Dan Rather THERE ARE places in the United States where marking six months out from September 11 was about remembering: remembering the dead, remembering the heroes, remembering the reasons why America's fighting men and women are at war in Afghanistan. Remembering to ensure that we never forget.
Maybe nothing brought back the gut sensations of that terrible morning as starkly as did the television documentary "9/11", watched by millions of Americans on Sunday night, March 10. (In the interest of full disclosure, I should point out that this documentary was produced and broadcast by CBS). There it all was, a visual narrative of how a late-summer morning like any other was transformed into a moment. People who saw the programme tend to talk about the experience in physical terms. Their hearts started racing. They got up and paced. They felt as if they were having a panic attack.
That was how "9/11" struck at the emotions: hard and deep. But there was more. The film also gave us a remarkable view inside the command centre established by the New York Fire Department in the lobby of One World Trade Centre, the first tower hit. And that footage tugs at the mind with tough questions.
The overarching one for this reporter, asked without any sense of finger-pointing or self-righteous hindsight but as a simple plea, is: What can America now do to bring our fire-fighters into the 21st century?
In the video, one is struck by the fire-fighters' professionalism and bravery in the face of madness. From the top leadership on down, there is awe-inspiring dedication to duty. You can't miss, though, that in terms of equipment, the firemen were hopelessly overmatched by the emergency at hand. Communications broke down. Eighty flights of stairs had to be negotiated on foot, weighed down by gear. Those watching on television had a much better overall picture of what was going on than those inside the building.
In recent years, technological advances have remade so many aspects of our lives, from corporate offices to our armed forces. Maybe you've been to Europe and have seen how countries that we think of as Old World and quaint outfit their fire-fighters in what look like spacesuits. And still our fire-fighters work with what seems like the mere basics. The reason is simple: When city budgets are cut, the cuts are often felt first and deepest in America's fire departments.
It was a week that jolted so many of us back to September 11, in hearts and minds. It also gave us a real insight into just what we owe to those brave people who fight fires with whatever tools available. And this, too, we should never forget.
Dan Rather is a television news anchor. 2002 DJR. Distributed by King Features Syndicate.
