Where the dead of September 11 are not forgotten in Guantanamo Bay
Rocks and shells for people killed in the September 11 attacks appeared a few years ago on a signpost in Guantánamo Bay, not far from the war crimes courtroom.
“In memory of all those who died from illness after September 11,” is written on a piece of coral. “Jeneneh Betru – January 21, 1966 to September 11, 2001 – Life is too short,” says another in praise of a California doctor.
It’s a kind of ritual that has been going on for so long that some messages have faded in the Caribbean sun.
‘Aunt Lorraine: We miss you. We love you,” one message says to one flight attendant who was one of nearly 3,000 killed in the coordinated hijackings.
The 19 hijackers died that day. American commandos hunted down and killed Osama bin Laden years later. But the preliminary proceedings against four men accused of conspiracy in the plot are now in their second decade.
For most hearings, prosecutors bring about 10 people who were injured or lost family members in the attacks to watch the proceedings. Over the years, more than 150 of the people killed on September 11 have been represented at the hearings by family members.
With no date yet set for the start of the trial, their posts have become a way to represent individual loss after a week of watching dry legal arguments about evidence and trials that rarely mention the day’s loss.
Some family members have searched for answers about why the United States was so vulnerable at the time. Some are infuriating that the process hasn’t started yet. Some simply represent a loved one who died in an attack that has become as distant to some Americans as the one on Pearl Harbor.
Earlier this year, after attending a hearing, Cindy McGinty found a smooth white piece of coral and wrote of her late husband: “Michael G. McGinty. Never forgotten.” She drew a little dragonfly and wrote 9/11.
The Massachusetts father of two, a Naval Academy graduate, went to a business meeting at the World Trade Center on September 11 and never returned home. He was 42.
“Americans all said, ‘Never forget,’” she said. “But it’s fading in America’s memory. It’s my way of never letting him forget. It’s all wrapped up in that little stone.”
As she placed it there, she said to herself, “I don’t know how, but one day there should be justice somehow.”
The families of those murdered do not agree on what justice means. Some are awaiting trial with the death penalty, a scenario that Brig. Gen. Jackie L. Thompson Jr., the chief attorney for the military commissions, predicted they would take years to begin and then last 18 months.
Others have supported a plea deal that would require the defendants to admit their individual roles in the plot in exchange for being spared the possibility of execution. The evidence would be presented in what appears to be a mini-trial before a military jury, which could individually sentence them to a maximum of life in prison.
Little of this kind of debate is reflected in these messages. They are personal, painful and poignant.
“I’m so sorry I never met you,” a relative wrote to the unborn child of John and Sylvia Resta, who were murdered in the World Trade Center. Sylvia was seven months pregnant with their first child.
The memorial stones are in an unlikely location: within walking distance of the court, near a row of flags and a sturdy sign declaring the area ‘Camp Justice’. A tent city was hastily created there 16 years ago. Pentagon planners, envisioning a speedy trial for Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his associates, believed hundreds of visitors would need shelter for the legal proceedings.
Over the years, anti-sniper nets, surveillance equipment and rings of barbed wire were added around it. Workers are slowly setting up a new trailer park to house legal teams for the trial that will one day take place.
News crews broadcast live from the board, but their footage cannot display the security features. Visitors pose for souvenir selfies and group photos in front of the sign with the same restrictions. Military units and legal teams hold re-enlistment and awards ceremonies there.
It has become a rare memorial at this base, where the last 30 of the 780 prisoners of the war on terror are now being held in a prison operation set up four months after the September 11 attacks.
In the intervening years, the attacks here have disappeared from the collective memory.
A September 11 memorial flag flies above the base fire station. But after twenty years, the basic recreation department stopped the annual 9.11 kilometer run. It is rare for a Navy base resident to find their way to court to attend the proceedings.
The symbolic gate has thus become a place of commemoration, pilgrimage and celebration, both by default and by design. A stone was recently left there for Stephen Driscoll, a New York City police officer who died trying to save people at the World Trade Center.
“I miss you brother,” it said. “Justice will be done.”