A WORLD OF ASH


Every so often there's a book that makes you do something stupid, like read it straight through until 4:30 in the morning. I've just finished doing that with Cormac McCarthy's The Road, the winner of the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Literature. I decided to read it because I had decided to see the movie (opening last week, starring Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee). And, having read Rick Groen's review in the Globe and Mail, I decided that I'd prefer to take the "Biblical cadences" with me into the theatre if they weren't going to be there from the screen.

I'll admit it -- I'm a fan of the Viggo, and have watched not a few weak movies based on his strong appearance in them. He came to my attention, of course, as Lord Aragorn in Lord of the Rings, though I realized at the time how unexpectedly he had previously commanded my attention in Witness, in which he had no lines! -- as well as other films in which he had floated memorably at the margins: Carlito's Way, Crimson Tide.

I skipped seeing what turned out to be his first Oscar-nominated role (who knew? I wasn't paying any attention) in Eastern Promises, because it was another work by the icky-creepy David Cronenberg, who did everything in his ghoul's bag'o'tricks to undermine both the good acting and the strands of significance in his earlier History of Violence. [I waxed eloquent, voluminous, and theological on what that film could have been about in more adept hands, here.] I'll probably break down and rent Eastern Promises, now that I know it was Oscar meat.

I've read one review of The Road which makes the correct point that the most dominant image in the book is that of the ubiquitous presence of ash. And the film is criticized, at its most basic, for failing to work with that image -- for an inexplicable paucity of ash.

If that's the case, I'm disappointed already, because while reading the book I couldn't shake that image -- an image burned into the consciousness of anyone who was watching the news on a September morning about eight years ago.


In McCarthy's book, the particular apocalyptic event which is catalyst to the narrative is not described, so the reader can't be sure whether it was a natural or (as the current Secretary of Homeland Security likes to call them) a man-made disaster. The few trickles of backstory McCarthy allows lean towards an indication that some sort of nuclear-weapon event is the likely cause, but the ambiguity permits one to concentrate on the more weighty themes of familial love, hope, endurance, and grace, rather than on geo-political questions and their partisan implications. This is entirely to the good.

It is to be hoped that the Viggo, famous for his noodle-headed pronouncements about the political implications of Lord of the Rings, will keep to himself any cause-and-effect relationships he might see between the story of The Road and the Evil Bush/Cheney Conspiracy, which is still getting under his skin even as his retires his 'Kucinich for President' bumper sticker.

For if there is any parallel which suggests itself, it has to be that vision of the world of ash which was created in 2001, across a limited number of city blocks, where fires raged for just 100 days, but which opened a wound that has yet to heal.

If we have reason to fear that the global firestorm and the world of ash will some day cover a wider horizon than one corner of Manhattan, it will not be because there was a show of 'cowboy' strength under a war-mongering Bush administration, but because there has been a dumbfounding roll-out of deliberate postures of weakness, hopping from one nation to another, on the part of the Obama government.
































I find it impossible, for even a moment, to contemplate a world of ash without thinking of Manhattan on September 11, and Beirut before, and London, Madrid, Mumbai, and Bali since, wondering where the ashes will fall next. Still, that is a political scenario grounded in pragmatism rather than grace, and it should take a backseat when considering the virtues of The Road, on film and on the page.


Having gotten all this off my chest, I will look forward to watching the film in the penitential spirit of Advent, which is now upon us.

Not a 'feel-good holiday movie hit', to be sure, but then the holidays are not yet upon us -- so I'm making it an Advent project, remembering that the definition of the Holy Spirit is the Love between the Father and the Son, and therein hangs the tale.



IN WHAT SEEMS LIKE A MINOR FOOTNOTE...

The President has laid out his new, new Afghan strategy in an evening speech, using the cadets of West Point as his wallpaper.

Let's review the chronology:

--March 27, 2009 -- Obama announces his "new comprehensive strategy" for Afghanistan and Pakistan [based, we now know, on the Bush administrations complete review of the situation undertaken in 2008 and kept classified, at the request of the incoming Obama administration]

--May 2009 -- Obama appoints Gen. Stanley McChrystal to replace Gen. David McKiernan as commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, less than a year into the latter's term of command.

--August 2009 -- Gen. McChrystal submits a 66-page report to Sec-Def Gates requesting 40,000 more troops, but the request is held back from being officially submitted to the President in order to allow him more time to tread water before dog-paddling in a discernibly forward direction.

