A few minutes later, I go outside my apartment building to catch, through the spaces between the rooftops, what look like two C-130s, big bulky Navy gray crafts booming overhead. I get that eerie feeling again. And then I remember. It is frigging Fleet Week and the fleet sailed last Wednesday: 4,000 active duty service men and women to join in the 19th annual “festivities,” ships, planes, et al. Oh goodie. Where were they on 9/11?

Unfortunately, I know the answer to the question. Military jets were pulled from away from New York air space by five simultaneous terrorist hijacking drills (what a coincidence), as far away as Canada and Alaska. Yet there remained as many as 22 planes or objects on air controllers’ screens to totally confuse them. NORAD, in fact, consciously stood down. There was mass confusion. The CIA had spread the word. Meanwhile, the President in Absentia was reading his goat book in a Florida classroom for all the children left behind. It was awhile before he got off his butt and went forward; an hour more to even get back in the air. And then he flew off to hide in a military cave.

Dick Cheney and Condi Rice scuttled into the basement of the White House and were later helicoptered to some secure bunker in Pennsylvania, not far from groundhog Punxsutawney Phil who, come rain or shine, annually makes a February appearance to forecast whether there are six more weeks of winter or if spring is just around the corner.

But Cheney and Condi’s story is more like the sleazy weatherman Phil Connors, played by Bill Murray in the film Groundhog Day. Connors is assigned to cover the event about “a weather forecasting rat” as he cynically calls it. But Phil finds that his relentless cynicism causes him to live the same Groundhog Day over and over again until he gets it right, that is, how to love the girl he meets, stop telling the same ratty jokes, stop treating people like crap, and actually turn into a decent human being. Then he can get on with time and his life, a profoundly meaningful message for Bush & Company.

Since they acted so miserably on 9/11, they have to repeat their lies, their deceptions, their behavior over and over again, caught in the time warp of The War on Terror, sinking lower and lower into the winter of Ground Zero, among the shadows of the dead. I am speaking here not just of the nearly 3,000 victims of the 9/11 murder, but of the deaths of 2,700 soldiers in the illegal Iraq War, and of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have died, and before that the untold number of Afghans who died in that first preemptive strike.

And I speak for all of us in America who have to live that day over and over again in our memories, trying to figure out the cruelty of our own people being behind it, dodge and deny it as they will. So let this Memorial Day be a commemorative to the living as well as the dead, to the victims’ families and friends, to a nation caught in two wars, to veterans losing their lives or health or benefits, to the drowned and lost of New Orleans, to the elderly faced with losing health care and Social Security, to a once great nation that lead the world and that now lags behind like Phil Connors, looking for the light. I hope we find it soon, before the world decides we’re the bad guys and need to be taken down soon, real soon.

Some Quotes from the Sun

What is amazing as well are quotes from some service people in an article, “As They Steam in, Sailors Prepare To See ‘Everything’ During Fleet Week,” in last Thursday's ultra right-wing New York Sun. Well, the “everything” they need and want to see is less than a mile south from their docking point on West Street and the Hudson River. It’s Ground Zero, a well-paved hole in the ground consuming some 16 acres, where a memorial to the dead will be dug even deeper, if and when everyone can agree on the final design and spiraling construction costs. Designs for the memorial, originally called, “Reflecting Absence” are still being considered. I’m sure the service people will get a kick out of that.

You see, if you simply stand at street level and stare into that giant hole where so much life throbbed and died, if you close your eyes, you can hear and see it all again, the joy and the tragedy of that life, the explosions not from jet fuel that bombed the daylights out of us, the buildings falling into neat footprints, the ashen clouds of concrete and asbestos rising into the air like nuclear conflagrations, the ash gray crowds on the ground scuttling away for dear life.

You can hear the cries of firemen in the hallways, saying they’ve got the fire under control, and suddenly their voices are lost. You can see bodies falling like angels from the windows. You can see, as Eliot wrote, “life in a handful of dust.” And perhaps as you think, another jet will go roaring overhead, and you’re post traumatic shock will send a shiver through you.

But then you can read this Sun article and the comments of Corporal Todd Meyer, among others, who recently returned from Fallujah. Sailing on an 844-foot assault ship, he says, “I want to see everything.” Ah but it’s gone, young man, everything’s gone. Like Fallujah. This is why sometimes New Yorkers feel like the enemy, like we were singled out for something by our government, and have this compulsion to speak truth to power. But “Corporal Meyer, 22, surmised that he would be working at a fast food joint in his hometown of Lawrence, Kan., had he not chosen to enlist in the military shortly after the terror attacks. . . ." So, was Fallujah really a better option than the local fast food joint? Is that how it is? Or how bad opportunity was?

