An open letter to my great-grandchildren

Dear children:

This is what I wrote 10 years ago, in 2001, just days after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center:

“As I write this letter, you exist only as a hope for the future, a glimmer on the horizon. I am writing to tell you about a moment in history that we are living through now. I want to be your witness, so that you can know what it looked like and felt like in New York the week of September 11, 2001 …

“I think time may change my impressions, and I want to tell you how the world is at this moment, unfiltered by passing years or historical interpretation …

“The day of the attack was dreadful. I watched on television as one and then two planes slammed into the twin towers, bringing down the buildings, crushing thousands of people working inside. Two passenger jets, filled with travelers, had been commandeered by Islamic fundamentalist terrorists who managed to hijack four airplanes (another hit the Pentagon and a fourth crashed into a field in Pennsylvania) …

“I don’t know what airplane travel will be like for you in the future but up until now, it has been hassle-free for us …

“We are poised on the threshold of a new way of life and a door is closing behind us … No longer can we assume that because we are Americans living on American soil we are safe. Our new life holds fearsome threats of chemical, germ and nuclear warfare. We are worried, too, about what personal freedoms we will have to sacrifice for better security. Right now our phones are not tapped. Are yours? Right now we don’t carry any kind of national I.D. card with our fingerprints. Do you? Right now, we go to movies and malls and museums that are open to all without metal detectors. Do you? ...

“We worry about the stock market, which is sinking day by day, and whether we have the financial security we thought we would have to retire someday …”
That was 10 years ago.

During this post-9/11 decade we have survived shoe bombers and wannabe hijackers, a lone wolf madman in Times Square and probably countless other attempts on our lives that have been thwarted by our security services.

But we pay a huge price for that security. Soldiers with rifles patrol Penn Station and our airports. When we travel on a plane, we have to remove our shoes and all our outerwear and pass through various screeners, both human and mechanical.

The process is tedious, humiliating and expensive.

We went to war in Iraq after the attacks and are just now moving our troops out. Thousands of young men and women died there, billions of dollars were spent and the results seem negligible, at best. We are engaged in a second war in Afghanistan, ostensibly to keep terrorists at bay. But the price we pay in lives and money every day simply erodes the spirit. We don’t see a clear goal or an end in sight.

All this has flowed from that terrible day in September 10 years ago.

A brilliant success: We hunted down and killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of the 9/11 attacks, this spring, in his hideout in Pakistan. “We got him” President Obama said quietly as he watched a live video feed of the operation. The effort was a tribute to the courage of the president, the perseverance of our security forces and the skill of our military.

Our financial markets are still a mess, following a severe recession in 2008 and turmoil in Europe. I can’t even begin to imagine what you kids will be paying for homes in 2031, and if you’ll be paying in dollars or yuan.

Allow me to go back to what I wrote 10 years ago, when the smoke was still rising from ground zero:

“Why do I tell you these troubling things? By sending you a message from ground zero, I offer you a personal glimpse of your history, of what your great-grandparents were doing and thinking on September 11, 2001. By writing to you, you who have not been born yet, you who are only dreamed of, I am choosing life and putting my faith in a world that will be at peace.”

Copyright © 2011 Randi Kreiss. Randi can be reached at randik3@aol.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 304.