An Uncomfortable 9/11 Topic That Needs Words

More than the subsequent wars stemming from it, no part of September 11, 2001 produces intense emotion than a discussion of the people who fell out the burning towers of the World Trade Center. These victims are commonly called jumpers but are called that, akin to the term 9/11 as opposed to the longer and more powerful September 11, a simpler term rather than to truly describe the magnitude and multitude of what happened.

The strong emotions revolve around definitions of what to call the victims as well and their manner of death, as well as what constitutes proper taste in media.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Report on the World Trade Center Disaster Investigation combined with other sources document that at least 100, and more likely closer to 200 people fell out of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center; most from the North Tower and it started within just a few minutes of the first plane hitting the building.

Perhaps first and foremost, no one of the victims was classified as a suicide by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of the City of New York (OCME) but as a homicide. The victims faced a literal hell on earth, with temperatures easily over 1,000 degrees and approaching 2,000 degrees. A hot oven is generally 350 degrees to 450 degrees for cooking.  

While the identity of none of these jumpers has yet to be 100% proven (there are people who believe they see their loved one in some photos), victims’ families have often been supportive of the idea that there was not a choice for their loved one.  Some victims literally ran out of the building darkness toward light, some accidentally fell out through thick smoke, a few were accidentally pushed out and many if not most could not take the smoke or heat. 

Families faced religious dilemmas regarding suicide when considering this subject, especially among recent immigrant families who were largely Catholic. The ruling of the OCME, as well as understanding the circumstances the victims faced, did help soothe the religious dilemmas some families faced.

However, there are some family members who take a nearly opposite approach. While it can be said with near certainty that none of the WTC victims, when leaving their home, planned to kill themselves, the idea that their loved one chose how or when they were going to die, as opposed to enduring the suffering inflicted by the terrorists, has been comforting to some victim families.  

Some wanted their loved one not to suffer any longer until the Towers collapsed and hoped they died a quicker death. Some wanted their loved ones to have been the person who chose one last defiant act. One man literally used rock climbing techniques to lower himself down 150 feet down the side of the Tower before accidentally falling from the North Tower, likely while the South Tower collapsed. Another man lowered himself one floor with a rope before slipping and falling. Some tried to make parachutes out of tablecloths or curtains.  The desire to honor the duty to live was something each victim had.

Witnesses recount one woman who blessed herself before stepping out of the building.  One woman was reported to cover her skirt before leaping out.  Some jumped holding hands.  Some jumped in pairs.  

One disturbing video shows up to nine people falling within six seconds of each other from the same location. Were they pushed out by fire, smoke, a collapsing floor, or did they make the conscious decision to jump, perhaps gaining more courage to do so seeing their office mates do the same before or simultaneously?  At least one of them fell very far away from the building in what almost had to have been a leap.

We may never know, and perhaps that is the way that it’s supposed to be, as Charles Ives conducted, The Unanswered Question.

And what should be shown as we approach the 25th Anniversary of the attack?  Their deaths were the most public, literally seen by perhaps billions, yet quickly erased from media.

Pictures of the most famous jumper, dubbed The Falling Man, has re-entered the public memory after the image was suppressed for a time.  Still, very few traditional media outlets have run the photo after printing it once in September 2001.

Footage of the victims forced out of the building will face an even greater dilemma.

There are things all freedom loving people can agree on.  It was horrific.  The victims did not deserve this.  And none of these victims is degraded or damned by the manner in which they died.

They were scared to death. They were heroic. They were killed because they were practicing economic freedom. They were killed simply because they went to work.  Maybe it is all of these things.  In America we have the freedom to look away but also look at these things as well as talk about them.

History shows it is better not look away, whether it be the Holocaust or September 11.  I remember the sentiment of one September 11 family member who told me, the footage should be shown daily as a reminder of the Islamic terrorist attack.  Maybe not daily, but not self-censored either as it has been since September 2001.

We owe it to the victims to remember them fully, by the manner in which they lived and that includes the circumstances in which they died in front of the whole world.

Mayor Giuliani told us when speaking of September 11, “If you censor it too much….you rob people of the ability to actually relive it and therefore motivate them to prevent it from happening in the future.”

We look at them as we did 25 years ago. We mourn for them. We draw strength from them.  We remember them…forever.

Larry Provost worked the search and rescue with the U.S. Army at the World Trade Center. He later served in Afghanistan and Iraq. Views expressed are his and not those of any government agency.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.