--September 2009 -- Gen. McChrystal is finally permitted to make his request for 40,000 additional troops, with the scuttlebutt saying that he will resign if denied the necessary resources.

--December 1 2009 -- Obama lectures the West Point cadets, and the nation, about his plans to send 75% of the troops their general requested, to do all the do-gooder stuff they can accomplish, and to haul them out in 18 months.

Despite his passionless pedantry, Obama is cheered and given an enthusiastic reception by the cadets in the front [who proffered lots of hands for shaking and took lots of pictures -- made me wonder whether the advance men had once again handed out cameras and asked all the Obama supporters to move to the front, as they did in Iraq -- I'm actually okay with that because the 25-30% of the military who vote Democrat would sincerely like to be up there, and nobody's asking the other 70% who voted for McCain to be insincere].

Meanwhile back at the ranch, MSNBC's resident loon Chris Matthews suggests that by going to West Point [in what was a naked exploitation of the cadets for photo-op purposes], Mr. Obama may have been entering "the enemy camp". Retch. Wretch.

I listened to tonight's speech, something I have avoided as often as not over the past year. I detected an attempt on the President's part to seem serious and determined and possibly even leader-like as he stood before uniformed men and women whose outlook on the world he does not understand in even the most miniscule respect. He said words about enemies, and attacks, and national security. But they had a hollow ring. It was an unconvincing performance, principally because it was a performance -- there is nothing about military campaigns, or the "passion of command" , or the scent of victory [rather than "successful conclusions" or "responsible ends"], or the delicate balance of power in a dangerous world that he truly understands in a way that goes down deep in the recesses of the soul, where it needs to reside if you're going to even dare to take your stab at something like a "St. Crispin's Day" speech.

No such speech was given this night. Nor shall be, I suspect, in months to come. It is for the citizenry, then, to make up this lack, and cheer on those who choose to set their feet upon the field of battle for our sake. I think we're up to the job. Here are some helpful hints:



And just to remind the Viggo about that film, the point of which he was so determined to miss:



Now I retire, as a two-day Newfoundland gale continues to hammer the walls and windows, and drive the sump-pump like a galley-slave. The lights keep flickering and threatening to go out. The phone's been in and out of service all day. Just another blustery day on the Rock.

And another late night into early morning. Another day tomorrow for staving off a world of ash.


IRRESISTIBLE UPDATE:

Stephen Green at Vodkapundit drunkblogs the President's speech. Everybody take a shot. Money quotes:

5:08PM “Troop levels remain a fraction” what they were in Iraq. True enough. 7/10ths is a fraction.

5:12PM “As commander-in-chief…” he’s decided to send an additional 30,000 troops for 30 months. That’s not a strategic decision. That’s a new-car warranty.

5:14PM “I’ve seen first hand the terrible wages of war.” It was at a late night photo op here in the US, where nine of ten military families said “no thanks” to the photo op. But still… Bambi is young. And being President is HARD.

5:15PM “We must increase the pressure on al Qaeda.” I’m still not convinced that we can’t do that by firing craploads of Hellfire missiles into Pakistan’s NWFT. But that’s just me.

5:18PM “July of 2011.” Congrats, AQ. Keep your head down until then, and you’ll do fine. Again, these are not strategic decisions the President has made after ten months of review. This is kicking the can further down the road, but with a slightly bigger boot.

5:42PM Bad writing. Lame delivery. Tepid response — from cadets ORDERED to be nice. And a strategic vision equal parts High School Essay Content and low-rent public relations.

I hope you had as much to drink as I did.

No, Stephen, but I get the point. Boo-yah. Ooh-rah.

OBAMA PONTIFICATE, DAY 9:

HOW'S MY DRIVING?

Well, let's see -- we've got a tax-cheat running Treasury, one Chicago croney refused entry into Canada for his criminal record, another cog in the Chicago machine kicked out of the Governor's mansion for trying sell the former senator's seat, a couple of other croneys set to be called as witnesses in the guberatorial criminal prosecution, an FALN-terrorist-booster heading for Attorney General, a defense contractor lobbyist hired in a supposedly lobbyist-free zone, a woman who called Hillary Clinton a "monster" now working under her at State, a headlong rush into Islamofascist hobnobbing via Al-Arabiya TV and overtures to Madmood (The-only-good-Jew-is-a-dead-Jew) Ahmadinnerjacket, and a colossal Ugly Betty glob o' pork fat laughably referred to as a Stimulus Package that lumbered through the House without even being able to get all the Democrats behind it.


