As a war of recriminations erupted in Washington last week, the families of the victims of September 11 and its scarred survivors were caught in the middle. For some, the revelations were a bewildering distraction from the healing process. For others, they were a source of renewed heartache–and rage.
Many families directed their ire at the government. They faulted the administration not just for failing to “connect the dots,” as the politicians and pundits kept repeating last week, but for lacking sufficient imagination. “When I hear some politician say, ‘We didn’t expect the unexpected,’ it sickens me,” says Jack Grandcolas of San Rafael, Calif., whose pregnant wife, Lauren, died on United Flight 93. “Expect the unexpected, pal. These [terrorists] are lunatics.”
The admission that the administration had even vague warnings of the attack, coming eight months after the fact, only aroused suspicions of a cover-up. “I really don’t understand why all of this is coming out now,” says Joan Glick, whose son Jeremy helped rush the hijackers on Flight 93. “I want to know what was known and why it wasn’t shared.” The administration’s ham-handed attempts to quell the political furor didn’t help. Especially disturbing to Glick: Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer’s comment that the administration believed the warnings referred to “traditional” hijackings–as though those didn’t merit just as vigorous a response. Since Jeremy’s death, Glick has lobbied Congress for better aviation-safety standards. “Would 500 lives have been OK?” she asks.
For some of the survivors, the revelations undermined their efforts to put the past to rest. Roy Bell, who escaped the World Trade Center inferno with second-degree burns, has struggled to manage his anxiety and anger through hypnotherapy and psychoanalysis. “Every time I hear a siren, I cringe,” he says. He’d gone a long way toward calming his nerves. But after reading the news last week, he thought to himself: “Jesus Christ, it’s starting again.”
Not everyone reacted so viscerally. “I really don’t know what the big deal is,” says Manu Dhingra, who was burned on nearly 40 percent of his body in the Twin Towers. He says only a specific warning would have deterred him from going to work that day. “I’m not a big George Bush fan,” he admits, but “I definitely would not want to lay the blame on this administration.” His one lament: how shamelessly the tragedy has been exploited for political gain.
The one thing most everyone agrees on is the need for a thorough investigation. “We need to know the truth because my son cannot have died in vain,” says Kathy Ashton, who lost her 21-year-old in the World Trade Center. “This can’t happen to someone else, but it will if we don’t figure out what went wrong.”
