Remembering September 11

by Jay Thompson on September 11, 2008 · Comments

in Life

As I mentioned last year, September 11 is a day of very mixed emotions in our home. Today is my son’s 17th birthday, and he has turned out to be quite a remarkable young man who we are very, very proud of.

Of course September 11 evokes other emotions. I’m sure everyone reading this remembers that horrible morning seven years ago. Sadly, I think people are forgetting that day, and all those people that died such tragic, horrible and pointless deaths. It’s difficult to wrap our minds around the magnitude of death and destruction. Forgetting is easy. Remembering is painful.

We have to remember.

I thought one way to visualize the sheer quantity of loss would be to look at a complete list of the victims. I couldn’t find a list in anything like a text file or spreadsheet. Most memorial sites have the lists broken into pages and you lose a little of the magnitude.

Below is a screen shot of a spreadsheet I made of the entire list of victims (shrunk significantly to fit this blogs display). Open this victims list in Excel and just scroll.

It is four columns wide and 754 rows long.

Spend just 5 seconds reading and thinking about each name.

That will take you over four hours.

Please, don’t ever forget.

Sept 11 Victims List


 

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  • We are all together remembering today
  • I spent several hours tonight crying my eyes out watching the videos of 911 on YouTube. This day I will NEVER forget! I hope you don't mind that I swiped your excel link to add to my own post and would like to thank you for that.

    Happy Birthday to your son, today is my nieces birthday as well.
  • Your graphic is very powerful and your reminder heartfelt, no doubt. But I disagree that we are forgetting. We will never forget. Everyone knows where they were that day and still feels the shock & pain experienced that morning.

    What some don't realize, though, is that there are still people dying because of that day. How many rescue workers and victims survived only to suffer the consequences of exposure to debris? We really need to remember these people too and give them our thanks and whatever support we can offer to help ease the nightmare they continue to suffer with.
  • Lisa - I hope I'm wrong about people forgetting. And good point about those continuing to suffer.

    Laurie - absolutely no problem using the spreadsheet in any way.

    Susan - thanks from stopping by from the other side of the planet. 9/11 affected the entire world.
  • 9/11 is a day I will never forget. It was and still is the cause of so much heartache and so many fears. I didn't loose anyone close to me on 9/11, but that day has caused the death of a few close friends that enlisted during the following weeks.

    The effects of 9/11 are still being felt by many, but sadly I have to agree with Jay that many are forgetting or at the very least have developed apathy towards the subject.
  • That spreadsheet is incredibly powerful. In reading it, I was most struck by the ages listed and the multiple people listed with the same last names. The ages tear my heart out - they make the people so much more real to me. And the multiple people with the same last name is just too much to bear.
  • The enormity of that list is incredibly sobering.

    I was scheduled to fly back to Southern California out of Dulles 2 hours after Flight 77 took off. We were stranded for a week waiting to return home, knowing how easily we could have been on one of those flights with our kids. I still find the grief crushing.

    I remember. Our flag is flying today in honor and remembrance of those lost.

    It's my girlfriend's birthday today. I know the conflict of emotion. Wish your son a Happy Birthday from your readers.
  • Seeing the entire list really hits home. Everyone I know remembers where they were and what they were doing on 9/11. I agree with you Jay, we can never forget.
  • this is such an important message. and not just for this day. for every day afterward, too. thanks for this post.
  • Even, if you want to you will never be able to forget the things that happened on 9/11...Not today, not tomorrow...Not even centuries later....

    Its not the number of people, who died on that day, is what scares most of us...But now its a matter of surviving in this world every moment, cos you don know what will hit you next....

    Anyways,

    Hope God Bless those Souls with all the love He has....
  • As a Canadian, I would like to express how impressed I am by the support that America has shown for the victims of 911 and their families.

    There's a lot of rhetoric in the world against Americans; much of it justly earned by America's governments' foreign policies. But nobody can critizise your citizens for the support that you have shown to these people.

    it's not about nations, or governments. It's about the people. That impresses me. You should be proud, as people and as Americans.

    - John
  • Like many of us, I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing on that morning 7 years ago...the workplace (only an hour from NYC) basically shut down in the aftermath of the attacks. And I thought it ironic that, if you put a little more space between the middle 2 columns of names in the spreadsheet, and look at them from a distance, they almost look like the Twin Towers...thanks for this, Jay. We will never forget.
  • That was really a black day in the history of US
    May God rest their souls in peace.
  • I can remember exactly what I was doing that morning. I told my wife that it was a Tuesday. 9/11 is one of those days that everyone includes in their memory banks. This is quite a list of people. Thank you for writing a post about this tragedy so it will stay fresh in the minds of not only Americans but the whole world.
  • Very nice post. It's great to see so many people (and the news) are still remembering 911 and all the lost lives.
  • So many have started to forget that tragic day. The list is sober reminder of the lives that were lost. Living in Washington D.C., I see the daily reminder at the Pentagon, but the list somehow makes it even more real.
  • Anniversaries do serve a purpose. It's an institutional way to remember important events. But, the reminder should really be that we need to remember every day of the year the events we institutionalize with annual anniversaries.

    One of my dear friends lost her brother there. Frank De Martini was working at the World Trade Center that day. I had met him a few years before when he joined us for a week on a river float trip. We were not particularly close friends. But it doesn't matter. Frank was an American who lost his life to the radical Muslim movement. In these tough times, we need to remember that battle continues to rage. And, we need to continue our vigilance for the memories of those who have lost their lives and to protect our secular society.

    Let's remember that every day of the year between now and the next September 11.
  • Well I sure didn't forget. I have family that live in New york and I'm happy it wasn't them that died, but I'm sorry for those of you that had lost someone on September 11,2001.
  • Of course September 11 evokes other emotions. I’m sure everyone reading this remembers that horrible morning seven years ago. Sadly, I think people are forgetting that day, and all those people that died such tragic, horrible and pointless deaths. It’s difficult to wrap our minds around the magnitude of death and destruction. Forgetting is easy. Remembering is painful.

    We have to remember.

    I thought one way to visualize the sheer quantity of loss would be to look at a complete list of the victims. I couldn’t find a list in anything like a text file or spreadsheet. Most memorial sites have the lists broken into pages and you lose a little of the magnitude.

    <abbr></abbr><abbr>Steve´s last blog post..The best Canyons</abbr>
  • It is actually frightening, as I came across this post, just after I have finished watching a programme about London bombing. Some parts of the programme were about 9/11 and it doesn’t matter how many years later we are watching, these scenes are absolutely horrific. Innocent people, totally unexpectedly lost their lives. I don’t think we will forget that day.
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