Having gotten 'the new era of bipartisanship' off to a good start by failing to see that Republicans had any input whatsoever on the economic recovery legislation, and then 'splaining it to them by spurting out 'I won!' in a meeting, the new Communicator-in-Chief thought it would be a good move to attack by name yet another private citizen employed in the media, exchanging his fixation on Fox's Sean Hannity for the chance to take public pot-shots at the far more intelligent, clever, and influential Rush Limbaugh -- thereby setting himself up for a much more difficult job of sleazing the Fairness Doctrine (by any other name) past the American people without a huge ugly fight.

And then there's the I'm-too-COOL-to-wear-a-suit-to-work portrait of the president at work in an Oval Office heated up like a sauna, when he's been preaching to the rest of us to turn the thermostat down, even as he has teased Washingtonians for being wimps in the face of a little ice -- trying simultaneously to be imaged as a rugged Chicagoan and a Hawaiian hot-house flower all within about 48 hours.

Not to mention the 9/11 widows & families who are offended by his intention (it doesn't deserve to be called a 'plan') to close Gitmo, the military families who are cheesed that he's the first president in the history of the Medal of Honor Inaugural Ball to blow it off in favor of ten other more important events, and all of us who wanted to smack him for the ungenerous and falacious characterizations of what's been going on the past eight years, as recounted in his mooshy mess of an inaugural address.

ARE WE HAVING FUN YET?

Honest to God, in my worst imaginings of the unpreparedness of Barack Obambi for the position of Chief Executive, I never dreamed he could prove himself such a rank amateur in less than two weeks. I wish I could even enjoy it a little, but anyone with a half-decent survival instinct wouldn't be so foolish as to do that.

DON'T KNOW MUCH ABOUT...DA-DEE-DAH

If there's one thing Mr. Obama proved about himself during the Long March to the White House, it was that, despite his prep school and high-falutin' college eddication, he is, um, as 'history challenged' as just about any kid stumbling out of an American high school these days.

So is it any surprise that the guy who thought that the Kennedy/Khruschev summit debacle of 1961 was a model of international relations outreach, and who didn't seem to know who the enemy was at Yalta or Potsdam, now thinks it a good idea to return to that 'respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago' ?

Now let's get more specific, Mr. President -- was that 30 years ago when we were cozy with the Shah of Iran (until we stepped aside to let him get overthrown), or was that 20 years ago, when some of us remember this:

YEAH, 'BAMA'S GONNA PARTY
LIKE IT'S 1989!!!!
















The formidable Max Boot puts the boot to this clap-trap and gives the cliff-notes to those decades of history, vis-a-vis our partnership with those who were torturing Marine Col. William Higgins to death, issuing fatwas against the life of Salman Rushdie, hanging Ali Bhutto, and nurturing the seed of the Taliban. Ah, yes....


THOSE WERE THE DAYS, MY FRIEND
WE THOUGHT THEY'D NEVER END

(441, 442, 443.......).






[Who was the unmasked man?]
















AND WE ALL KNOW HOW WELL IT ALL TURNED OUT:


President Jimmah Carter -- wasn't he just
the pea-nuttiest?!!!


(442, 443, 444-------------and, POW!)


To think I actually felt kinda sorry for that schmuck, Carter, when the split-screen tv showed his final limo ride on Reagan's inauguration day on one side, and the hostages coming home on the other. The bad guys didn't score quite that big again until September 11.

Well, we can't look for a knight on a white horse to come riding out of the west to save us this time -- but at least there are signs of hope (in the genuine, non-bumper-sticker sense):

Recently retrieved from the Lost and Found Dept.: 177 pairs of Republican GONADS, returned to the U.S. House of Representatives.

GET OUT YOUR SHOVELS --
MAJOR TOPSOIL
COMIN' YOUR WAY!!

Remember where you heard it first:
The Sarah Palin Phenomenon is Doomed

Why?

The primary reason why the Palin bubble will burst is that the media will decide that they are bored with her...

