To mark the 21st anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Rocky Point Fire Department held a commemorative ceremony at its dedicated 9/11 Memorial Garden on the evening of Sept. 11.
The fire department invited community members, firefighters from neighboring towns and Rocky Point High School student-musicians for an evening of solemn remembrance of the lives lost 21 years ago.
Throughout the evening RPFD firefighters, including Chief of Department Fred Hess, took to the podium to thank the attendees for their support. In their speeches, they expressed gratitude and admiration for the many servicemen, servicewomen and civilians who made the ultimate sacrifice on that tragic day in history.
On a national stage, two U.S presidents are in a tug-of-war for the soul of our nation.
Earlier this month, President Joe Biden (D) and former President Donald Trump (R) presented disparate visions for the American future. Despite diametrically opposing messages, one theme unifies these speeches: Americans stand at a crossroads in our history, and our trajectory is undecided.
Numerous problems plague our policymakers in Washington, from national security, economic uncertainty, immigration policy, among many others. In the face of these seemingly unanswerable questions, we must remember that all politics is local. Before we can even consider pondering the great questions of our time, we must first get our affairs in order here at the community level.
From town and village halls to school boards, environmental demonstrations, civic meetings, and everything in between, our residents grapple with the most pressing issues confronting our communities. We find particular examples of the nation’s broader, systemic issues within these forums.
What does it mean to have a representative voice in government? What is an equitable distribution of public resources? How and where should we build, and to what end?
We are wrestling with these unsettled questions right now. At the local level, our citizens learn how systems operate. With this understanding, we begin breaking down the great questions into bite-sized, manageable tasks.
In time, we will accumulate small wins. This formula can be scaled, meaning we can soon apply our takeaways from local politics to the higher levels of government.
We hold that this bottom-up approach is the best course of action, both for our residents and nation. Locally, our voices ring louder, our votes weightier. Let’s fix our problems here first, then set our sights on issues further from home.
We must first create a solid foundation to build something meant to last. May we heal this divided but unbroken nation. May we find solutions to problems both near and far. And may we never lose faith in the principles that unite us as community members and Americans.
During the Platinum Jubilee for Queen Elizabeth II to celebrate the monarch’s 70 years on the throne, Clary Evans, a radiation oncologist who works at Northwell Health, her husband Tobias Janowitz, a scientist at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, and their families got together with another English family to mark the occasion.
They made a cake and had tea, “aware that this was probably the last time” they would celebrate Queen Elizabeth’s lengthy legacy, Evans recalled in an email.
Residents of Suffolk, England, Evans’s parents Philip and Gillian shared memories and thoughts on Queen Elizabeth II, who died last week at the age of 96.
Before Elizabeth’s coronation at the age of 27, Philip Evans, who was a teenager, traveled with his brother Anthony to Trafalgar Square, where they camped out near the fountain.
After a night filled with an early June rain in 1953, Evans and his brother awaited the moment to see the queen, whose coronation occurred 16 months after she became queen.
Gillian and Philip Evans with their Patterdale terrier puppy in Mettingham, Suffolk, UK in August of this year. Photo from Clary Evans
The next morning, as crowds continued to grow, the police pushed the newer arrivals in front of the group, which meant Phillip was in the third tier of onlookers.
Through the crowd, he caught a glimpse of the young queen, offering a stiff wave to her subjects.
“It was a marvelous thing to do,” Evans said by phone from his home. The travel and waiting in the rain meant it “wasn’t easy.”
Gillian Evans, meanwhile, traveled with her family to visit her aunt, who, at the time, was the only one in her family who owned a television.
“It was lovely to see what a beautiful spectacle it was,” Gillian Evans said.
The queen executed her duties admirably under an intense spotlight that never dimmed during her over 70 years of service, she added.
“What a remarkable lady she had been,” Gillian Evans added. “She said she would give herself to the nation for as long as she lived, and she did. Right up to the very, very last, which is wonderful.”
While Gillian Evans thought such conditions were akin to being inprison, with all the limitations and the constant responsibilities, she believed the queen “loved it. It showed in her face.” Being a part of a “love match” with her husband Prince Philip “must have helped enormously.”
