TWENTY years ago, on a bright autumn morning, the world changed irrevocably. Out of a clear blue sky, two passenger jets were deliberately crashed into the Twin Towers in New York, leading to their collapse and the deaths of thousands. Another jet hit the Pentagon while a fourth flight crashed in Pennsylvania after its passengers stormed the cockpit.
The response by the US to the 9/11 attacks led to the longest war in its history, culminating earlier this month in an ignominious withdrawal from Afghanistan, returning control of the country to the Taliban.
While 9/11 resulted in 2,997 deaths and over 6,000 injuries, the war in Afghanistan added 6,294 fatalities of US military and contractors. A further 66,000 Afghan military and police died, along with 47,000 Afghan civilians.
History will be the final judge if such a price was worth paying.
All of this was beyond my imagination when I first visited New York in 1981. I found the city both intimidating and exciting in equal measure; a photograph taken then shows the towers on my far left.
I self-identified as a tourist on my first walk through Manhattan, staring into the sky and trying in vain to see the top of the canyon of skyscrapers surrounding me. The next day, I visited the Twin Towers for the first time, travelling to the 'Top of the World' observation deck on the 107th floor of the South Tower.
On the way up, I noticed that above the elevator doors the floors were denoted as 1, 2, then rose in increments of 10 up to the observation floor. During the assent, the lift reached speeds of 22mph, my ears popping just as they had when my plane took off.
Standing 1,377 feet above the ground, it felt as if I could almost see the curvature of the Earth, with the Empire State Building looking like a child's toy in the distance. Binoculars allowed me to zoom in on the ant people scurrying about, far below on street level. Having arrived at dusk, the taillights of vehicles took on the appearance of a neon red river of light as workers drove home.
Twenty years passed before my next visit to the Towers, this time accompanied by my girlfriend who later that day became my fiancée after I proposed to her in Central Park.
It was March 11 2001; the photo shows me sitting beneath the doomed buildings six months to the day before they were attacked.
Like millions around the world, I watched 9/11 unfold on television. Having switched on just as the second plane hit, I thought I was watching a mock-up of the first attack as my brain fumbled to comprehend what was happening in front of my eyes.
For the next five hours I hardly moved as I sat numbed by the magnitude of the horror being played out across the Atlantic.
In November 2001, we returned to the US for our honeymoon in Florida. The country we had visited only months before was gone. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, America had relaxed into a false security, believing itself impervious to attack.
Its vulnerability was exposed by 9/11, and people's reaction was clear to see as every car, house and business flew an American flag of every size imaginable. Such jingoistic shows of patriotism for me indicated insecurity, as I've long believed there to be an inversely proportionate relationship between people's confidence in their country and the number of flags flown.
We made a pilgrimage back to New York in 2016 to visit One World Trade Center, the 'reflecting absence' 9/11 Memorial and Museum. The museum is situated beneath where the towers had stood and houses a collection of artefacts which tell the story of 9/11 victims, the brave first responders who died trying to save them and the rebuilding of the WTC site.
Museum volunteers include those who lost someone in the attack, humanising the story with their own personal experiences. One such volunteer told us about his sister, poignantly bringing a human face to the tragedy.
Thankfully, New York is resilient, and while embracing its past, the city refuses to be defined by it. Our last visit was in February 2020, just before Covid hit. This time, our children joined us and it was a pleasure to introduce them to a city we love and look forward to visiting again, when allowed.
No other city in the world is so good they named it twice... apart from Derry/Londonderry of course.