The interview with Gibson may be remembered as the first brick being pulled out of the wall. The reviews weren't favorable from the media in the segments when Gibson asked Palin questions about foreign policy...

Gibson, as dignified a newsperson as America has now*, treated Palin fairly and didn't resort to hectoring her with "gotcha" questions, either...

The media aren't the bad guys in the Palin discussion.

Jon Friedman of CBS News says so. So there.

* [sad, but true -- ed. -- all emphases mine]


FINALLY

...light is beginning to be shed upon Barack Obambi's 'Lost Years' of post-law school employment and community organza period. It seems that before he heard the Divine Summons to Chicago's south side, The Chosen One had a hard time getting chosen for employment upon graduating from Columbia. For this we have his own words in the first of his two epic autobiographies, Dreams From My Father.

True enough, we suppose. But a couple of people who worked with him in his early, pre-non-profit days, say his own account of this period of his life, ahem, departs somewhat from the facts as they remember them.
[hat-tip: Sweetness & Light] Read the whole thing and enjoy.

DAVID FREDDOSO has been dropping bits-n-bytes from his new book, The Case Against Obama, about those much-touted 'Daley years'. Bring it on.

John Maki at Windy Citizen reports from deep within Chicago's communities and sets some records straight about what those community organgrinder people (himself included) DO, when they do whatever it is they do.

I can't lie awake too many nights wondering how Barry Obambi misspent his youth. But I do worry about what kind of back-room sell-out he may have been working on with the leadership of Iraq. At the New York Post, Amir Taheri spills the beans on Obama's attempt to play liar's poker with the future of Iraq and with the welfare of American military personnel in order to have the resolution of Iraq's democratic future take place on the watch of the next president (that would be Barry). Check it out.

The Obambi campaign has issued something like a denial, which doesn't in fact deny much of anything about this appalling account. Say again?



NOW ABOUT THAT WALL STREET MELTDOWN:
YOUR PRIMER ON HOW WE GOT HERE

(1) WHAT'S WITH THIS WOMAN AND HER WALLS?


When disaster strikes, up in the skies or down on the streets of New York City, why do we keep finding the fingerprints of this woman, former Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, all over the mess? A few interesting summaries here, and here.




The Clinton Administration: continuing to make memories all Americans will treasure.


(2) EARLY WARNING SYSTEM -- New York Times, September 11, 2003

"New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae"

The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.

The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.

Read it all here.


(3) AND THEN WHAT HAPPENED?

Investors Business Daily tells the Rest of the Story:

Tough new regulations forced lenders into high-risk areas where they had no choice but to lower lending standards to make the loans that sound business practices had previously guarded against making. It was either that or face stiff government penalties.

The untold story in this whole national crisis is that President Clinton put on steroids the Community Redevelopment Act, a well-intended Carter-era law designed to encourage minority homeownership. And in so doing, he helped create the market for the risky subprime loans that he and Democrats now decry as not only greedy but "predatory."

(4) WAS NO ONE WATCHING?

Well, yes. The senior Senator from Arizona.

Congressional Record, May 25, 2006:

For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac--known as Government-sponsored entities or GSEs--and the sheer magnitude of these companies and the role they play in the housing market. OFHEO's report this week does nothing to ease these concerns. In fact, the report does quite the contrary. OFHEO's report solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay.

I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.

(5) AND HOW DID THIS END?

S. 190 [109th]: Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005

Last Action: Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. Ordered to be reported with an amendment in the nature of a substitute favorably.

Status: Dead (emphasis MINE)

It never made it out of committee. Chris Dodd, then the ranking member of the Banking Committee and now its chair, was in the middle of receiving preferential loan treatment from Countrywide Mortgage, one of the companies gaming the system in the credit crisis. Meanwhile, Barack Obama took hundreds of thousands of dollars from the lobbyists McCain mentions in this speech, making him the #2 recipient of Fannie/Freddie money. "Obama in just four years in the Senate raked more contributions from Fannie and Freddie than any other Senator in the last 19 years." [h/t NRO, Mark Hemingway at the Corner.

If you're not so much into reading, watch the exciting climax of this epic drama here:




Makes you kinda go, "Hm-m-m-m."

Just wish this particular Arizona Senator would speak up about what he saw and what he tried to do. Have you forgotten, Johnny Mac? Don't fuel those rumours about senility, PLEEEEZE!.