The Evans matriarch, 83, who is a retired diagnostic radiographer, is amazed at the effect the queen’s death is having on residents.
Philip Evans, who said the queen did “jolly well,” recognized that the queen made mistakes, one of which arose during her muted reaction to the death of Princess Diana in a car crash in 1997.
“She had a really bad time when Princess Diana was killed,” said Philip Evans, who retired in 2000 as a general surgeon. “She was just pulled down by the power of the press. In legalese, ‘she was badly advised.’”
During a recent visit to the ophthalmologist, Evans chatted with three people about the queen and her son Charles, who has now become King Charles III.
People were saying “the queen had done a good job” and that they believed her son was “well suited” for his new role.
Philip Evans has noticed that the church bells ringing in the aftermath of her death don’t have their typical sound.
The sound alternates between loud and muted. The churches are using a so-called half-muffled peal, which creates a somber echo. The bells rang the same way last year after Prince Philip’s death.
“It’s very alarming and tells you that something is odd,” Evans said.
As the country prepares for the funeral of a queen born eight years after the Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1918 and who died two years after COVID-19, Clary Evans recognized that Queen Elizabeth II was a “link to those values of duty and service that were strong in those war and post-war years.”
The Town of Brookhaven seal. Photo from the town website
Following a contentious virtual meeting on Monday, Sept. 12, the Brookhaven Redistricting Committee failed to reach a compromise on a proposed map, sending the redistricting process to the Brookhaven Town Council.
The committee voted on three maps during the meeting, none of which received the six votes necessary to adopt an official proposal. There was significant controversy leading up to this meeting. Despite this, all eight members and the committee’s mapmaker, David Schaefer, were present.
However, members calling attendance seemed to be the only unanimous outcome of the night, as the three Democratic appointees clashed with their Republican and Conservative Party counterparts throughout the evening.
The meeting got out to a rocky start after an unsuccessful motion to adopt an agenda. Schaefer then presented three maps that the committee requested during the previous session.
Schaefer first presented a “map of least change.” This map addressed only Council Districts 2 and 6, the two districts whose populations fall outside the 5% deviation allowable under the Town Code. After a vote, this map failed 3-5, with Democratic appointees Rabia Aziz, George Hoffman and Gail Lynch-Bailey voting “yes” and all others voting “no.”
Schaefer also presented a map that loosely follows the proposal of Coram resident Logan Mazer. On the whole, the Mazer map was viewed favorably during the public hearings. However, this proposal was ultimately shot down by another 3-5 vote, with the same committee members voting for and against it.
Schaefer’s final presentation was a map that followed the boundaries of Proposal 2, one of the two original draft proposals which met fierce opposition during the public hearings. With some adjustments to the boundaries of CD1 and CD2, this new map kept much of Proposal 2 intact.
In the face of this public opposition, the map was the highest vote-getter, with a 5-3 vote count — one vote shy of formal adoption by the committee. Ali Nazir, Edward McCarthy, Delilah Bustamante, Krystina Sconzo and Chad Lennon voted “yes,” with the entire Democratic caucus voting it down.
In a phone interview, Lynch-Bailey confirmed that the redistricting committee officially disbanded the following day around noon after Nazir and Aziz, the co-chairs, could not reach a compromise. Failing to adopt a proposal, the committee sends the process to the Town Council.
During a Town Board meeting Tuesday, Sept. 13, Supervisor Ed Romaine (R) discussed some of the criteria he will be looking for in the new map. He said he hopes to achieve an equal population distribution across council districts, keep minority communities together within district boundaries and reduce the number of split communities. The Town Board must adopt new council district outlines by Dec. 15.
The supervisor expects a new map to be available on the town website by next week. A public hearing on the matter will be held at Town Hall on Thursday, Sept. 29, at 5 p.m.
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If you grew up in an urban apartment, as I did, you would marvel, as I do, at living now in a house. Some of my earliest memories involve neighbors in the building.
