Somber hours

Yesterday was the 11th anniversary of September 11.  I had so many thoughts driving into work in the morning.  It was a beautiful day -- blue skies, low humidity, bright sun -- just like 11 years ago.  I had training in the old building, so I passed by the photos of our President, Vice-President and Madam Secretary in the lobby.  I sat down at the table and the shortly thereafter, a woman got on the intercom and asked for a moment of silence.  I was so grateful for that moment to sit still, quiet my racing thoughts and simply remember. 

I've been thinking about this anniversary a lot in the past week or so.  Recently, I was auditing work and picked up an application that had a death certificate.  The cause of death was "complications from pregnancy."  The applicant's mother had died hours after giving birth.  I had never seen that cause of death before and it made me so sad and at the same time, so grateful for my own life.  And that made me remember the first death certificate I ever saw for a fire fighter who had died in the World Trade Center.  I was in my first two weeks out of the National Training Program.  I sat with all the other newbies in the conference room at long tables, rather than desks, with our training materials in boxes at our feet and big sheets of paper with reminders taped to the walls.  I took the application out of the batch, sorted the documents and realized that I had a death certificate. From NY.  Date of death September 11, 2001.  I started to shake.  Usual occupation, fire fighter.  Deep breath.  Cause of death, collapse of Tower 1.  Five years later, and I still remember that piece of paper.

Then today I wake up to the news that our Ambassador to Libya, Chris Smith and three others died in the Consulate in Benghazi yesterday.  The State Department confirmed the death of Foreign Service Officer Sean Smith, but did not give the names of the other two, pending family notification.  The statement can be found here in its entirety.

Obviously, I don't know the Ambassador, nor any of the people serving in Libya.  I met officers last summer while I was in DC who had been evacuated from Libya but they are not there now.  And for two years, I have been following another officer as she did her two year tour in Istanbul.  This summer, she started her new post in Libya.  Earlier this month, she traveled with Ambassador Stevens and wrote this sweet account of her day.  At the end of the post is a link to a photo that was in circulation of them eating together. 

We are lucky in this country that we have the freedom of speech.  With that freedom comes a responsibility to use it wisely.  It is not a license to be a dumb-ass.  Words can hurt or inspire, inflame or calm, dismiss or include, be truthful or distort, add value or diminish.  Let's try to remember the potential consequences our words and actions can produce before we speak and go forth into the universe.