COMMENTARY | September 11 is a day that is indelibly etched upon the mind of most Americans that were old enough to experience it (and even some who weren't), a traumatizing event that has become a part of America's collective conscious memory. It would difficult to imagine what it would have been like on that fateful day had there not been someone to turn to, someone with which to talk and discuss and lament and mourn. But one man did just that: NASA astronaut Frank Culbertson. On 9/11 he was an American alone, cut off from not only his home country, which was under attack, but from his world, which had been forever altered by the day's tragic events. On Friday, the astronaut released through NASA both photographs and letters of his 9/11 experience.
"I was flabbergasted, then horrified," he wrote, recalling that the first he heard of the attacks was from a radio transmission from a NASA flight surgeon. "My first thought was that this wasn't a real conversation, that I was still listening to one of my Tom Clancy tapes. It just didn't seem possible on this scale in our country. I couldn't even imagine the particulars, even before the news of further destruction began coming in."
The particulars were horrifying. The September 11 terrorist attacks on the twin towers of the World Trade Center, one of the world's foremost architectural achievements and symbolic of the economic might of the United States, was reduced in a matter of hours to a smoking pile of concrete, steel, glass, and rubble. Nearly 3,000 people would die in the attacks (including those killed at the Pentagon in Washington, D. C.). Over 400 first responders would also die helping search for, aid, and treat survivors as well as trying to restore order and contain fires. Evidence suggests that many are dying still, slowing succumbing to the carcinogenic dust and debris that pervaded the air in Manhattan after the towers fell.
The tenth anniversary of 9/11 has produced a plethora of testimonies, documentaries, human interest stories, histories, and memorials. Of them all, Culbertson's is profoundly different. He was roughly 300 miles above the Earth, circling like the major character in the hit David Bowie song "Major Tom":
"... am I sitting in my tin can
Far above the world
Planet Earth is blue
And there's nothing I can do..."
He was a lone American aboard the International Space Station, forced to deal with the trauma of the day's events without the aid of physical companionship with other Americans. Except for live radio and television feeds from down below, Culbertson was cut off from much of the emotional and psychological support afforded to most that were experiencing the trauma of the attacks.
Culbertson was alone and he knew it. "Other than the emotional impact of our country being attacked and thousands of our citizens and maybe some friends being killed, the most overwhelming feeling being where I am is one of isolation."
He also showed signs of helplessness, as was evidenced through his thoughts of a post-9/11 world. From a second letter: "It's difficult to describe how it feels to be the only American completely off the planet at a time such as this. The feeling that I should be there with all of you, dealing with this, helping in some way, is overwhelming. I know that we are on the threshold (or beyond) of a terrible shift in the history of the world. Many things will never be the same again after September 11, 2001."
Still, unlike "Major Tom," Culbertson knew he would eventually go home. Hope soon overcame the shadows of doubt and uncertainty.
From a third letter: "I hope the example of cooperation and trust that this spacecraft and all the people in the program demonstrate daily will someday inspire the rest of the world to work the same way. They must!"
Frank Culbertson's photos and letters provide the world with an insight into how humans deal with tragedy through gradual acceptance and the determination to overcome the tragic event(s). His is a testament of the hope for a better future born of the lessons learned from that late summer day.
On the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on 9/11, it should be hoped that the present is part of the realization of that better future.