For example, I loved to play jacks, a game on a hardwood floor with a bouncy rubber ball and 10 small metal pieces (called jacks), each to be lifted after the ball bounces but before it drops. When played, it surely made tapping noises on the ceiling of the apartment below, but that was nothing compared to the banging with what was probably a broomstick that the downstairs neighbor used to retaliate. The jacks trembled with each blow, and I certainly trembled at the attack. I remember bursting into tears and running to find my mother.
“You can’t play that game indoors,” my mother explained. “It bothers the neighbors.”
Another memory involves my husband and me, shortly after we were married and had moved into our first apartment. Canadian Royal Mounted Police aerobic exercises were popular then, we had bought the book and were in the first few lunges after work one evening when there was a loud knocking at our door. When my husband opened it, an older couple shouted at us that we were bringing down the ceiling on their heads, and what were we doing up there, anyway?
I’m skipping over the years of squeaky violin music being practiced in the apartment to the left of ours, the midnight screaming by the couple two apartments further down the hall, the acrid smell of cooking from the apartment to the right of us each night, and so many other instances giving proof that we were not alone in our building.
Of course, we made noises, too, and otherwise let our presence be known. That was apartment living and somehow, we all survived it.
The first time I lived in a house was when my husband was in the Air Force, and we were in base housing. To me, it was miraculously quiet, even though airplanes flew in regular intervals over our heads. “Someday we will have a house of our own, yes?” I asked my husband and kissed him when he agreed.
So then we moved to the North Shore of Long Island and had our own house. That was when I discovered that a house was a living thing. It needed tending regularly. The toilet wouldn’t flush, the kitchen faucet dripped, the light fixture sizzled out, the venetian blind got stuck in the open position, the dishwasher wouldn’t dispense soap, the cabinet door was askew, there were ants in the basement and the front door knob threatened to fall off.
But unlike in the service, there was no one to call who would cheerfully arrive, fix the problem, then wish us a good day and leave. Oh, we could summon repair people to come, but when they left, we were less than cheerful. They had each gone off with a large chunk of our disposable income. In fact, we were lucky if we didn’t have more than one problem per month. Usually, the breakdowns seemed to caucus with each other and happen all at once.
We still love our house. You might ask, why? The answer is simple. We have found a handyman. Just as every first baby should come with an instruction manual, every house should be accompanied by a handyman. This person is a quiet, unsung hero. He, and it’s almost always a he, arrives with little fanfare shortly after he is called, carries two screwdrivers, a regular and a Phillips head, a hammer, a wrench, maybe some tape and seemingly little else. He squats down and patiently analyses each problem, pulls out the uncomplicated tool and sets everything right.
Oh, and did I mention that he doesn’t ask a month’s mortgage?
Now this person is not easy to find. In fact, there must be several unsuccessful trials before Mr. Right comes along. Ask your neighbors, your friends, your cousin, the hardware store, anyone who might help with a referral, but they may not want to share. Good luck!
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II at the South of England Show in Ardingly in 1984 which our writer attended. Photo courtesy Mid Sussex Times/SussexWorld.co.uk
By John Broven
It was like a “JFK” or “9/11” remember-where-you-were moment when the news broke Thursday, just after 1:30 p.m. EST: “Queen Elizabeth II has died.” For this Brit expat, it was a big shock even though she was 96 years old. Only two days before, she had held the “kissing the hands” ceremony with new prime minister, Liz Truss (C).
John Broven Photo by Diane Wattecamps
It became clear the queen’s loss was being felt far beyond the United Kingdom as tributes poured in from every corner of the globe, signaling the enormous impact of a 70-year reign during which she performed her often centuries-old duties with wisdom, dignity, gentle good humor and an essential mystique.
The new King Charles III, her son aged 73, caught the moment when he said in a statement, “I know her loss will be deeply felt throughout the country, the Realms and the Commonwealth, and by countless people around the world.”
I am a member of the knighted Mick Jagger-Elton John-Paul McCartney generation (where did I go wrong?). It was Jagger who summarized our thoughts when he tweeted, “For my whole life Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, has always been there.” And now she isn’t. The second Elizabethan era is over.