But he said Fleet Week “would not only provide him some much needed leisure time, but would reinforce his decision to join the Armed Forces.” In his words, “It gives us a chance to see what happened here . . . It’s one of the reasons why we do what we do.” Well, my son, don’t do it for us. Your action is brave but misguided. Get your crew and go to Washington, DC, and ask your Commander in Chief, the one who showed up on the aircraft carrier in his tailor-made jump suit on May 2, 2003, to declare the war was over . . . ask him and his administration to resign for murderous incompetence or face a firing squad. The war isn’t over and it won’t be for awhile; in fact no one knows when. And you may soon be in some other desperate straits. It’s not all about this week’s “Galas, military demonstrations, concerts, and parades . . ." The war is about people dying at your and others’ well-meaning hands, just as they died on the steel blue morning of 9/11. So be it.

Arriving also for Fleet Week, which was “a homecoming of sorts,” was Lieutenant Mike Lucrezio, a 36-year old Queens native. He said he had spent the last few days dispensing advice about New York attractions to his fellow servicemen and -women, many of whom would be visiting the Big Apple for the first time.” He said, “They want to know where to get good pizza, how to get to the Empire State Building, and if it’s really safe to get on the subway.” Yeah, Mike, it’s safe. Why not take them on the famous A train up to Harlem or the Lexington Avenue line to El Barrio, and show your buddies some of the hard core poverty that gives those communities their Third World look and flavor. The kids will love your uniforms. Probably join after dropping out of high school. They’re havens for recruiters.

And a Special Treat for All

But Mike, bless his Italian soul, wanted to go out to Forest Hills to see his 89-year-old Italian grandmother. “She always wanted to see me in my Dress Whites,” he said, pointing to his Navy uniform. But, thank god, she never had to see him in pieces, like the thousands of parents of the dead or wounded. But hey, I’m getting dark here. To cheer everybody up, and promote the new movie, X Men: The Last Stand, actors Hallie Berry, Hugh Jackman and Kelsey Grammer paid a visit to Fleet Week.

The X-Men action movie (also a Play Station 2 game) was described by critic Jeanne Aufmuth of the Palo Alto weekly this way: “ . . . Not to mention the perfect excuse for malicious mutant supremacist Magneto (Ian McKellen), who believes in survival of the fittest at all costs (‘we are the cure!’), to stage war on those who preach tolerance and acceptance, among the telekinetic Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and Secretary of Mutant Affairs Dr. Henry McCoy, aka Beast (played with rock-solid warmth and intelligence by Kelsey Grammer).

“The stage is set for a catastrophic showdown between man and mutant, ripe with atmosphere and pregnant with the ramifications of contemporary bias (think homosexuality, immigration, etc.). Unfortunately playboy director Brett Ratner (“Rush Hour,” “Red Dragon”) sacrifices socio-political relevance for flashy pyrotechnics and visceral pleasures galore . . ."

How 'bout that. Art imitates life or is it life imitating the movie and the video game to pass the time between battles. I guess Charley Sheen wasn’t available to tell them about his view of 9/11.

Of course, “the [X-Men] stars expressed their gratitude to the Armed Forces; the troops cheered and snapped photographs of the famous visitors, who arrived on the ship via helicopter late yesterday morning.” How very well spun.

“Later in the day, Mr. Grammar and his wife, Camille, spent several hours chatting with the servicemen and –women, taking down some of their e-mail addresses and vowing to stay in touch [uh huh]. Asked about the widespread anti-war sentiment in New York and Hollywood, he [Grammar] said, ‘I chalk it up to lack of thought, and lack of thoughtfulness.’” That’s a line good enough to be written by Bush himself.

“Marine Corps Sergeant Anthony Nagle of Struthers, Ohio, said he didn’t think Fleet Week should be about politics,” the Sun reported. “Even though the war’s unpopular, I’ve realized that there’s a lot of support for the troops,” the 22-year old Sergeant said, recently returned from Iraq. “I joined the military because I felt that I would die for my country. I just hope people here will appreciate that.” On behalf of the people of New York City, sergeant, we hope you and all your fellow service people live for America, a long time, and in peace. And not have your innocent devotion exploited by a murderous government, which brings me back to the resignation of the members of this cabal who participated in the creation and execution of 9/11 and subsequent illegal wars . . .

Therefore, we the people of New York City and America, will offer Mr. Bush and his cohorts the privilege of life in a super-max prison and not the heartless death by poison injection they gleefully favor for others, just so long as their departure is swift, complete, and a full confession is made before an international court of justice. Let the death and destruction and its daily repetition end. Let life begin and go forward again, as it did for Phil Connors. And let Punxsutawney Phil and the forces of nature return us to spring, summer and the blessings of light and life.

Jerry Mazza, freelance writer, is a life-long resident of New York City. gvmaz@verizon.net.