Sept. 11, 5 Years Later
A roundup of Sept. 11 Anniversary stories — from the New York Times, Baltimore Sun, WUSA9-TV, Newsday and the Columbus Dispatch ...
The New York Times reprises its much-praised "Portraits of Grief" series by interviewing family members of some of the victims:
Their families have now had five years to reflect, to mourn, to recover. Interviews with a sampling of them found that, while they were at markedly different stages in the healing process, many have found constructive ways of embracing life without forgetting. Widows and widowers have remarried. Children have gone on to college or begun first grade. Some people have settled into new homes, new geography. And a few, while still struggling with their loss, have arrived at surprising places that they could never have foreseen.
Baltimore Sun reporter David Wood (a Dart Center Ochberg Fellow) talks to employees at the Pentagon:
"I just can't be around for the Sept. 11 anniversary; it freaks me out," said one longtime Pentagon employee who asked not to be identified. "I'd go get counseling but I'm afraid for my security clearance."
Like thousands of others, her job requires her to have that clearance and, rightly or wrongly, she feels that seeking professional help would jeopardize her next background investigation.
WUSA9's Mike Walter (also an Ochberg Fellow) recalls witnessing the Sept. 11 attack on the Pentagon.
In the five years that have passed I’ve been interviewed by Japanese journalists and German journalists. You name it, they’ve talked to me. Through it all, I have done the interviews and recounted what happened to me that day, and what I saw. I asked my wife a few days after the attack, "Why did I have to be there? Why did God put me there?" She replied, "Because you needed to be there to tell the story."
Newsday writer Dave Marcus reports on the long-term effects of trauma on children:
Therapists who saw the first wave of children after the collapse of the World Trade Center made sure that the kids felt safe. Now they are seeing a second wave of young faces - children whose parents worked in lower Manhattan and lost a job after Sept. 11, or who got divorced or moved because of the stress.
Joe Hallett, of the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, visits the fire station of Squad 41 in the Bronx and talks with "current and former Squad 41 firefighters, widows and their children, surviving parents and in-laws" after a memorial service