The queen’s death Sept. 8 in Balmoral, Scotland, has been covered extensively by the media. Briefly, she was born in Mayfair, London, on April 21, 1926; married Philip, Duke of Edinburgh — her pillar of strength — on Nov. 20, 1947; became queen of the U.K. and other Commonwealth realms on Feb. 6, 1952, also head of the Church of England; was a working mother with four children including Charles; and owned a string of corgi dogs and racehorses through the years.
Such basic facts obscure the sweeping social and economic changes she saw in her reign, without revolution or revolt, from postwar austerity and the Swingin’ ’60s through to post-modern Britain, even as the sun set on the old British Empire. Soon the currency notes, coins and postage stamps bearing her likeness will be phased out and replaced.
Personal reflections? My first big memory was in relation to the death of Elizabeth’s father, King George VI, in 1952 while she was on a trip to Kenya, East Africa. I was in Mrs. Vidler’s class at Polegate Primary School, East Sussex, and you could hear the proverbial pin drop when we were told “the king is dead.” A dark February Wednesday morning became even darker. In our childhood grief, we had no idea nor cared that the queen’s first prime minister was Winston Churchill. She was only 25 when ascending the throne.
The coronation did not take place until June 2, 1953, but what a glorious affair it was with celebrations in every city, town and village. Some 20 million viewers were able to watch the glittering, expensive ceremony from Westminster Abbey live on television, with many households — including ours — buying their first TVs, in black and white.
As Jagger indicated, the queen was a constant, whether for the annual Christmas televised message that highlighted her strong Christian faith, the State Opening of Parliament, Trooping the Colour, the Royal Ascot and Epsom Derby horserace meetings, or various other occasions.
I saw her in person twice, both during my management spells at Midland Bank, Haywards Heath, West Sussex, in the 1970s and ‘80s. The first occasion was when she visited the neighboring headquarters of the Royal Commonwealth Society for the Blind. Imagine my surprise when I was walking to my car after work and, with nobody else around, she passed by me in the royal vehicle with no motorcade or security guards in sight. I swear she gave a little regal wave. The next time was when she presented prizes at the South of England Show in Ardingly, where the bank’s meet-and-greet pavilion gave us a ringside view. There was a majestic aura that seeped from her as she beguiled everybody at the agricultural showground — as she did elsewhere in a long lifetime of public service.
King Charles III
What of King Charles III, who represents continuity and has made a promising start to his reign. An often unfairly misunderstood man, he has been ahead of his time on environmental matters, wildlife preservation and climate change. His views on architecture were more controversial if personal. On a different level, his image was severely dented by the disastrous marriage to Diana, with whom he had William — now heir to the throne as Prince of Wales — and current-U.S. resident Harry. Charles married longtime flame Camilla Parker Bowles in 2005 and she is now queen consort. Time has gradually healed the British public’s disdain toward them both.
It is not widely appreciated that Charles founded the Prince’s Trust. For a while I was a trust business counselor in Ashford, Kent, and can attest to the value of the scheme for young entrepreneurs. Another factoid is that he has been patron of The Goon Show Preservation Society. The website noted, in the spirit of the groundbreaking 1950s comedy show, that “we would like to thank Prince Charles for agreeing to be our patron and look forward to the coming years with trembling socks.”
Britain now has a novice king and a novice prime minister, both unelected by the people at large. There are difficult days ahead for a country badly hit by the coronavirus pandemic, the self-induced Brexit debacle, inflation currently running at 10% with soaring energy costs due to the Russia-Ukraine war, rumblings on the Scottish independence front, possible Irish trade confrontation, threatened departures from the Commonwealth and, indeed, concern for the future direction of the monarchy itself.
Still, as President Joe Biden (D) and First Lady Jill Biden said in a statement, “Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II was more than a monarch. She defined an era.”
Thank you Queen Elizabeth II — and God save the king. The state funeral, combining solemnity with pageantry, will be held Monday, Sept. 19, at Westminster Abbey, London, at 11 a.m. (6 a.m. EST).
