The
13th 9-11 Factor:
It Isn't Over Yet
by
Cliff McKenzie
GROUND
ZERO PLUS 1164 DAYS,--New York, NY, Friday, November
19, 2004--Closure
completes its course in a number of ways. For victims of the
September 11, 2001 Terrorist attack, one such suture in an emotional
gash from losing loved ones is financial compensation. To date,
$7 billion has been paid to the victims of 9-11.
Thirteen
families of the victims of Nine-Eleven have refused compensation
from the Victim Compensation Fund
But 13
families and loved ones have refused to accept any compensation
either from the airlines or the government. They cannot put
a price tag on the deaths of those they loved. They cannot return
to the day the Beast of Terror ripped part of their souls from
them.
Following
the attack, the U.S. Congress created the September 11 Victim
Compensation Fund designed to award the families and loved
ones financial remuneration for their grievous loss.
Of the
2,973 death claims, all but thirteen have been settled either
by the government fund or pending litigation against the airlines.
The current payout by the fund exceeds $7 billion.
Only thirteen
families elected to turn their backs on financial compensation
to heal part of the 9-11 wounds.
For three
years the head of the compensation fund, Kenneth Feinberg, a
Washington lawyer, met with hundreds of families to work out
fair and equitable compensation for their loss.
According
to the 114-page report with 300 supporting documents filed with
Justice Department yesterday, Mr. Feinberg's role as "King
Solomon" of the Compensation Fund came to an official end
yesterday.
Kenneth
Feinberg appointed "special master" in charge
of the Victim's Compensation Fund
During
the course of negotiations with the families, it was Feinberg's
decision as to whom got what. Many family members and loved
ones claimed inequities in how the money was doled out, but
in the end, all but thirteen families found some form of "satisfaction"
either from the fund or the option to sue the airlines.
The thirteen
families that opted not to sue the airlines or take money from
the fund said there was far too much grief and pain in filling
out the forms and going through the administration process to
receive funds, a requirement that Mr. Feinberg could not waive.
According
to the New
York Times, Mr. Feinberg met numerous times with the thirteen
families, urging them to file before the deadline.
Compensation
was guaranteed at $250,000 with an average projected settlement
of $1.3 million per person. The highest award was over $8 million.
The thirteen
who sought no form of compensation represent less than a half
a percent of the 2,973 confirmed deaths from the Terrorist attack.
A total
of 2,880 families availed themselves of the fund's compensation.
The balance of 80 families (less the 13 who have chosen not
to file for benefits from the fund or sue the airlines) have
the option of litigation against the airlines.
The Compensation
Fund was designed to avoid crippling lawsuits against the airlines,
who had little control over the events of 9-11.
Thirteen
is a unique number. To many it represents "unfortunate"
or "bad" luck.
But the
events of September 11, 2001, far exceed the words "bad
luck" or "misfortune." Those events were tragic,
horrible, devastating moments when entire worlds were collapsed
and a new era of "Terrorism" washed upon the soil
and souls of Americans.
In a way,
the thirteen families who refused to accept any compensation
for the attacks symbolize that human loss cannot be quantified.
How much
is every living cell in a human body worth?
How much
is a hug or a smile or kiss or a word of loving kindness spoken
by a husband, mother, wife, father, grandfather, uncle, aunt,
cousin, niece, nephew, son or daughter worth?
Thirteen
families could not put a price tag on those priceless commodities.
They couldn't look the Beast of Terror in the face and have
a cash register try and compensate for the dismembered limbs,
the chunks of flesh exploding or the screams of agony or acts
of final heroism that occurred on the gloomy, horrid morning
of Tuesday, September 11, 2001.
Thirteen
Colonies chose to fight and die for their children's freedom
Ironically,
a few hundred years ago, thirteen colonies could not put a price
tag on Tyranny and Oppression. They chose to fight and die for
the rights of their children to be free. They fought the Beast
of Terror as one body, with everything to gain and only life
to lose.
I'd like
to think that the thirteen families who chose not to receive
compensation from the fund or airlines represent the ultimate
in being Families of Vigilance.
While their
loved ones did not chose to fight and die for freedom and liberty
that dark Tuesday in September, they nevertheless did become
ultimate Patriots of Liberty.
The deaths
of 2,973 people on the second Tuesday of September, 2001, hallmarked
a point in American history as important as Concord.
On April 19, 1775, King George's troops marched to Concord to
seize arms and supplies the colonists were amassing for the
impending revolution. Outnumbered and surrounded, the colonists
started to disperse peacefully to allow the British troops to
search and seize their homes when a shot rang out.
The Minute Man Monument
in Concord, MA. honors the Minute Men who were greatly
outnumbered by the British in their first battle in 1775
No one
knows exactly from which side--colonists or British--the shot
came, but it has been termed "the shot heard 'round the
world." Fathers and sons were killed that day in a battle
that wasn't supposed to be.
September
11, 2001 was a "shot heard 'round the world." Terrorism
up until that moment was not a global concern of all nations.
