I'm proud to live in the United States of America and I"m proud of "US" as fellow human beings. I'm very proud to be a resident of Madison Alabama at this very moment. I just received this from our HOA president and it brought tears to my eyes, of course. I think we have all struggled today, waiting for the horrific memories of 9/11 to be over, for today anyway. Reliving the moment has been hard for all of us, all proud Americans. I am quite certain I am not alone when I say I remember exactly where I was when the nightmare began that morning. I can only imagine what today has been like for survivors and those that lost loved ones.
I personally want to thank our fellow brothers for giving of themselves. To all of the Servicemen that fight to keep us safe, Thank You! To all that have lost their lives fighting for our freedom, Thank You and I'm so sorry you had to do that, for US! To the families of fallen soldiers, your country loves you and I am so sorry for your loss. It just isn't fair. To all that took it upon themselves to reach out to those that so desperately needed a caring heart and a loving hand, Thank You!
As Steve so eloquently wrote: Life is good, life is sweet, life is precious. I am off to hug my husband and child and to call my family members to let them know how special they are to me, today and always.
We all need to pray for a safer world. I for one, will be praying, so that my children will never have to endure another 9/11. I am certain this is just one of many letters that were sent around the United States, saying thank you. God Bless America.
Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2008 7:36 AM Subject: Thanks Again to the People of Madison, Alabama
September 11, 2001
Dear Citizens of Madison, Alabama:
I write this knowing the fewer and fewer of you are still at the email addresses you had during the horrible events of 9/11.
But a promise is a promise.
In the weeks after those events, when the people of Madison, Alabama decidedly so unselfishly to send a group of extraordinary police officers to help us through the darkness, you might recall that I wrote a short essay of thanks that was ultimately published in a variety of newspapers, magazines, and books. I attach it below.
I decided then that my observance of that anniversary would always be marked by thanking all of you for a supreme act of unselfishness. I hope that you all never stop being proud of what you did.
So yet again - thank you, thank you so much.
I know that, as I write this, kids in Madison are on their way to school, stores are opening for business, somebody is telling a joke or singing a song, and that life is going on. Maybe some young boy or girl is being asked where his homework is!
But life is good. Life is sweet. Life is precious. But I will always especially appreciate this goodness when I think of all of you.
With best wishes,
Steve Gorelick
Professor
Hunter College of the City University of New York
The Cops From Madison, Alabama
by Steven M. Gorelick
_______________________________________
October 3, 2001 - I wondered when I would finally feel the sadness. I wondered why other New Yorkers I passed in the streets of Manhattan looked so pained while I felt so numb. I really began to wonder if I was human. I felt nothing at all. Nothing.
It started several days after the sky fell on September 11th when I looked out my living room window in Westfield, New Jersey, and saw friends and family visiting the pregnant wife of a 31 year-old man who was missing in the rubble. I tried hard to cry, but -- as much I would like to say I felt courage and resolve -- what I really felt was an almost paralyzing fear brought on by the sheer audacity of the acts.
At work in Manhattan, I found it even harder to feel pain and sadness: I work across from the Empire State Building, and that building's new status as New York City's tallest skyscraper gave all of us in the surrounding neighborhood a case of the jitters. It's hard to feel sad when you keep looking up at the sky waiting for something to come crashing down.
Several days later my wife and I attended an interfaith service. I passed a sign with the names of a number of those from my hometown who had been lost. So many were parents of young children. I could feel a little lump forming in my throat. But I still could not cry.
The pent-up emotions finally hit like a ton of bricks when I least expected it. I was out walking in front of the Empire State Building. I wanted to simply be in the presence of the New York City police officers now guarding that building. And as I got closer, I saw that the building's entrance was being protected by police officers from Madison, Alabama. And I lost it.
I ran upstairs to my office and finally shed the tears that had eluded me for three weeks. You have to understand. Most New Yorkers are hopelessly provincial, still living with the illusion that they live at the center of the universe, as if this wonderful complex, diverse universe could even have a center! Some are even still fighting the civil war, with a view of the south that is as up to date as a Matthew Brady photograph. I know people who never even leave Manhattan, as if -- having found paradise -- they have no reason to go anywhere else.
Yet there they were out in front of the Empire State Building, a group of wisecracking, cynical New Yorkers who had surrounded these officers and were looking at them with the reverence usually reserved for members of the clergy. And these big, strong, confident, reassuring police officers from a place that no one had ever heard of were actually calming the nerves of people who had seen things that no one should see and felt things that no one should feel.
I don't know where Madison, Alabama, is. I don't know how many people live there. I don't know what petty disputes are currently being fought out in its City Council, but I bet some group of citizens has been making a lot of noise lately about the lack of a stop light at some especially congested corner. I don't know if there is a peaceful river that runs through town or a lake where you can fish and swim. I don't know where in town you can taste the best barbecue and I certainly don't know a soul who lives there. But I do know that on a fine sunny day in my hometown, three weeks after it seemed as if the world were collapsing around us, a bunch of courageous and compassionate cops from Madison, Alabama, were just what we needed at precisely the moment we needed it.
To the good and decent people of Madison: Thank you for sending us your bravest and finest. Just the sight of their Madison shoulder patch and the decency and confidence they demonstrated gave me an incredible dose of hope that -- whatever comes along -- our almost instinctive compassion as a nation will overcome any adversary.
And do me a favor: Promise that someone from Madison -- wherever it is -- will get in touch with me the next time a river overflows (is there a river nearby?), the next time a fire leaves some people homeless, the next time -- God forbid -- that a place of such obvious kindness and decency has its reckoning with pain and loss. I'd love to help.
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Steve Gorelick is a college professor and administrator in New York who says his life was changed the moment he met the police from Madison, Alabama. He teaches about genocide, the mass media, and propaganda at the City University of New York. In the summer, 2000, he held a residential faculty research fellowship at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC.
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