Some Concrete Things

This is to all the writes, the directors, the producers, the actors, the composers, the newsmen, the pundits, the politicians, and to everyone who will shape what we remember about the events of September 11, 2001, I implore you to remember this...

From Ernest Hemmingway's A Farewell to Arms:

I was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious, and sacrifice and the expression in vain.  We had heard them, sometimes standing in the rain almost out of earshot, so that only the shouted words came through, and had read them, on proclamations that were slapped up by billposters over other proclamations, now for a long time, and I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stockyards at Chicago if nothing was done with the meat except to bury it.  There were many words that you could not stand to hear and finally only the names of places had dignity.  Certain numbers were the same way and certain dates and these with the names of the places were all you could say and have them mean anything.  Abstract words such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow were obscene beside the concrete names of villages, the numbers of roads, the names of rivers, the numbers of regiments and the dates.

A date:
September 11, 2001

A number:
2,973

Some names of places:
Shanksville, Pennsylvania
Arlington, Virginia
New York City, New York
American Airlines Flight 11
United Airlines Flight 175
American Airlines Flight 77
United Airlines Flight 93

Some names:
Gordon McCannel Aamoth Jr.
Edelmiro (Ed) Abad
Maria Rose Abad
Andrew Anthony Abate
Vincent Abate
Laurence Abel
William F. Abrahamson
Richard Anthony Aceto
Heinrich B. Ackermann
Paul Andrew Acquaviva
Christian Adams
Donald L. Adams
Patrick Adams
Shannon Lewis Adams
Stephen Adams
Ignatius Adanga
Christy A. Addamo
Terence E. Adderley Jr.
Sophia B. Addo
Lee Adler
Daniel Thomas Afflitto
Emmanuel Afuakwah
Alok Agarwal
Mukul Agarwala
Joseph Agnello
David Agnes
Joao A.D. Aguiar Jr.
Lt. Brian G. Ahearn
Jeremiah J. Ahern
Joanne Ahladiotis
Christopher Charles Amoroso
Spc. Craig Amundson
Kazuhiro Anai
Calixto Anaya Jr.
Joseph Peter Anchundia
Kermit Charles Anderson
Yvette Anderson
John Andreacchio
Michael Rourke Andrews
Jean A. Andrucki
Siew-Nya Ang
Joseph Angelini Jr.
Joseph Angelini Sr.
David Lawrence Angell
Lynn Edwards Angell
Laura Angilletta
Doreen J. Angrisani
Lorraine D. Antigua
Seima Aoyama
Peter Paul Apollo
Faustino Apostol Jr.
Frank Thomas Aquilino
Patrick Michael Aranyos
David Arce
Michael G. Arczynski
Louis Arena
Barbara Jean (Bobbi) Arestegui
Adam Arias
Michael J. Armstrong
Jack Charles Aron
Joshua Aron
Richard Avery Aronow
Myra Joy Aronson
Japhet J. Aryee
Carl Asaro
Michael A. Asciak
Michael Edward Asher
Janice Ashley
Thomas J. Ashton
Manuel O. Asitimbay
Lt. Gregg Arthur Atlas
Gerald Atwood
James Audiffred
Louis Aversano Jr.
Ezra Aviles
Alona Avraham
Ayodeji Awe
Samuel (Sandy) Ayala

I encourage you to go here.

More then the often hollow words, "sacred", "sacrifice", "in vain", these are some concrete things for us all to remember.