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Witness to 9/11

by Brian Caulfield 

As a husband and a father, 9/11 is personal for me.

I grew up in lower Manhattan, six blocks from the World Trade Center. As a boy in the early 1970s, I watched the Twin Towers rise floor by floor and took a certain pride in living near the two tallest buildings in the world at the time.

When terrorists flew planes into those buildings in 2001, it hit me in the gut and put my family at risk.

My wife and 1-year-old son were in our apartment, six blocks from the towers, when the earth shook with the first explosion. I was at my desk at work that morning, having passed the Twin Towers on my way to the subway a few hours earlier. I remember making special note as the colors of dawn shone brilliantly on their steel and glass façade, against a flawless, clear sky.

It was the last time I would see the towers standing.

I tell this story now because 9/11 is in the headlines again, and will be for some time to come. The self-proclaimed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, is coming to New York to stand trial for these horrible deeds. Whatever the wisdom of the choice of venue, it should at least remind people of the horror of that day: the thousands burned in a jet-fuel inferno, the dozens jumping to escape the flames, the many trapped and crushed by the collapsing buildings. It was a day also of heroes, as 343 firefighters – New York’s bravest – ran to sure death, doing their duty on an impossible day.

In the days of the trial, let us not forget that downtown Manhattan was a war zone, sprinkled with the sacred remains of innocent victims, its streets ankle-deep with the steel, glass and asbestos dust that made breathing dangerous.

I will not forget, as a New Yorker, a husband and a father, the call to duty for me that day when I first heard that a plane had hit the north tower. A terrible accident, we all thought. I called my wife from work, and she told me our apartment building was shaken by the blast, and she grabbed our son from the crib to comfort him. We were still talking on the phone when the second plane hit, a resounding explosion that I heard over the phone line. My wife’s reaction was on the mark: “Brian, we’re under attack!”

We both knew, but did not say, that she had worked in the north building, on the 103rd floor, before a difficult pregnancy forced her to leave her job. The conception of our son had saved the life of my wife, and we knew that God’s hand was involved.

I made it home that day, hours later, through a city in crisis. I walked the familiar streets of my neighborhood, tramping through the fine white dust, looking up instinctively to the spot in the sky where the towers had stood for most of my life, and feeling an ache in my heart to see nothing but the soft blue sky of that Tuesday afternoon. More than two buildings had been lost.

And now we will have on trial the alleged architect of it all.

If the government seeks the death penalty for Khalid Sheik Mohammed, should we Catholics support that sentence? Can this New Yorker, who lived through that day, in conscience approve – or disapprove – such a punishment?

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that public authority may have “recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.” However, it adds, given today’s effective means of rendering the aggressor “incapable of doing harm … the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity are very rare, if not practically nonexistent” (2267).

Would life imprisonment of the notorious terrorist render him “incapable of doing harm,” or would he be able to direct or inspire other plots from his prison cell? And would his cell itself become the object of terror plots, as sympathizers seek to free him and kill as many guards and bystanders as possible? Or, conversely, would his execution transform him into a martyr in the minds of radical Muslims and inspire more murderous attacks?

Given the uncertainty of these issues, I think it is fair to say that faithful Catholics may express varying views on the proper penalty for this 9/11 plotter, as long as the motive for punishment is justice and protection of society, and not simply hatred or vengeance.

In any event, we should not let thought or debate about the death penalty push aside in our minds the raw hell of 9/11, and the reason we would consider the death penalty in the first place.

That night, eight years ago, my wife brought our son to my parents’ apartment, where I had grown up. We were all together, three generations, when the power went out in lower Manhattan and Tom Brokaw faded ominously from the TV screen. At a time when the city, state and national governments were in disarray, we gathered as a family for comfort and support, searching for the flashlights, batteries and bottled water we had stored for the false Y2K alarm. Now the emergency was real. We pulled together with other families and made it through the darkest days – weary and grieving, but wiser and more aware of the persistent reach of evil. The value of our experience today is the strength of our witness to others.

9/11 is in the headlines again, and we must never forget what happened that day, or the heroic response of so many New Yorkers to their neighbors in need.

 

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(The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Headline Bistro or the Knights of Columbus.)