great masses a couple of hours' drive from our border.

At the pharmacy, Mohammed has returned too, he got stuck in his native Iran, where he was on vacation with his folks. Especially for all those Americans with Middle Eastern roots, this is a hard time, the airlines weren't carrying anyone from the Middle East for weeks. Mohammed is an avid soccer fan, like most Iranians, and always makes time for a chat about the Dutch soccer heroes of the past, Cruyff, van Basten, Ajax, little does he realize soccer, in much of Europe, is a blue collar thing, and blue collar I'm not, but that does not matter, it is kindness that does, today. People still greet one another for no reason at all.

Monday, February 11, 2002

The remains of five Port Authority police officers were found in a spot that had once been the lobby of 1 World Trade Center, the north tower and the second to collapse. That means it is almost certain that the officers knew the south tower had already fallen and that they had been ordered to evacuate. But right next to where the officers' bodies were discovered, the recovery crews found another victim: an obese woman who was still strapped into a rescue chair the officers had apparently been using to try to get her out.

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