. . . I was a teacher in the Italian Alps. Teaching teachers how to teach. That day I went to sleep early. A thunderstorm rolled down the lake and woke me up. I walked over to my office to use my computer, and check my email.
I saw that an attack had happened. I didn’t believe it at first.
The next day, work as usual. The express train from Milan to Zurich, with a stop at the town where I lived – Arona – to another town up the lake called Stressa.
My German wasn’t great, but I could understand enough, especially the laughing and joking. They were all talking about the attacks and they were happy.
My teachers were not, and as we stood for the national moment of silence, I grimaced – trying not to show any feelings. I decided that I would take a job I had been offered with the Italian military.
A week passed and I found myself in Turin, walking past soldiers in formation, men playing drums and flags flying. I passed a class full of machine gunners and came to my room at the Scuola Allievi Carabinieri di Torino. I had 20 students. All young, the same age I am now. But they were family men, mostly. Many had served in Albania. They were training for deployment at embassies abroad. They had to learn NATO English, which I taught from a large binder.
I am a master of NATO bureaucracy. If you find yourself in combat, and you need a form filled out – I’m your man.
They didn’t get to go to those embassies. The war came, and spread to Iraq. The Carabineri were some of the first boots on the ground. They were in Najaf. One day Al Qaeda found them.
Al Qaeda found a lot of things.
Before Italy, I had lived in Egypt. Studied there. Spent a few months in Dahab and Nuweiba on the Sinai – went there to get over the months of chaos in Al Misr. Spent a lot of time with a friend from the city and her Egyptian boyfriend. Bought the newspaper every day at the Hilton, evenings at the market or on the beach. It was peaceful. Sitting there at night and seeing the lights of Egypt, Israel and Jordan so close together – the mountains of Saudi and the Red Sea framing them all.
Al Qaeda found those too. ALL of those. The market, the beach, the boyfriend, the newsstand. They found them all and they set off bombs that destroyed them all.
Like they destroyed my soldiers. My men. Not all, but some. These men I ate with, drank with, and told very dirty jokes with.
A few weeks back I was down in New York. Seeing Cathy and the in-laws in Westchester County. My mother-in-law’s best friend came by – she had known her since kindergarten. They’re both 80, so that’s a long time. It was subtle, and I admit, I forgot it at first, but 9-11 was there too. Her son died in the towers. His last minutes broadcast live on city-wide radio for his mother to hear. I couldn’t understand her feelings about the country until that fact came back to me.
If you have lived in the world, then you feel this day. It’s not something that happened on TV. It’s something that touches you and your friends. It’s a thing that you feel consume you when you stand to give a speech and your eyes pass over the crowd, and you remember a class. Or when you buy the paper, or when you set foot in that city and see the woman you love crying at Ground Zero because she caught sight of the name of a friend – posted on a wall where the towers stood.
Obviously, I hate 9-11 and I hate Al Qaeda – who doesn’t? But almost as much as I hate them, I hate the people who use the thousands of dead as a means to advance insane conspiracies – either inspired by Jew hatred, or Bush derangement, anti-Americanism, or just plain misanthropism. I don’t care, I just hate them.
Now one of them is threatening to sue me. I will NEVER cave in to threats like that – not from filth who dance on the graves of people I know. I’m not a poor man, and I’m not without friends. If they are determined to bring this to court, then let them.
I’m proud that that kind of person hates me. I’d be ashamed of myself if they didn’t.
One thing related to the election. If you have a chance to see a candidate today, from any party, please do try and ask them about 9-11. If they say it was an inside job, that office workers and janitors in the towers ‘had it coming’ – then please let me know. And if you find them near some stairs – well, let morality guide you.
[...] ON 9-11… Robert Jago Remembers …. [...]