My Trip to the Ground Zero Museum

This will be my last blog… Thank you for your interest.

               My wife and I drove our son Dean to New York a few months ago we had the opportunity to see the most seen and least talked about museum.  No it was not the Metropolitan Museum of Art, nor the Natural History, not even the Guggenheim; it was the Ground Zero Museum Workshop Tour.  It is also the smallest at around 1000 square feet of space.  If you have ever heard the expression “it’s the quality and not the quantity, or size does not matter, this tour is the epitome of that.

           This could and should be the requirement to seek out all true Americans.  After about an hour in this intimate atmosphere if your eyes have not turned into brimming streams of water then you are obviously not an American. 

           A few months after 9/11 it was decided that media would not be allowed on-site at the ground zero cleanup effort, but in an effort to document the effort Gary Marlon Suson was asked to be the official photographer.  He was given total access, but asked not to release any of the pictures until after the cleanup effort was finished.

              When completed Mr. Suson went on the talk show circuit. He discussed how this event changed his life, showing his pictures and sharing his stories and then went into seclusion for a couple of years and did not come out of his home.  He was in a deep depression and stayed there until he went through post traumatic stress therapy. 

               Then in August of 2004 as he stood in the long line outside the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, Mr. Suson told us that he was filled with a wide range of emotions including comparing how visitors felt visiting ground zero and what they felt visiting this house.  And thus began the journey for Mr. Suson, who began using his experiences and photographs from those miserable, grueling six months of the cleanup phase to put together this museum/workshop.

                The museum is made up of the pictures and artifacts that were most prevalent and inspiring to Mr. Suson.  There are over 100 pictures, artifacts and remnants of that horrific terrorist attack snuggled into this comfortable space, all of which are narrated in several different languages, but the English version in my estimation is the best, because it was narrated by the man who was there himself, Mr. Suson.

                Currently he does not spend a great deal of time at the museum as he says it weighs heavy on his heart.  But my wife and I were lucky, because he just happened to be present on this day.  I was still relatively emotional and so my wife introduced us to him, and as I was explaining how awe-inspiring this museum was I was barely able to choke up the words particularly when it came to what I found most painful concerning all of this.  And that was how too many American’s have totally forgotten 9/11. 

             My wife then interjected, because I was unable to talk, and she mentioned the Muslim mosque they wanted to build next to ground zero and what were his thoughts.  He compared it to building a Japanese sushi restaurant on top of the USS Arizona Memorial in Hawaii. 

         It shows absolutely no compassion my wife said.

          Recovering I said, it not only shows no compassion, it has no common sense; it is not only cruel, it is a literal slap in the face; it is not only thoughtless, it is the enemy laughing in our face telling us how weak they think we are; it not only shows our ignorance, it shows how apathetic American’s have become.  And by the way, I have read much of the Quran and it is not a peaceful religion, in fact all infidel’s (anyone who is not them) need to be dead, tortured, lose body parts and/or be in prison.

               Again, as I reacquired the strength to speak, I told him how upsetting it was to hear citizens of this country assault President Bush for taking a stand, a strong and swift stand against those who perpetrated this vile act.  It was those same associates that were all for the assault in the beginning that turned against him first and of course the liberal main stream media.

            Then the entire focus seemed to shift from what had been done to us, to how the present administration was unreliable, untrustworthy and unstable.  The talk was how they could not find the WMD’s so President Bush must have lied to the world; not the probability that Saddam had moved them to Syria.  Then it was IRAQ and how it was the wrong place to go; not that he had removed the most ghastly dictator since Hitler. 

             In Bush’s seven remaining years in office after 9/11 did you ever hear a word that under his direction there were no more triumphant assaults on our land, despite the scores of attempts.  All the small-minded liberals and one-dimensional media wanted to remember was anything that could be deemed vaguely negative and used as ammunition to bully President Bush.  They even exploited it in the last election, an election he was not even partaking in.

            It just seems to me that because of President Bush we won the initial battle, but currently we are losing this war either from within or by just forgetting… not only 9/11, but the foundation of this country… the most powerful, moral, long-lasting and envied nation of all time.  Maybe it’s just that we are being manipulated into actually believing that being envied means arrogance; moral means intolerant; powerful means bullies.  So we shy away from being powerful, moral and looked up to.

             I say we were allowed, by God, to be powerful, moral, envied and long-lasting because our foundation was from Him, because despite all of these traits we were still a humble nation.  If you look at all of America’s accomplishments our leaders never took the credit, they always gave credit to THEE Higher Authority… at least until recently.

             It was not just man and woman that were affected; the four legged canines also took a major blow.  One of the narratives that Mr. Suson enlighten us with was one that will surely tug at your heart.  In most adversity’s they make use of dogs to uncover trapped citizens.  These dogs were utilized a great deal in this catastrophe.

             After a short time the dogs developed depression; they would dwell in their beds and not move.  You see these dogs are accustom to discovering survivors, now they were only finding body fragments and carcasses, as a result they became very depressed.  So what the firemen and Mr. Suson would do is stretch out in the debris and place a sheet over themselves and once the dogs discover them they would get up and thank the dog for rescuing them and embrace them and those loveable puppies little tails would wave backwards and forwards as if they found their long lost friend.

