‘Pity for Me is Misplaced,’ Urbandale Writer Born on 9/11 Says

An Urbandale writer whose birthday is Sept. 11 says it’s time to reclaim the date as “a normal day” not associated with the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon 12 years ago.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Shawn Plank writes in his Iowa View essay in the Des Moines Register. “What happened that day in 2001 was terrible and should not be forgotten or downplayed. But what happened should not be so firmly attached to and defined by the date.”

Plank is a former reporter and columnist from newspapers in Iowa and Illinois and co-author of the book “Old Man River and Me.”

In his essay, Plank argues the abbreviated  9/11 has never accurately described what happened that day. Even if it were phrased more eloquently, say the “Eleventh of September,”  Plank wrote that he “would still object to saddling that date with such a horrible series of catastrophes.

Plank says that since 2001, “the simple act of providing our date of birth to health providers or account representatives has become a needlessly long and tedious process” for him and other Americans born on Sept. 11. “ ‘Oh, how awful that must be for you,’ I’ve been repeatedly told, as these people touch me on the hand and look at me with pity. Before I can intervene, they proceed to weave lengthy narratives of their personal experiences of the day, which like most of us, was watching it from afar on TV.

“I want to tell them their pity for me is misplaced. I didn’t experience the horrors of the day firsthand, so I don’t deserve the pity. The only reason I deserve to be pitied, ironically, is for being so consistently, needlessly pitied.”