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Hour upon hour,words simply failed.Howcould kamikaze（神风队队员，即第二次世界大战期间日本空军敢死队队员，驾驶装载炸弹的飞机撞击军舰等目标，与之同归于尽）jetliners（喷气式客机）attack both the towering World TradeCenter and the mighty Pentagon（五角大楼）?Inside thestructures,an indescribable nightmare ensued（接着发生）.Oneminute,men and women were sipping coffee,reading theire-mails.The next,they were engulfed（吞没）in a cataclysm（洪水）of fire and falling walls.And the horror kept righton coming,in wave after nauseating（使人恶心的）wave.No onewatching television could see or hear the police officersand firefighters trapped in the labyrinthine（迷宫似的）stairwells（楼梯）of the World Trade Center as they stared upin disbelief when the tower above them began to crumble（崩溃）.Then there were the spouses,parents,and children waitingin dread by the phone,uncertain if loved ones were dead or alive.Mere words and pictures fail utterly to capture the griefof relatives wandering the streets near the crumpled towerswith homemade fliers（小广告传单）bearing images oftheir lost ones,begging for help in finding them.And how todescribe the emotions of rescue workers plucking（拉）fingers,toes,ears from the rubble（碎石）? None had ever seen anythinglike it.No one had.Ever.
Despite the inadequacy of language at such a shattering（使人震惊的）moment,Americans talked and talked,struggling to makesense of the carnage（大屠杀，残杀）.They jammed phone lines,spoke to neighbors over backyard fences,sent e-mails,gathered around televisions in bars.They organized prayervigils（祈祷）,grabbed coworkers to commiserate（同情，慰问）
over lunch.In part,they used words to try to makesense of the senseless.Yet people also talked because ofan unquenchable（不可遏制的）impulse to remember,to honor thedead.
Heroic Tales 英勇事迹
This national wake has been a time for storytelling,forrecounting tales of victims that a friend of a friend knew,of lucky survivors,and plucky（有勇气的）heroes.The pages thatfollow tell some of those stories.Many,of course,remain unknown yet.Some,certainly,will never be known.Thestories that can be told now range from the heartbreaking tothe harrowing（使人痛苦的）--such as the sad saga（英雄传奇）of Floyd Rasmussen,who stumbled around the Pentagon forhours after the attack,calling to his missing wife,"Here I am--come find me."
When a nation is prosperous and at peace,as America has beenfor nearly a decade,its heroes are few.But a country in duress（强迫，协迫）,as Attorney General John Ashcroft said last week,"calls on us...to be at our best."Thankfully,many Americansresponded to the terrorist attacks with quiet courage,showing,once more,that ordinary citizens can be heroes.Thefirefighters and cops who died helping people exit the WorldTrade Center towers made no such claims for themselves--theywere just doing their jobs,one after another had said,justdoing their duty.Other heroes,meanwhile,stepped forth toshow that how a life is lived can be more important than lifeitself.Lyzbeth Glick's husband,Jeremy,called on hiscellphone to tell her that he and several other passengers wereready to fight the knife-wielding（挥舞着刀子的）hijackers（劫机者）on United Airlines Flight 93 shortly beforeit crashed near Shanksville,Pa."He was a hero for what he did,"she told the New York Times."But he was a hero for me becausehe told me not to be sad and to take care of our(12-week-old)daughter,and he said whatever happened he would be OK withany choices I make."
Fathers and mothers,sisters and brothers alike aired theirunbearable anguish and anger,prompting even jaded newsanchors to tear up.Thirteen-year-old Cameron Buchanan,whose brother,Brandon Buchanan,age 24,worked on the 104thfloor of the World Trade Center's north tower,was among thelegion（大批）of people overpowered（压倒）by a sense of loss.Two days after the attack,Cameron called his brother's cellphone,which was still taking messages."He just wanted to talk tohim one last time,"says Ronald Buchanan,father of Brandon,Cameron,and their two sisters."He left a message saying hewas his hero,and he wanted to grow up just like him."
The terrorists wanted their thousands of victims to beanonymous statistics.But family members refused to let thathappen.Stories tumbled out last week.Playful David Retik,33,a partner in a Boston-based venture-capital firm,dragged out his inflatable trampoline（弹簧垫）in Needham,Mass.,for block parties.Bookish Rodney Dickens,an11-year-old honors student（优等生）raised by a single mom inWashington,D.C.,was on his first plane ride--having earnedthe chance to take a marine biology field trip to the ChannelIslands off California sponsored by the National GeographicSociety.And then there was bighearted（慷慨的）Rev.Mychal Judge,who rushed down to the World Trade Center after the attack,only to die when debris fell on him while he was givinga firefighter last rites.Steven Morello Jr.,whose fatherworked on the 93rd floor for Marsh & McLennan,says hisdad"wasn't a symbol of destructive capitalism--this was aloving,caring human being who was taking care of his family."
Fleeing a Fireball 劫后余生
The survivors and the fatalities（惨死的人）of the WorldTrade Center and Pentagon attacks weren't separated by muchmore than a few floors and sheer luck.Those who literallysurvived the blasts will relive the awful assaults for years,perhaps wondering why they got a second chance.But in thebroadest sense,America is now a nation of survivors,evenif with a small s.The signs of a collective struggle tounderstand the 9 ·11 attacks,to do something to help,poppedup everywhere.Thousands of people lined up to donate bloodand money in cities around the country.Countless NewYorkers showed up to hand out water and food to rescue workers.Others staffed volunteer bucket brigades（队）toremove debris from the demolished buildings.When officialsat Washington Hospital Center started to run low on humantissue for burn victims from the Pentagon attack after airtraffic was halted,a group of men from a Dallas hospital piledinto a car with an ice chest containing human skin anddrove overnight to Washington.
The mundane（世俗的）concerns about work and family that dog（尾随）daily life receded after the attack.Suddenly thesquabble（争论）with a spouse,the annoyance at a coworker orneighbor,no longer seem to matter.In the face of tragedy,whining（抱怨，牢骚）about one's lot is downright（完全）embarrassing.It is not much of an exaggeration to say thatwhen the World Trade Center towers crumbled,they took America'sexcessive sense of complacency（满足，安心）and entitlementwith them.It is hard to imagine that Americans will everagain dismiss the danger of terrorism--or the blessings ofliving in a prosperous,democratic nation.
The sorting out,though,is far from over--little more than thefirst wave of shock and sadness has now faded.It may not last,but,for the first time in many years,Americans of all stripesare acting on a collective urge to remain connected.By themillions,they bought and hung out flags,lit candles,and leftflowers for the dead.And then they prayed to a higher power,inthe hope that God could explain why innocent people had to die.