The 9/11 Terrorist Attack and Canada 25 Years

 

It is hard to believe it is 25 years this year. The drone memorial with one drone representing each person who was murdered that day. For Canada, it was 23 who died on the planes and the towers including a Winnipegger and a former Winnipegger's husband. In the very short time after it was obvious it was a terrorist attack, a single official in the U.S. closed down American airspace and any flight in progress who couldn't get down in the allotted time was going to get shot down down. Nearly 250 flights were diverted to Canada with a large amount landing in small but mighty Gander, Newfoundland. Most people forget that Winnipeg took in 17 flights that day too. Many of us watched flight after flight land until there were none.

I think anyone who lived through that day remembers the horror. And the anger. The CBC took forever to switch their breezy morning programming to something that mattered. One hour of waiting for something other that a pre-recorded political interview. It was frustrating as they all must have been watching coverage at their offices. 

CJOB, to their credit, switched over very quickly. For myself, I heard a brief radio news report at the top of the hour and switched on ABC's Good Morning America. My mom stepped into the living room just as the second plane hit. It was only after the second plane hit that CBC TV News switched to 44 hours of continuous reporting. My mom had abandoned the CBC's lack of a report on the radio in the kitchen. Eventually, my dad and I had to go to work and listened to CJOB from a feed they were broadcasting straight from New York to Winnipeg.

No one at work was in the dark by this point. There were no music stations now. Every station had coverage. Employees in the offices were switching on TVs. A short time later the towers began to collapse. It was the same time as all the flights started coming in one by one to Winnipeg as refuge. Tall buildings in Winnipeg like the Richardson building were evacuated. Reports of the Pentagon being hit by a plane and another plane crashing in Pennsylvania falling to the ground had everyone scared.

By the time work was over, not much was normal on TV and radio. The CBC eventually came out of its snoozy start to the day. However, even now they trip all over themselves about attribution to terrorism. This dick tripping was leaked out because some in the CBC leaked it. Likely, in fear that the network would downplay the events. Thankfully, actual journalists blasted them for stupidity and slowness in the past and now about a terrible act.

Winnipeg news groups will have some reporting for the 25th. It is important even now as we have seen so much covered up, or just not reported as people went through awful trauma and just buried themselves in grief and recovery. But as the mayor of New York's release of 17,000 pages reveals, there is much left unknown. And many more lives affected and lost because we just didn't know.

It will be a somber day but it is important to remember how we showed the best of ourselves that day. And it ultimately led to Canada going to war in Afghanistan as a NATO member defending another from that attack. It cost Canada years of commitment in money and lives. In the war, 159 soldiers died. Many more were wounded.

We can't forget and we won't but even now there is reporting to be done. We need to know and certainly Americans need to know our loss, out help and our friendship in this. It would seem some of them have forgotten too.