Peggy Noonan has been on hiatus from her weekly column while she writes a book, and I miss reading her every Friday. Today she takes a look at how much our policies, priorities and attitudes stem from the experience of 9/11. Noonan has written movingly of the firemen on that day, and here she comments on an attempt by victims' families to equate all of the deaths of 9/11:
And there is the declaration of the organizations of World Trade Center families-of-victims that there should not be a statue of the firemen at the WTC memorial site. Three hundred forty-three of them died that day, but to commemorate their sacrifice would be "hierarchical." They want it clear that no one was better than anyone else, that all alike were helpless, victims.Posted by dan at June 11, 2003 09:51 AMBut that is not true; it is the opposite of the truth. The men and women working in the towers were there that morning, and died. The firemen and rescue workers--they weren't there, they went there. They didn't run from the fire, they ran into the fire. They didn't run down the staircase, they ran up the staircase. They didn't lose their lives, they gave them.