It was a spot-by-spot, nation-by-nation, faction-by-faction
brush fire that swept rapidly through a Japanese subway or an
African state and then died, or seemed to die.
When it
popped up again with another face or in another country, it
wasn't linked to its allies thousands of miles away where in
a jungle or desert it was rearing its ugly head and maiming
and butchering all in its path.
September
11, 2001 changed that.
All the
various appendages of the Beast of Terror suddenly came together.
Its legs from the Middle East, its arms from Asia, its head
from Africa, its torso from Europe--dramatically, in a swirl
of smashing steel and concrete and at the expense of 2,973 victims,
the Beast of Terror took universal form.
On
Nine-Eleven, the world saw the Beast of Terror manifested
The world
saw the Beast as the one who was killing and maiming senselessly
and voraciously in all lands, and who wore the countenance of
all ethnicity, all various shields of beliefs and convictions.
At Concord,
would-be Americans saw the Beast of Terror come to life. It
stormed into their homes, tearing and shredding their living
quarters in search of weapons, ammunition, gunpowder. It sought
to oppress and tyrannize, to hold a nation in check through
Fear, Intimidation and Complacency.
Not much
has changed.
Terrorism
in 2004 still seeks to induce in its victims a paralysis based
on suffocating an individual's, a state's, a nation's Courage
with Fear, its Convictions with Intimidations, and its dedication
to doing what is right for the future of its children to a state
of powerless Complacency, a state of helpless fright over the
unknown.
Only Terrorism
made a giant mistake on September 11, 2001 when it attacked
the innocent, the helpless citizens of this nation and other
nations who were a part of the holocaust.
Instead
of further fracturing the will and resolve of the victims, September
11, 2001, galvanized it.
After
Nine-Eleven, Americans stood up as the Minute Men did
at Concord in 1775
Americans
stood up as they did at Concord in 1775 and retaliated against
the Beast of Terror. They chose not to shirk the duty of protecting
the future, or to abdicate that responsibility to the United
Nations or to wait until there was a consensus among all nations
that "waging war" against Terrorism was the right
thing to do.
In 1775,
the minutemen of Concord didn't send ships to France and Germany
and Russia seeking permission to fight the oppression of King
George. They took that authority from their children whom they
believed had the right to be free from the bonds of all forms,
degrees and characters of Terrorism.
They fought
for freedom against Terrorism then. The price, if any, was their
lives. But there was a much more expensive price to be paid
if they didn't--and that would be continued servitude, ongoing
enslavement to Fear, Intimidation and Complacency--the triads
of Terrorism.
The pain of attributing
a dollar value is too painful for the thirteen families
who chose not to be compensated
So, it
isn't by accident I believe that the thirteen families who chose
to not be compensated either by the government or by the airlines
for the deaths of their loved ones that they cannot equate money
to human life.
For them,
the pain of attributing a dollar value is so painful that it
exceeds all comprehension.
This is
not to disparage those who accepted compensation, or to denigrate
their right to "human value loss." Hundreds of wives
and children were left without fathers to help support them.
It simply means that the "pain of loss" sometimes
exceeds any monetary label for the families of those who are
victimized by the Beast of Terror.
In the
case of September 11, 2001, thirteen such families felt this
way. And, I believe their lack of "monetary compensation"
has been deeply overridden by a far more important compensation.
These thirteen
families are the families whose "shot was heard 'round
the world."
Mariane
Pearl, wife of Daniel Pearl (journalist slain in Pakistan)
was eligible for compensation, is one of the thirteen
refusing monies
In a pure
sense, the compensation for these families is the recognition
that Terrorism is now considered to be a global, universal enemy,
one that must be hunted down and destroyed in all nations.
Today,
the war in Iraq is symbolic of the battle against the Beast
of Terror. While critics of it may rail about this and that,
in the end, Americans are fighting the Beast of Terror, not
insurgents.
They are
telling the world of Terrorism that any attacks on America,
and any threats on the rest of the world by Terrorism, will
be met with ultimate force of arms.
Prior to
the War on Terrorism, a Terrorist might feel a sense of impunity
in attacking a city, a village, a home, a nation because no
one was willing to stand up to the "Global Terrorist"
and deliver wrath upon its head.
That's
all changed.
The "shot
heard 'round the world" on September 11, 2001, has become
a universal commitment by all nations to retaliate with unified
force against the elements of Terrorism.
Thirteen of the Sentinels
of Vigilance hovering over Ground Zero have no price tag
on their heads
And, while
all the victims of Nine Eleven play a vital part in this shift
of global perspective, thirteen of them stand out.
These thirteen
refused to put a price tag on the cost of Terrorism.
They refused
to participate in "compensation" for the pain and
suffering the Beast of Terror caused, for there isn't enough
money in the world to justify or account for the horror of indiscriminate
elimination of human life.
Among the
Sentinels of Vigilance who hover over Ground Zero, thirteen
of them stand out. They are the ones with no price tag on their
heads.
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