The line “never forget” has often been used as a way to ensure that catastrophic, cataclysmic events aren’t just stuffed away, out of mind, in history books, encyclopedias or, in the digital age, Wikipedia.
It’s certainly applicable to what happened in New York, Washington, D.C. and a Pennsylvania field on Sept. 11, 2001.
And it’s being taken seriously when it comes to bringing closure to the families of 1,115 people who died that day in the attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center (out of the total death toll of 2,753), whose remains have never been identified.
On May 10, the Saturday before last Thursday’s dedication of the National September 11 Memorial Museum, 7,930 pouches containing bone fragments that have yet to be matched to any victim were transported in flag-draped caskets back to the World Trade Center site.
They will be stored in a repository, 70 feet underground, in the museum, which will open May 21. The only people who will have access to them will be the victims’ families and forensic scientists who vow to continue the identification process as long as it takes, even though current methods are about exhausted.
Some family members are furious about the plan, to the point they staged a protest during the May 10 procession. They want the remains in a place of honor above ground, not stashed away “in the basement,” as one of them protested.
After 13 years, we can only remain respectful and understanding of the feelings of people whose anguish hasn’t dimmed; and praise the commitment to keep this process going, even if it means waiting for technology that doesn’t exist to be developed.
This is not a pointless exercise. Four victims have been identified in the past year.
As for the expense: The forensic team’s annual salaries total $230,000, and there have been costs for outside follow-up work. That’s a significant amount for the average person, but is picayune for government. A good, tight audit of New York’s finances probably could erase enough waste to fund this work indefinitely — and that’s how long it should go on.
The families may not get the closure they seek, but they deserve the effort.
Never forget.
A version of this editorial first appeared in the Gadsden Times, a Halifax Media Group newspaper in Alabama.
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