The enduring traumas of September 11

A look back at lessons not learned

Survivors of the September 11 attacks make their way through smoke, dust, and debris.
(Image credit: AP Photo/Gulnara Samoilova)

September 11, 2001, began just like every weekday morning. Fifteen years ago today, I boarded a Metro-North commuter train in suburban Fairfield, Connecticut, at 7:09 am. Arriving at Grand Central Terminal in midtown Manhattan 80 minutes later, I transferred to a downtown 6 train and emerged from the subway at the corner of East 23rd Street and Park Avenue South. I walked for a block and turned right on 22nd Street in the direction of 5th Avenue. Just like every weekday morning.

Somewhere on my crosstown stroll to the offices of First Things magazine, I heard a deafening roar come out of nowhere and glanced upward just in time to see a passenger jet scream by heading south, flying far too fast and far too low. It was alarming. But only for a second. This was, after all, "before September 11," when terrorism was something that happened in other places — and certainly not on the scale I would behold over the next few hours.

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Damon Linker

Damon Linker is a senior correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also a former contributing editor at The New Republic and the author of The Theocons and The Religious Test.