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TechnoratiHer son was Matthew Horning, 26 years old, killed in the north tower. Tiny bits of his remains were recovered from the site and from the Staten Island landfill where a million tons of debris and human remains were taken.
The years have not lessened her anger. She is appealing the dismissal this summer of a lawsuit that would require the city to move the material at the landfill to a separate burial plot.
"I just can't stop," Diane Horning says. "I need my son to be treated with dignity. He has been treated like garbage, and I can't imagine a mother sitting back and saying, `You know, it's OK.'"
Seven years also means some people say to her that she is "obsessed."
Exactly how much the nation has changed since Sept. 11, 2001, is a matter of perspective.
"There were economic changes, psychological effects," says Alfred Goldberg, who retired last year as the Pentagon's chief historian, and who points to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
He says he believes the tragedy of Sept. 11 was compounded by the national response, and perhaps by an exaggeration of the threat posed by al-Qaida. "We are in many ways a very changed nation because of those attacks," he says.
And while that is indisputable in a broad sense, it is a point bitterly contested by some of the people most directly affected.
For Sarah Arnold of Orlando, Fla., this Sept. 11 will not be an anniversary she cares much about. It will be one year and 21 days since her only child, a son named Britt, was killed by an improvised explosive device in Iraq.
She says she feels a kinship with the Sept. 11 lost because Britt was sent to New York with the Navy to help uncover remains. And when she thinks about how the country has changed, she answers: Not much at all.
"They don't give a damn about the war," she says. "Unless you have someone that is actually defending you, you don't give a damn. You're secure. You're doing your daily thing."
Seven years means Kathy Agarth, who in 2001 lived in a Washington suburb and today teaches second grade at a private school in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., must find a way to explain the attacks to children with no memory of it and little understanding.
To these children, Sept. 11 is no different from Memorial Day.
She says her students know the term "9/11" and they pray for the soldiers and may write letters to them this year. She does not teach it as a separate lesson. But they do ask her about it from time to time, and she chooses her words carefully:
"Some men were angry at the United States. They crashed their planes into some buildings. Their actions were evil."
Evil. That the word resonates in American life, and particularly in American politics, is a sign we are not too far removed from that day. It came up as a specific campaign issue just last month.
Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church in California, asked: "Does evil exist? And if it does, do we ignore it? Do we negotiate with it? Do we contain it? Do we defeat it?"
Sen. John McCain answered simply, "Defeat it." Sen. Barack Obama said it exists in many places, citing Darfur and child abuse, and that it is "God's task" to erase it from the world.
Seven years means Somerset County, Pa., where United Flight 93 went down and where, in a way, the legend of "Let's roll!" was born, is trying to figure out how to get the curious visitors who stream in from all over the country to stay awhile. Continue »
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