From the Desk of Robert Jacobson,
APS Chairman

What a great summer!

We made friendships, we learned together, and we had fun.

Our APS Litchfield 2001 Coordinator Training Conference was a rousing success. You made it so.

For the real story, read our package of stories by Raf Verbruggen and Jose Souza on pages 3-4. Their reports give us a taste of the learning experiences and bonding that took place in the classrooms, on the athletic fields and after-hours at social gatherings. Pictures tell more of the story; check out the fine display arranged by our Art Director, Curtis Loftis, in consultation with our Executive Secretary and Associate Editor Donna Matura.

Your commitment and enthusiasm inspired us to launch a major project, the APS Business Writers Scholarships, in honor of APS Founding Chairman James B. Irwin. Please see that story, along with many other great offerings including an essay on teamwork by Coordinator John Grubbs.

As he steered our organization as the founding Chairman, today Dr. Irwin
guides us again. The terror and troubles that afflicted us all on Sept. 11, 2001, are put in context by Dr. Irwin. Accordingly, I hand over the rest of this month's column to him for a guest commentary.

The Troubles

By DR. JAMES B. IRWIN SR., MPS
Sept. 12, 2001, The Day After

I was in Beijing attending an international conference on China during the attack on the United States. Due to the time difference, I witnessed the entire event on CNN. Needless to say, it was horrific!

It took a while to realize this wasn't a Hollywood digital creation but a tragic mass attack on innocent civilians regardless of their nationality, political or religious beliefs. There is no mistake about it, this was an attack on civilians. Planes fly on Sundays when these facilities would have been mostly empty of people. Obviously the timing of these events was scheduled to do the most damage to civilians, not only passengers on the airlines but those in the buildings and on the ground, tourists and well as American workers ... Perhaps they also intended to do as much damage to the spirit of those in the entire industrialized world.

Those of us who travel can only imagine the terror of the airline passengers during their brief time under the control of these terrorists. Witnessing these crashes in "real time" reminds us just how fragile we all are in our everyday life. This fragility has always existed; we have only been forced to face it more vividly.

The full extent of this attack will not be known for some time both in lost life and property damage. It will be years before we can evaluate the damage on the innocent people who have survived and their families and friends.

In one way or another, we have all been changed. Maybe, in some way, the modern world we live in has been changed by this attack. Not by a few wackos with pocket knives They aren't going to be able to stop our world as we know it. They only have found a weakness and exploited it temporarily. Our willingness to live in an open society allowed this. This openness may be changed to accommodate this new reality. Some things haven't changed, however and we should keep this in mind.

You will be seeing a flood of "how bad it is" reports from the media in the coming weeks and months. Certainly it is bad beyond belief for those directly affected by this attack.

But, as the 20th century has shown, the media's job is to present the more sensational parts of this story. You will see very little to put this into perspective.

The news media attention and the "real time" broadcasting of these attacks were staged by the terrorists for maximum effect for their cause. While the damage is extensive and the city of New York has suffered, it, by no means, is destroyed. New York is functioning right now. Manhattan has over 220 city blocks. And the damage is limited to the lower tip of Manhattan, about 10 blocks. Most of the people working in the buildings would have escaped before the building collapsed. Hundreds of thousands of people are living and working in the rest of Manhattan right now. No substantial effect has been felt in the other 5 boroughs of New York City. (Other than shock and concern for those killed and injured.)

We have always known it doesn't take much to destroy great works of mankind. They are "things" and "things" are venerable! Wars have destroyed property and art and literature for centuries. The spirit of those who built the Twin Towers and even the airplanes used to attack them can't be destroyed by a handful of hateful, vicious, men who see redemption in destruction. Or those that see immortality through the suffering and pain of innocent people!

It may turn out that those who committed these attacks are from the Middle East. The problems of that area are complex and there are injustices on both sides. But the murder of thousands of innocent civilians will not address those problems but instead turn attention away from the solutions. That, in fact, may have been the objective of a radical faction of a fundamental element. Time will tell.

Half jokingly, New Yorkers often are maligned by others for not appearing to care for anyone but themselves. We have seen over the last few days thousands of people helping others, dying trying to save others, a complete acceptance of civil rule, no rioting, no looting and a willingness to allow the authorities to resolve this problem while they rebuild their individual lives. I have never been prouder being a New Yorker.

As for the APS family, we in turn must not allow this to turn us into something we are not. The continuation of industrial civilization is not threatened by this atrocity. The continuation of our way of life is not threatened. Our financial institutions are not threatened. As travelers, we will be inconvenienced for some time at airports. Those of us who travel know that security at most airports is a joke anyway, and has been for some time. How many times have you forgotten to check something like a pair of scissors and still gotten through the checkpoint? Its happened to me often and depends on how bored the idiot watching the x-ray machine is at the time. Travel has always been dangerous to some extent but air travel is safer than automobile travel and continues to be one of the safest methods of travel. About 40,000 people a year are killed in USA auto-traffic accidents.

In our grief we should not generalize and focus our resentment on a particular society. If it turns out that these people are of a common religious group, it is easy for us to condemn the whole group but it will be wrong. Every group, every religion, every society has that fringe radical element. They are usually shunned by the others and often don't represent the mainstream. They are the misfits and criminals of society who bomb post offices, pubs and bars, social clubs and schools. They are also criminal, illegitimate governments.

We must not allow the terrorists to win a victory. They have killed some of our people and destroyed some of our buildings but they have used our own creations to do this. They have found a weakness which we can correct. They want to disrupt our lives and reverse the progress of the world. We cannot ignore this act of terrorism.