I have nearly finished reading the 9/11 Commission Report.  It was not something I planned to read, but I picked up a copy, glanced inside, and was caught.  I don’t know who did the actual writing, but it was masterfully done.

I learned a great deal.  The report begins with a background of terrorist activities directed toward the United States by al Qaeda and other extremist Islamic groups since the early 1990’s.  It gives a minute by minute account of what happened with each of the 4 planes that were hijacked that day and the actions taken by the entities involved from the airlines to the military.  It discusses the roles of the various governmental agencies involved in the security of the US.  It describes the rescue work done at the World Trade Center.  I am now reading the recommendations made by the commission as a result of its investigation.

The book describes two major failures which allowed 9/11 to happen and cost additional lives in the rescue attempt:  a “failure of imagination” and a failure of communication.  In reflecting, it seems to me that so many disasters in our daily lives are caused and made worse by the same failures.  Typically they don’t cause deaths, but they certainly cause relationships and financial dreams to die.  Perhaps from 9/11 we can all learn something that will help us to make our own small part of the world better, and maybe that’s a start on the rest of it.