Ten Things To Remember About 9-11

“What separates us from the animals, what separates us from the chaos, is our ability to mourn people we’ve never met.” - David Levithan

On September 11, 2001, 19 al Qaeda terrorists hijacked four of my planes as part of their plan to “create a global order under Islamic authority.”  They crashed two of them into the World Trade Center in Manhattan, one of them into the Pentagon, and one of them into an empty Pennsylvania field (after the passengers and crew of that flight fought back).  It was the worst terrorist attack in my history, killing 2,977 people (from 115 different nations).  To fully grasp what happened, here’s a few numbers worth remembering…

1.    There were 3,051 children who lost a parent on 9/11, and 17 more would later be born to widows.

2.    There were 343 NYC firefighters, 23 NYC cops, and 37 officers at the Port Authority who died that day.  (An additional 300 firefighters were on leave for respiratory problems a year later.)

3.    It took nine months (3.1 million hours of labor) and $750 million to clean up the 1.8 million tons of wreckage.

4.    Three times as many men were killed as women.  And the greatest number of deaths were to people between 35 and 39.

5.    Only 291 bodies were found “intact,” and only eighteen people were rescued alive from the WTC rubble. 

6.    From the first attack to the towers collapsing took 102 minutes.

7.    It is estimated that the 9/11 attacks cost the terrorists about a half a million dollars.  Three years ago, The New York Times estimated the cost to me at $3.3 trillion. 

8.    In the weeks after 9/11, church and synagogue attendance increased by 25 percent…but then went back to previous levels just two months later.

9.    Congress created a $7 billion Victim Compensation Fund (paying the average family of a victim $2,083,000).  I also started bombing al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan 26 days later and got me the Patriot Act and the Department of Homeland Security.

10.  Americans donated $2.8 billion to 9/11 charities, and googling “9/11 heroes” gives you 102,000,000 results, including this pretty cool tribute video.

So, this Patriot Day—as the war on terror seems crazier and more complicated than ever--take a moment to reflect.  What does 9/11 mean to YOU, and how can we use it to make us and the world a better place?  



Questions or comments?  Contact me at DiaryOfAmerica@gmail.com