East Setauket resident John Broven is subeditor and proofreader in the TBR editorial department and has written three award-winning music history books. He recently edited and contributed to “New York City Blues” by Larry Simon. His three Brexit articles can be found online at tbrnewsmedia.com. With thanks to Mark Dunford, editor of National World, and the website www.sussexexpress.co.uk/heritage-and-retro/retro/nostalgia-3691487.
It was a “Battle of the Cats” on Saturday, Sept. 10, in the Division IV season opener between the Shoreham-Wading River Wildcats and the Miller Place Panthers.
On a keeper, SWR senior quarterback Dylan Zahn punched in on a short-yardage score to break the ice. With Sam Palmer’s extra point kick, the Wildcats took an early 7-0 lead with 3:16 left in the opening quarter.
Miller Place QB Michael Giugliano answered on the ensuing possession, jetting 65 yards downfield for the touchdown. Kicker Nicholas Oliva delivered the equalizer on the extra point attempt, tying the score at 7-7.
Michael Casey, the sophomore wide receiver for the Wildcats, grabbed a 21-yarder from Zahn for the score, putting the Wildcats ahead 14-7.
Miller Place’s senior in the backfield, Joell Spagnuolo, responded with a 43-yard TD run of his own. But after the missed extra point attempt, the Panthers trailed 14-13 with four minutes left in the half.
The Panthers’ tight end, Logan LaMountain, put his team out ahead. He caught a ball out over the middle of the field, picked up the necessary yards after the catch, and went the distance. Oliva’s foot tacked on the extra point, sending Miller Place into the locker room with a 20-14 lead at halftime.
The second half was a different story as the defensive units for both teams began to hold their ground firmly. Sophomore running back Will Hart did find the end zone for the Wildcats. Still, the Panthers blocked the point after attempt, keeping the game tied 20-20 with 11:29 left in regulation.
This game would be decided in the final minutes of play. After an impressive defensive stand by the Panthers, Palmer’s field goal gave the Wildcats a 23-20 lead with six minutes remaining.
Miller Place threatened when they marched down the field after three consecutive first downs. But the Wildcats forced a turnover in the final possession, intercepting a pass to secure the victory.
Aleida Perez during BNL's virtual teaching sessions this summer
By Daniel Dunaief
For well over two years, herd immunity, vaccination status, social distancing, masking and airborne particles became regular topics of conversation.
People have a range of understanding of these terms and how to apply them to understanding the fluid conditions that are an evolving part of the pandemic.
Aleida Perez
This summer, with funding from the National Science Foundation, a group of scientists and doctors from Brookhaven National Laboratory, Stony Brook University, New York University and MoMath, the National Museum of Mathematics, worked together with middle school and high school teachers around Long Island to prepare lesson plans on how to use and understand the application of statistics to the pandemic.
“It was a wildly successful summer,” said Dr. Sharon Nachman, Chief of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Stony Brook Children’s Hospital. “We spent hours and hours of time” working with teachers who developed lessons that addressed a host of issues related to COVID-19.
It was “an amazing experience” and the teachers “were the best part,” said Dr. Nachman.
Allen Mincer, Professor of Physics at New York University, has been working on and off with BNL for over two decades on various educational programs. He has been more actively engaged in the last four years.
As he and his collaborators were discussing possible educational outreach topics, they focused on the disruptive disease that changed the world over the last few years.
“This year, we were talking about it and, instead of doing random applications of statistics, we figured, why not do something that’s very practical in everyone’s mind,” Mincer said.
The projects and discussions, which were all conducted virtually, centered on numerous misconceptions people have about the pandemic. Teachers focused on questions including: what is the “efficiency” of a vaccine and how is it determined, what does a positive virus test result mean, if I am vaccinated, why do I care if others are, why take a vaccine when there are side effects, and I have to go to school and mix with people, so why shouldn’t I also let down my guard in other ways, among others.