             Unfortunately, none of the heroic canines lasted more than two years after the completion of the cleanup; they all perished from cancer, heart disease and lung problems.  That is true American selflessness.

              It is not just the puppies or the forgetting 9/11 that has me in tears; it is just one of the major indicators and it opened my tear filled eyes as to how American’s are allowing America to lose its identity, its uniqueness, its matchlessness, its distinctiveness and by God OUR exceptionality.  Yes, this IS our country, but it is most definitely NOT our country to give away; our generation has done nothing to earn that right. 

               Leaders of today act as if they wrote the Constitution and it is their responsibility to determine what its meaning is.  Thomas Jefferson said, “On every question of construction [of the Constitution] let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or intended against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.” 

              YES!!!  Go back to when the Constitution was written and use THEIR interpretations.  Why?  So the justices wouldn’t use their OWN agenda in making rulings.  How many rulings in the last 50 or 60 years do think the Supreme Court has made using Jefferson directives?

              This country belongs to our Founding Fathers that fought and died for it; fifty-four of the fifty-six signers died in poverty while being hunted down as common criminals.  America belongs to those like Abraham Lincoln that lived and died giving freedom to those that did not have it.  The United States of America belongs to the likes of those brave men and women that gave up their lives, limbs and futures in the two World Wars to retain the freedoms GIVEN to us by God and our founders.

              The careless way we allow people into this country is another major indicator of how we are giving America way.  It is not WHO we allow it is HOW we allow them.  Being an American was something people in other countries revered; they considered it a privilege that had to be achieved not presumed.   Now there are more precautions for legal citizens to gain entry into a museum than for illegal’s to gain entry into this amazing country.  While in Washington, D. C. my wife, my son and I were searched, patted down and had our bags disheveled just to catch a glimpse of several artifacts of American history.  While if we speak out against or even talk poorly about those who are here illegally we are called a variety of callous names.

            This tells the world we do not care what happens to this great land.  We not only allow them onto this land illegally, but in many cases we allow them to vote for our leaders and laws.  At the least they have no standing; at the most they have a VERY personal agenda.  And what is even worse are those true patriots that are willing to take a stand to protect America against this travesty are called bigots, racists, intolerant and worse.

             What are the results of this weakness?  We have an outside religion to attack us and then less than ten years later we want to allow that religion to build a monument to their religion in the same vicinity of the attack.  And again, if we are against it we are intolerant.  I have been having so much trouble even writing this because the mere fact there is a discussion about it brings tears of incomprehension to my eyes.

             Still another major indicator of losing the American empire is the imprudent, cavalier and lackadaisical way in which we raise and educate our children.  It seems more important to be their friend than their parent or teacher; it is more important for them to like us than for their respect; their self-esteem is more important than their self-control and self-discipline; it is more important for them to BE in class than how they ACT in class; individual responsibility has been replaced with the victim mentality; working hard to survive has been replaced with the entitlement mentality.

             My heart truly cries out for the children of this generation for we not only do not demonstrate to these innocents the necessity of the above mentioned behaviors, but we do not edify them in our classrooms.  If a student acts out in class and the teacher cannot manage that behavior and has to remove that disruption, the teacher is liable and it WILL show on their evaluation.

             But the genuine tragedy is… we do not illustrate to our young the importance of the authentic history of this country.  What our Founding Fathers sacrificed and most notably why.  Who our founders were and what their accomplishments were not their shortcomings.

               The distressing scheme that repetitively played in my mind, while looking intently at the pictures before me while concentrating on the narration; was all of the death forgotten in America over the years.  What 9/11 MUST be required to do, is remain a permanent wake up call for American’s to realize that there are those out there that detest us and would like to destroy us for no other reason than envy.   Yet other than for a few fleeting moments we have turned that day into just another moment we occasionally think about, especially on the anniversary, it represents little more than an episode that we give any amount of significance.  Because if we do, that means we must be intolerant.

             So many have suffered and died to gain and preserve our freedoms and we preserve their memory by disregarding or denigrating them.  But these citizens on 9/11 were not at war, they were not plotting to destroy anyone, they were simply living their lives and hatred and resentment destroyed them.  To disregard any of our fallen is perilous, but to abandon these innocents is reprehensible.

              When we do not protect our boarders; when we teach tolerance rather than awareness; when where we are going takes precedence over how we got here; when respect is replaced with insolence; when political correctness becomes more significant than truthfulness; when we completely exonerate rather than forgive and necessitate change; when compromise chops away at the foundation; you can anticipate that the structure will collapse.

            America needs to revert back to the time when it was strong, powerful, moral and what other nations aspire to be.  I know of few that take pleasure in war, but occasionally it is unavoidable.  America would not have been created if not for those willing to go to war.  America has had to go to war to retain it.  We must remember our fallen, and not merely with words, but with identical measures they were willing to forgo to construct and preserve America.

            Remember these insightful words, “Peace is not attained peaceably, and is not retained with that approach either.

             As my wife and I left the museum, we looked at each other, both red eyed from our emotions and neither able to speak.  So in tandem, we took hold of hold of each other and glimpsed back to that crisp clear day when our nation was altered forever, because we were attacked by a hate filled group of foolish men that were so envious of America that they wanted to destroy it.

Jim Blockey