Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Las Vegas, like rest of nation, moves on

As we reach the two-year anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, signs that the country has begun to move on are becoming apparent.

Last year Las Vegas Valley residents were flooded with public displays of remembrance with more than 20 planned events. This year there are fewer than a dozen.

"We have become a society with a very short memory," said Simon Gottschalk, associate professor of sociology at University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Americans, he said, have begun to move on and the event has lost some of its aura because it has been used by politicians to justify decisions that have become controversial, such as the war on Iraq and the Patriot Act.

That's to be expected, said Edward O'Donnell, associate professor of history at College of Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass.

Historically any large disaster inspires major commemorations on the first anniversary, then inevitably tails off in the following years, O'Donnell said.

"The mood is more somber and more detached," said O'Donnell, who lost friends in the attack. "Twenty-four months is a long time, especially in America."

O'Donnell, who wrote a book about the deadliest disaster in New York before Sept. 11, 2001 -- it was a steamboat fire in 1904 that killed 1,000 people -- said the memorials planned this year are more centered around the families who lost loved ones.

"It seems like a much less public spectacle," he said.

The public commemorations may not be evident but the private and personal commemorations will continue, said Kenneth Doka, a professor of gerontology who has written five books on the subject of grief.

Doka, of the Graduate School at the College of New Rochelle outside New York City, said people never completely move on with their grief but continue with it.

"It's a journey and in that journey you come to different locations, but you never stop traveling," he said.

He said events taking place this year on Sept. 11 are not necessarily bigger or smaller than previous events but merely different.

"Our way of looking at memorializing evolves as time goes on," he said.

But Gottschalk said some commemorations may be different because many people have also become desensitized to the attacks that were replayed over and over in the media.

"It was a TV event and as with other TV events it will be replaced," he said.

That's not to say that the families who lost loved ones are not desensitized, he said, but the masses seem to be.

Hal Rothman, chairman of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas history, department said that as time goes on, "people's sense of loss is dimmed."

"We don't celebrate Gettysburg anymore," he said. Feelings about the event change with time. "Maybe it happens faster now, with the pace of our culture," Rothman said.

Gottschalk said Sept. 11, 2001, would mark this generation the way the assassination of John F. Kennedy marked the Baby Boom generation. But he was quick to point out that today many people do not commemorate Nov. 22, 1963, the assassination anniversary.

This year has not seen a rush of people looking for ways to publicly mourn those lost in the terror attacks.

The Salvation Army Clark County Command had two events last year, one at its main Las Vegas chapel and one at the Henderson chapel, which had sent volunteers to the attack sites.

This year, however, the group has no plans for any special services, Maj. William Raihl said.

"Most of the folks have decided it's time to heal and to go on," he said. "Not to forget but to begin to live again."

He said there have not been any inquiries or encouragement from group members to have any special events.

"Had there been interest from our congregation or other congregations, we certainly would have (planned an event)," Raihl said.

Even New York-New York on the Strip, the place where crowds spontaneously gathered in the aftermath of the tragedy, has no events planned to commemorate the anniversary.

Yvette Monet, spokeswoman for MGM MIRAGE, the company that owns the casino, said the company had heard of other citywide observances and did not want to detract from those.

She also said that New York-New York has a monument site at the casino entrance.

"9-11 is commemorated via that site on a year-round basis," Monet said.

She added that a tribute will take place outside the Bellagio, one of the company's other hotels.

Some groups that had events last year have changed them slightly this year. One local radio station sponsored a blood drive last year but has decided to mark the anniversary with programming rather than an event this year.

"We're going to remember it here, we're just going to do it in a different way," Mary Helen, marketing and promotions director at 107.5 X-treme Radio, said.

She added that she noticed people were remembering the tragedy but not actively looking for events.

As the country moves on it is harder for people to remember the meaning of an event, John Hepp, assistant professor of history at Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., said. Part of the meaning of Sept. 11, 2001, Hepps said, was the uncertainty people felt, and as time passes that is harder to grasp.

"One hundred years from now I suspect a history prof will struggle to recreate the uncertainty Americans feel today," he said in an e-mail interview.

"Events like 9-11, Pearl Harbor, the sinking of the Maine tend to remain in history books as long as they are considered 'turning points,' but vanish from popular culture or everyday life in a generation or so."

He added that is why surviving World War II veterans are eager to see a monument built, because when they are gone no one will be left to remember.

"If it's not built now, it may never be built," Hepps said. "In part, this is one of the central ironies in history: not long after we institutionalize an event in words and stone, the generation passes and the event loses its meaning and vitality."

O'Donnell agreed and said, though it is hard for people to imagine, in time Sept. 11, 2001, may be commemorated in the same way as Dec. 7, 1941, with very little fanfare.

"In 50 to 100 years when all of us are gone," he said, "(Sept. 11, 2001) will probably be a significant event in American history and no more compelling than Pearl Harbor."

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