STILL STANDING


The Marine Corps flag hangs straight and still, in the corner of a Pentagon office blown open by the deliberate crash of Flight 77, September 11, 2001.







We mourn and remember:

Ken Basnicki
David Barkway
Jack Charles Aron

and

Rick Rescorla

and the 2996.


And we celebrate
and pray for
the living --
those who were left behind,
those who survived,
those who protected,
repaired, nursed,
sheltered, rebuilt.

And those who fought, died fighting, still fight, will fight,
and who will, in the end, be the best of our peacemakers.

Let us give [vote] them leadership worthy of their sacrifice.
























[Three photos above by Michael Yon]

IN THE HOMELAND:




SIX YEARS
"CANCER FREE"

REMEMBER TODAY JACK CHARLES ARON and the 2996.

REMEMBER TODAY PRIVATE KRISTIAN MENCHACA AND PRIVATE THOMAS TUCKER AND THE 3,742.

REMEMBER THE 70,000 (numbers elastic)



AND REMEMBER THAT THE CANCER
HAS METASTASIZED ELSEWHERE:

MADRID


LONDON

BALI


and every single day in
THAILAND

[Link takes you to Little Green Footballs site-- link from there to Zombietime page, to EXTREMELY GRAPHIC PHOTOS -- RATED "R" FOR REVOLTING, RAGE-INDUCING, AND REAL]


AND REMEMBER THAT THE DEFINITION OF THE ENEMY HAS METASTASIZED TOO:

September 13, 2001

Please contact me at ***@hotmail.com if you have any knowledge of the whereabouts of my husband, Jack Aron, who works for Marsh and was on the 95th floor of 1 WTC. My 11 year old son & I love him dearly and are so worried. Please let us all pray for him and all the other victims.
[St. Petersburg Times – Electronic cries of desperation]

September 14, 2001

Marsh USA
Status: Of the 1700 employees who worked at the WTC and the 50 to 100 visitors scheduled to be there Tuesday, 1400 are safe as of Sept 14th.
[www.WorldTradeAftermath.com – company contacts page]

September 19, 2001

MISSING: Jack Aron

Jack Aron, 52, of New Jersey, worked for Marsh & McLennan on the 95th floor of Tower One. His family includes a wife and one child. He is described as five-seven and 140 pounds, of Caucasian descent with black hair, dark brown eyes, and a mustache. He is wearing a gold wedding band.
[Village Voice – For Whom the Bell Tolls, Part II]

September 20, 2001

Nine days after the most devastating terrorist attack against the United States in history, the known death toll of victims continues to rise. New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said there are 233 confirmed fatalities, and 170 have been identified. Those identified included 37 policemen, 35 firefighters and two emergency medical technicians. He said the number of people missing is 5,422.
[list of fatalities does not include Jack Charles Aron]
[FOX NEWS -- Terrorist Attack Victims]

November 9, 2001

By the latest official count, 600 people are now confirmed dead at the World Trade Center. 3,770 remain missing. Including the Pentagon attack and the United Airlines flight that crashed in Pennsylvania, the dead and missing number 4,603.
PBS -- The News Hour with Jim Lehrer]

+ + + + +

Jack Charles Aron, 52, Bergenfield, N.J., information technology, Marsh & McLennan Cos. Inc. confirmed dead, World Trade Center, in or at building.
[www.september11victims.com]

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

I had forgotten.

I thought I would never forget a thing about that day. But in the years that have followed— through grief and anger and pride and fear; through shock and awe, through aggression and paralysis; through “jaw-jaw” and “war-war” (as Churchill understood them); through memorials and monuments, and up and down the endless list of names— I had forgotten that in those first hours and days, growing into weeks, of numbed confusion, the missing were not yet presumed dead. The search had not yet been called off. There was still faith and hope that the nightmare might yet end in joy.

Eventually reality clobbered all of us. It was a reality so mammoth one could hardly imagine ever being able to forget or suppress a particle of it. But the evidence argues the contrary: too many people, throughout many nations, even those who have been victimized by subsequent attacks, have permitted themselves a comfortable amnesia that leaves them carping or sneering or puzzling as to what all the fuss is about. The 2996 Tribute Project has been initiated to remind all who have eyes to see and ears to hear of the precise measure of that terrible day’s loss.