“The challenges that this virus brings concerning topics like herd immunity was very interesting,” said Scott Bronson, manager of outreach to K-12 teachers and student for BNL’s Office of Educational Programs.
Scott Bronson during the BNL virtual teaching sessions this summer.
For teachers and their students, the realities of the pandemic were the backdrop against which these teachers were seeking to provide guidance. “It was happening live,” said Bronson. “What is herd immunity? That’s where the work of [Dr. Nachman and Mincer] came together beautifully.”
Bronson added that students will have a chance to explore the kinds of questions pharmaceutical companies are addressing, such as “What would you want the next vaccine to do” and “What would you do to make the vaccine better at preventing infection.”
The organizers put together teams of three to four high school and middle school teachers who created statistics lessons plans for the group.
“The way we worked it out, we put teachers in groups,” said Aleida Perez, supervisor of student research and citizen science programs for Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Office of Educational Programs. “We wanted to have different teachers with different courses and different perspectives on how to do things.”
One of the overarching goals was to help students understand such lessons as what it means to have a negative result on a virus test or what it meant when scientists and pharmaceutical companies described a vaccine’s efficacy.
The teachers explored the probability of side effects like myocarditis and whether the “benefit outweighs the risk of taking the vaccine,” Perez said.
For many of the teachers, the discussion expanded beyond COVID to an analysis of any infectious agent. Indeed, one of the groups of teachers described a zombie apocalypse.
The teachers provided a “nice overview to look at the education of public students,” said Perez.
The group hopes to make these lessons available for other teachers, although they haven’t determined where or how to post them.
The scientific team also hasn’t determined yet how to measure the long term impact or effectiveness of these lessons.
ATLAS project
As a part of the team involved in the ATLAS physics program at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland, Mincer uses statistics to design, test and implement the tools to pick and choose from numerous reactions and then to study the data collected.
“We actually keep about a billion events out of the 100 trillion or so interactions the LHC produces in a year,” Mincer explained.
In previous years, Mincer has taught about statistics in general and its use in ATLAS. This year, he focused on statistics and its application to pandemic questions.
Several years ago, Mincer taught a freshman seminar called “Great science, fabulous science and voodoo science,” in which he described what students could learn from statistics, how the media covers science, science and government policy and how lawyers use science in the courtroom.
“After explaining statistics [and sharing] why we can only say we have evidence down to this level, I had a student tell me he’s dropping out of science as a major because he wanted certainty and I disillusioned him,” Mincer said.
As for the work with the high school teachers, Mincer said it was “great what they have been able to do” in preparing lessons for their students and sharing information about statistics.
Mincer has received some additional funds from the NSF to support two more such educational outreach programs, one of which will tentatively cover climate change.
“Statistics can be used to quantify the likelihood of events in the absence of climate change,” he explained.
Statistics provide a tool to document subtle but potentially significant changes in climate.
While Bronson wouldn’t commit to a discussion of climate change for the next group of teachers, he said he “wouldn’t be surprised if we look at climate change” and that “there’s a lot of interesting areas to explore in this field.”
Above: The three Democratic appointees to the Brookhaven Redistricting Committee during an unofficial public hearing on Friday, Aug. 5. (Left to right) George Hoffman, Rabia Aziz and Gail Lynch-Bailey. File photo
The Brookhaven Redistricting Committee is nearing its Sept. 15 deadline, and the eight-member commission is in shambles. With less than a week to go, it seems probable that the committee will not meet the six-vote threshold necessary to adopt an official map for the Town Council. The following is an open letter sent on behalf of the three Democratic appointees on the committee, addressed to their fellow commissioners:
Dear Co-Chairman Ali Nazir and Commissioners,
We, the members of the Democratic caucus of the Town of Brookhaven Redistricting Commission, renew our request for our next meeting to take the form of an in-person public hearing, to be held at Town Hall on Monday, Sept. 12, at 6 p.m.
We also request that our co-chairs work out in advance of the meeting an agreed-upon agenda that indicates the issues to be discussed at the meeting, which includes a discussion on both maps that are currently before the commission: Prop2A13 and TMOLC.
