John Lu is TSN's Montreal Bureau Reporter. While on assignment he was stranded during 9/11. Ten years later he covered the decade anniversary in New York.
There's a 9/11 ribbon label pin sitting on my desk at home that reads, "9.11.01 9.11.11". The ribbon is red, white and blue. The dates are separated by a white enamel star.
In the aftermath of last Sunday it makes me think.
I think of a Tuesday morning just over ten years ago, when I was flying over the Northeastern United States on the way to St. John's, Newfoundland for Maple Leafs training camp. The pilot's voice on the intercom said we were being diverted to Moncton because "American airspace has been closed due to an extreme security emergency."
Immediately my fellow passengers and I thought of terrorism. A hijacked plane sitting on a tarmac. Never in our worst nightmares could we have imagined what had happened and what was unfolding below us in New York; Washington, DC and Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
When we landed at Moncton Airport we were whisked quickly into the terminal. My cameraman Dean Willers called our assignment editor, who told him the shocking news. Dean said to me, "The World Trade Centers are gone."
"What do you mean, gone?"
My first thought was, "This stuff only happens in movies."
Inside the terminal I called my girlfriend (now my wife) who works in commercial travel. The information she had was still sketchy, but the gist of her message was that thousands of innocent people had died in the collapse of the Twin Towers after they were struck by airplanes, hijacked by terrorists. The jarring gravity of the moment brought tears to my eyes and I turned away to avoid being captured by television news cameras that lined the arrivals area of the airport.
For four days we were grounded in Moncton along with thousands of displaced air travellers. We were lucky; Dean and I had hotel rooms and a rental car. Thousands were sleeping on cots in local arenas, fed and cared for through the kindness and generosity of the Red Cross and local volunteers. Come the weekend we drove to Halifax where we tried to fly to St. John's, but were turned back on our first attempt. By the following Monday morning, we made it to St. John's to complete our assignment, insignificant and trivial in light of what had happened the week before.
Fast forward to ten years later and I am standing in the pressbox at MetLife Stadium in the New Jersey Meadowlands. Coincidentally and appropriately, cameraman Dean Willers is working with me on this assignment. Dozens of media members and over 80,000 fans are standing prior to the New York Jets - Dallas Cowboys game. We are standing in silence as a lone military trumpeter on the enormous video screens plays the mournful, sustained notes of Taps.
As the final note fades, the thunderous cheers rise as an American flag is paraded onto the field of play.
This is no ordinary stars and stripes. The flag measures 100 yards long, 53.33 yards wide - large enough to cover the entire field of play.
It is carried by firefighters, peace officers, paramedics, military service men and women. They are the solemn colleagues of the courageous, doomed souls who gave their lives performing their selfless duties ten years before. They stand shoulder to shoulder with the players and coaches of the Jets and Cowboys, true heroes interlaced with entertainers who are erroneously considered heroes when one contrasts the true impact their respective professions have on our communities.
The members of the country music group Lady Antebellum sing the Star Spangled Banner in a proud, respectful manner, the way Francis Scott Key intended it to be sang when he wrote it in 1814. The crowd sings in unison with a patriotic fervour which I have not witnessed in any venue, under any circumstances.
The sheer energy and emotion in that stadium for those few minutes was spine-tingling, stirring... and vastly different from what I had experienced Sunday morning at the southern tip of Manhattan.
Standing with thousands of New Yorkers and visitors, seemingly from every corner of the globe, we packed ourselves into the streets surrounding Ground Zero. Six times we paused in eerie silence, each time preceded by a piercing bell, tolling to mark the horrific moments when New York; Washington, DC and Shanksville; PA were violated:
8:46
9:02
9:37
9:59
10:05
10:28
From where I was standing at the commencement of the ceremony when a children's choir angelically sang the Star Spangled Banner, I endured the misfortune of being close to a group of protesters cordoned off near the Trinity Church on Broadway.
Therein lay the irony of one of America's most cherished rights: freedom of speech. Those protesters chose this solemn occasion to display placards spewing hatred against gays, the government, even New York firefighters. They supported many of their inexplicable stances with their perverted concept of God. Two women in their group mocked the singing of the national anthem with exaggerated flourishes resembling some vulgar waltz, singing along with sarcastically blissful expressions on their faces.
The anniversary also flushed out the conspiracy theorists who believe 9/11 was staged by the Bush administration. One group brazenly set up shop on the sidewalk in front of St. Paul's Chapel on Broadway. Brazen for the fact that the fence lining the cathedral's property was decorated with hundreds of white ribbons tied to it by mourners in memory of the victims of 9/11.
But if that was the lunatic fringe, they were overwhelmingly outnumbered by pilgrims around me who were there to pay our respects and to join in a public outpouring of grief.
It was sobering to watch the procession of family members on the massive video screen at Ground Zero, a speck as I watched from three blocks away. From speakers their voices echoed through the corridors of the financial district as they read the names in alphabetical order of mothers, fathers, sons and daughters, and first responders - firefighters and peace officers.
More often than not, those reading the names, when allowed to conclude with a greeting to their departed loved ones, spoke haltingly as they struggled to get the words out. There were so many names, nearly 3,000, that one hour after the memorial began, the list had reached only the fifth letter of the alphabet.
The list was punctuated with moments that added profound significance. I found most moving a flutist playing Amazing Grace in willowy, tremulous notes.
This was the first time I had seen the World Trade Center reflecting pools, the stark, imposing footprints of the former towers. Thousands of family members lined their walls, etching tributes into the marble walls or hugging and crying. Below them the silvery waters of the pools cascaded in a bounty of symbolism: Waterfalls of tears. Renewal in endlessly flowing water. Cleansing and hope in baptism.
When the death roll reached the letter "H", I departed, cheeks stained with tears and weary from the emotion of the morning. As I walked to the subway, one line came to me from New York native Paul Simon's touching acoustic performance of Sounds of Silence.
"And the vision that was planted in my brain, still remains."
It remains and returns when I look at the 9/11 lapel pin sitting on my desk.
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