Upon hearing about the 2996 Project, it was my first hope to be able to write a tribute to one of the two victims whose families I have been privileged to meet. I didn’t lose anyone that I knew personally that day. But one of my son’s classmates lost a father. Within a week of the attack I attended the memorial Mass for Ken Basnicki at the school, and within the year I met his family, as well as that of WTC victim David Barkway, at the American Consulate 4th of July gathering in Toronto, held to express the shared grief and to celebrate the long (albeit sometimes abrasive) relationship between our two nations. I figured I would do my best work if I could write about someone whose story I had already been following closely, and with whom I had even a tangential personal connection.

But the 2996 list showed that both those names had already been covered. So in registering for the project I was assigned the subject of my tribute essay—a stranger. I was invited to meet Jack Charles Aron.

These days most everybody knows where you go to find out about a stranger. Punch his name into an internet search engine and his story starts to unfold. Google a September 11 victim and peculiar things can turn up. I found Jack Aron at the somewhat ghoulishly-named “findagrave.com”. A page of Arons listed burial sites like Riverside Cemetery, Arlington National, Holy Family, Odd Fellows, Greenoaks, and Arab Memorial Cemetery. A Private 1st Class Edward Aron has lain in the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery in France since 1918. Private Jerome Aron was buried at Luxembourg American Cemetery in 1945. But when you “find a grave” for Jack Charles Aron in 2001, it’s not like the others: his burial place is listed as the World Trade Center.

Most sites turned up in a September 11 name-search are simply lists of all the victims’ names. Countless people feel the need to express themselves about that day, and put all their creativity into sites with complex and impressive graphics. Then they search for words, and for most of them the only words that speak the awful truth are the names. List them single file, build a wall with them, no matter how you set them out, the sheer size of the list— the amount of space taken up by those thousands of words— never fails to take one's breath away.

A more painful variation is to open the way for every one of those listed names to blossom into a story, inviting contributions from anyone who has a memory, a tale, or a good word to say about each individual. What’s wonderful about these “guestbook” websites is that they are obviously visited not just by the circle of friends who mourn the particular victim, but by strangers who stroll by, stop and read, and are moved by what they learn about someone they have never met.

I found four guestbook sites paying tribute to Jack Aron. Between October 2001 and August 2006, thirty among the hundreds of visitors to these sites left messages. One man who worked with Jack in the 1970’s, and had seen him only intermittently since then, left tributes on all four guestbooks over the course of four years. This colleague, Bill, always gave the basic details of their friendship, but he took the trouble to compose something a little bit different for each entry, even the two written on the same day in 2004. It was Bill who could not say often enough that Jack Aron was the mildest, sweetest, gentlest man you could ever meet. He also called Jack a mensch. But, most tellingly, Bill described Jack Aron as “the antithesis of those that caused his death.”

Of the thirty messengers, twelve were Jack’s friends, co-workers, neighbors, and childhood schoolmates. The other eighteen didn’t know him at all. Some shared his hometown; one went to the high school that was his town’s fiercest rival; one Israeli man felt a connection because they shared two names—“Aron” and “Charles”. But most were just moved to comment on the picture, drawn in words as well as images, of an ordinary guy who inspired some extraordinary feelings.

Jack Charles Aron was a physically slight man, as the distress message above describes him (5’7”, 140 lbs.), and as his friends remember him: diminutive, angelic, with beautiful, large brown eyes.

One of the richest qualities of these dozen friends’ memories is that they speak of several different phases in one man’s life. The school friends remember sports teams, dances, first drinks, broken hearts, their generation’s music (Jack introduced them to the Beatles, had the best stereo, sported long hair, and went to Woodstock). One recalled that behind Jack’s dry humor and hip tastes was his deeply troubled childhood as the son of Holocaust survivors—a background he seems to have weathered better than other family members, for some friends remember Jack as an up-and-coming young businessman burdened with the care of his older brother, who had fallen prey to substance abuse.

Co-workers remember Jack Aron as an exacting manager with high standards, and a stickler for detail. But he was equally a fun and friendly presence at his office, and he seems to have left one predominant impression with everyone he worked with at a series of firms: that marriage and fatherhood (which came to him somewhat late in life) were his greatest source of happiness. He talked endlessly of his son Timmy, only 11 when Jack died at age 52. Jack earned his “great dad” designation by coaching his son at baseball and basketball. After he died, Timmy told his teammates he would never play again.

