http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/09/remembering_september_11th.html

Warning: the set includes some pictures from the attacks themselves, so those who don’t want to see that sort of thing should avoid the link.

I agree, incidentally, with your comment about Dubya. I may not like the guy, but he handled this anniversary with class.

I publshed some photos of it back in April. I haven’t been downtown on business in a little while, but the next time I go, I’ll try to remember to get some more photos and keep folks updated…

As I said in my post, and to both Jeff and Jason’s points, I am moving on and I’m pleased that the nation is as well – even if the annual cold-water-in-the-face realization of it is a bit uncomfortable.

I’d caution, though, against the attitude that “the longer there is a national mania to commemorate the event annually, the more clearly you were hurt.” This isn’t a contest. The goal isn’t to prove that we weren’t hurt. The national mania should stop when we, collectively, don’t need or want it anymore. And that’s what is happening now. A new President is a useful tool in this regard, I think – he helps the nation separate itself a bit more from the attack.

And by the way, credit where credit is due – kudos to George W. Bush for not scheduling any public appearances on Friday – he released a statement honoring the victims, their families and those serving the country, and then stayed out of the spotlight. It was the right thing to do…

I agree with you that no other president is going to have the connection to 9/11 that Pres. Bush did. For better or worse, that event defined his presidency, his legacy, and in a lot of ways, his life. I would guess that the farther we get from his presidency, the less we’re going to hear about it from official sources except on the anniversary itself.

For what it’s worth, though — and with all due respect to your emotions, Brian, which are obviously still very much invested in this subject — I think it’s healthy that the nation is moving on. I’m sure we will continue to observe this date for decades to come, but we can’t — nor should we, in my opinion — maintain the level of intensity that we demonstrated in the first few years.

My 9/11 moment was that evening, or the day after — can’t remember exactly, but I can tell you that I was standing next to a newspaper box in front of my neighborhood Starbucks. It suddenly hit me that they hadn’t really hurt us. Killed us, yes; destroyed property and infrastructure, yes; caused a deep national tragedy, yes. But none of that harmed the country as a whole. They intended it as a decapitation strike, but the sole damage they were capable of was post-traumatic shock.

Say what you will about that conclusion — if you’re a patriot, you have to agree it is good thing for your country to be strong enough to withstand an attack.

It’s the same way for remembrance; the longer there is a national mania to commemorate the event annually, the more clearly you were hurt. The sooner you are able to stop obsessing over the trauma, the quicker you have healed. Works the same for countries as for individuals. I have no doubt that 9/11, like D-Day, will be a quinquennial event for our lifetimes — and little doubt that it will be forgotten shortly thereafter. When was the last time you thought about the WWI armistice on November 11?

There was a kid who didn’t seem to have much idea of what was going on in the world. The kid’s parents were really frustrated by this; the child didn’t even seem to have much idea of where the different countries were on the globe. One day a world map happened to be printed in the newspaper. One of the parents ripped the page out, tore it into pieces like a jigsaw puzzle, and sat the child down with some tape and instructions not to get up until the map was correctly reconstructed. Much sooner than the parent expected, the child appeared with the page taped back together. The parent was amazed; how had the child managed the task so quickly? The kid turned the piece on newsprint over and showed a picture of a person – that was the side the child had put back together, and reassembling the person had fixed the global map on the other side.

Sometimes the planet’s problems seem too huge even to know how to start doing something about them. But the way to put the world back together is one person at a time.