by Elizabeth M Young

Created on: February 14, 2011

As with any national tragedy or even personal trauma, the emotional impact fades over time or the human being cannot heal and move on to meet new challenges in life. There are personal bonds with a place and with the people of the place that will be strong in those who were closest to the site and weaker with greater physical and social distance. There are regional differences in the lasting emotional impact of a tragedy that occurs in one particular place, too.

A person who has never been to the sites of the attacks that devastated the nation will not have the same emotional connection as people who grew up, worked and lived in those locations. When people have grown up with or had their most memorable life experiences in the presence of structures and places that are now gone, then they will have much deeper and more lasting trauma.

Add in those who lost loved ones, friends, jobs, co-workers and others during the attacks, and there is bound to be a difference between their perceptions of emotional impact and the perceptions of emotional impact when no personal bonds were irreversibly broken and lost.

In distant locations, many will have more emotional connection to the damage that ensuing bad decisions by the Bush administration created after 911. A devastating and outrageously wrong war, the historical redistribution of wealth, the corruption or decimation of major institutions of government and other wrongs are either seen as a result of 911, or 911is viewed as the excuse for malfeasance and incompetence that placed the country dangerously close to economic and social collapse.

With subsequent major disasters, including Hurricane Katrina, the Haiti Earthquake and the BP Oil Spill, the importance of 911to the general public lessens and fades, never from memory, but  in immediate importance. In fact, all of the events have faded in national importance as new events and threats, such as revolution in Egypt have become riveting and have filled the public consciousness. 

But those who suffered immediate and lasting loss during 911 will serve to remind the nation of the events and losses of that time, just as those who support Haiti and the gulf region will work to remind the nation about those events and places.

The lessons learned have led to more vigilance, resolve  and more understanding that such attacks can happen again, but with more focus and with less emotional reaction.

But, while the immediate shock, horror, fear and rage will never be forgotten, those emotions have faded somewhat, as these things should so that the nation and its people can be ready to react to new challenges and crises.

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