A guestbook message from October 2003 describes the boy as “not doing well…despite the counseling”— though a year later another friend writes that he and his mother are “doing as well as can be expected. Timmy is turning out to be a fine young man, and Evelyn is really holding things together for his sake.” She closes with the promise to Jack, “We will be there for your family as long as they need us.”

Evelyn Aron was born in the Philippines, and she and her husband had thought of retiring there to live on a salt farm they had purchased in 1997. The investment had given Jack a new nickname among his colleagues at Marsh & McLennan: “Jack Aron the Salt Baron.”

Jack Charles Aron worked in Information Technology for the multi-national insurance firm Marsh & McLennan Companies Inc. He was one of 295 Marsh employees (four of whom were Muslim) killed in World Trade Center Tower One on September 11, 2001. Raised in Washington Heights, New York City, Jack Aron was residing in the historic New Jersey town of Bergenfield at the time of his death.

Bergenfield was also home to World Trade Centre victim Peter Negron, 34, who worked for the Port Authority of New York. His most glorious tribute: “dear mr.negon [sic], You were the funnyest and coolest father i ever knew. i wish you were still here to see all of us agian. all of peters freinds and peter ill never for get you. singned, kevin, glenn, mikey, david, and your son pete”

And Bergenfield is still the home of Col. John O’Dowd, 30-year army veteran.

As commander of the New York District of the Army Corps of Engineers, O’Dowd was six blocks from the WTC when it was attacked. In 2002 he volunteered for service in Afghanistan as commander of the Afghan Engineering District. But this was only after a full year’s service as the officer in charge of transporting and sifting a seven-story pile of WTC debris— 1.3 million tons— to retrieve human remains and personal effects such as identification cards, and wedding bands.

We cannot know for sure, but perhaps Col. O’Dowd performed that service for his Bergenfield neighbor, Jack Charles Aron.

Cities and towns of every size, all over a world touched by war, have erected monuments upon which are etched the names of the fallen. The purpose of this has always been to remind anyone who sees them that deaths in battle happen to real, identifiable people, not to faceless masses. But the truth is that over time most of those etched names evolve into little more than decorative markings at which the eyes of witnesses glaze over.

Our era of mass communication permits us to keep a longer and more vivid hold on the individual identities of our war-dead, both military and civilian, through projects like 2996, and a great variety of other memorial acts. Three contributors to the internet guestbooks I’ve quoted here had the honor of “meeting” and remembering Jack Charles Aron long before I did.

At the one-year anniversary of 9/11, thousands of flags bearing the victims’ names were distributed to schools, and Tricia Schrum of Virginia carried Jack Aron with her that day. On the same day Rachel Putnam of Texas received and wore a wristband with his name. And that evening, Damon Corrigan of Washington State was proud to wear a tag bearing Jack Aron’s name as he participated in a performance of the “Rolling Requiem”, in which choirs and orchestras around the world performed Mozart’s haunting funeral Mass. No doubt there have been many others paying similar homage. The writers of the 2996 Project are just the latest.

Over these five years there’s been a sort of reflex to paint the title “hero” across the massed names of September 11 victims. But the friends of these victims, one by one, can think of other words. Jack Aron’s friends prefer: “sincere, honest, decent, good, remarkable, one-of-a-kind, a true gentleman, a mensch.”

Jack Charles Aron - 1949-2001
The antithesis of those that caused his death.

May he rest in peace.


Winefred's Well also pays tribute to the 26 Canadian victims of the September 11 attacks, with special remembrance of the families of Ken Basnicki-- Maureen, Erica, and Brennan, -- and of David Barkway -- Cindy, Jamie, and David.

Enormous credit and thanks to the Dale Challoner Roe of the 2996 Tribute. Visit the site to read more tributes.

Photo credits:
1- tower collapse - United States Search and Rescue Task Force site
2 - missing - Bronston Jones - NYU Medical Centre wall
3 - night rescue - Joel Meyerowitz
4 - Cooper's pond, Bergenfield - Tom Schopper
5 - debris pile - Aris Economopoulos
6 - quilt - United In Memory Gallery
7 - ashes - [previous post] - James Nachtwey

An outstanding gallery -- "Seeing the Horror" -- Digital Journalist/American Photo