If there is a possibility that maps may be voted on at that meeting, it should also be included on the agenda.
We ask that the mapmaker [David Schaefer] join us, virtually if that is his only recourse, to review the maps and add data similar to that which accompanied the initial two proposals.
The Town Code establishing reapportionment criteria sets no number of public hearings. Thus far, we have held six hearings on zero maps and six hearings on two unrequested maps.
The concept of having zero public hearings on the three maps we actually requested is anathema to us.
This Sunday, Sept. 11, marks 21 years since of one of the darkest episodes in U.S. history. Pixabay photo
“You can be sure that the American spirit will prevail over this tragedy.”— Colin Powell
Those were the words of the former U.S. secretary of state who passed away last year. As a prominent military and political figure, Powell understood the terrible impact that the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, would have on the nation.
Though the 9/11 attacks were 21 years ago, the American public was and remains forever changed. Yet Powell was confident that America could overcome this tragedy.
This year marks the first time that the U.S. has not had a major military force in Afghanistan since the weeks after 9/11. A year ago, President Joe Biden (D) ordered the final withdrawal of soldiers from this war-torn nation. After the withdrawal, Afghanistan was quickly overrun by the Taliban.
The long-term fighting in Afghanistan contributed to the increase in post-traumatic stress disorder among American servicemen with many other soldiers who were severely wounded fighting in this conflict. For almost two decades, Americans tied yellow ribbons around their trees and kept stars in their windows to represent the military service of their loved ones who served in Afghanistan.
On May 1, 2011, Americans learned during a New York Mets game against the Philadelphia Phillies that Osama bin Laden was finally killed. Flying from military bases in Afghanistan, members of SEAL Team 6 were transported by helicopters to Abbottabad, Pakistan, where they cornered bin Laden in his compound. Chants of “USA” were heard throughout Shea Stadium once baseball fans learned of the death of this al-Qaida leader. The demise of the coordinator of the terrorist plot on 9/11 provided a sense of justice to the victims on that day and their families.
Despite ongoing political polarization domestically, many can still recall the moments of national solidarity in the wake of the attacks. After 9/11, citizens put their political differences aside for the good of the nation, just as they had done after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Americans in 2001 rallied around the importance of helping local rescue workers and first responders who worked around the clock in Lower Manhattan.
New Yorkers lined the streets with American flags and handed out food and water to the police officers, firefighters, demolition workers and medical personnel who heroically sifted through the debris at Ground Zero. A plume of smoke hung in the air, blocking visibility of downtown Manhattan. Yet within this cloud, rescue workers operated 24/7.
At Shea Stadium, the New York Mets organized supplies that were sent to the rescue workers. Prominent members of the New York Yankees — Derek Jeter, Bernie Williams and Tino Martinez — visited firehouses near the World Trade Center and thanked these public servants for their efforts. Both the New York Giants and Jets invited military and rescue workers to spread flags across their football fields. With tears in their eyes, football fans nationwide watched fighter planes soar through the skies above the stadiums. Rival fans who rooted against New York teams wore “NY” on their hats, showing support for the residents of the City.
Here on Long Island, locals need not look far to see patriotism that stirred from that day of infamy. Countless memorials depict the importance of this date. Pieces of steel that were collected by the NY/NJ Port Authority was given to towns across Brookhaven and Suffolk County that were placed at post offices, schools, libraries, and police and fire stations.
This past spring, the Rocky Point VFW organized the first annual 5K race to support War on Terror veterans as they work to better handle post-traumatic stress disorder.
And so 21 years ago, politics was put aside for the good of the nation. Americans from every corner of this country sent rescue, salvage and fire crews to help the search, and later recovery efforts at Ground Zero.
In a moment of profound despair, our nation came together. Through shared tragedy, people from diverse economic, social and ethnic backgrounds illustrated the meaning of national unity.
America today is a deeply divided nation. In the face of unlikely odds, the American people should never doubt their power to resolve their differences and overcome adversity.
Rich Acritelli is a history teacher at Rocky Point High School and adjunct professor at Suffolk County Community College.
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