The Windkey and the Lamplighter

This morning, as I was arriving at work, The flag was not yet
raised—unusual for nearly 8:30 AM—and there were a few dozen
people gathered on the front steps. The event had been announced last
week—a ceremony to lay a wreath on the little shrine erected in
front of our flagpole, a little less than five years ago. The shrine
is to four men I have never met, and whose names I would never have
known if it were not for the accident of the planes they chose to take
from Boston or Washington to L.A.

With some searching on our internal website, I was able to find out
who these four men were—a VP, a director of program management, a
senior mechanical engineer, and a senior quality control engineer.

All of them had more than 15 years of service with the company, so
there are likely those at the company who mourn for these men. In
2001, I’d expect there were public memorial services for them—I have
no problem with that. There are not usually memorials when one of my
coworkers die, but violent deaths are harder, and that’s okay.

What does bother me is the shrine, and the public ceremony five years later.

Perhaps I am too cynical, but a public ceremony like this makes me
think that the deaths of these four men are being used by the company
as an excuse to say "Look at us! We were so personally affected! It
shall inspire us to work harder in defense of the nation." Working
hard in defense of the nation is great, but the display rings
dishonestly. That the shrine is at a site where none of the killed
employees worked rings dishonestly. That it is placed prominently
outside our front entrance, where visitors will see that there is some
kind of memorial, and walk over to investigate—rings dishonestly.

What honest purposes does this kind of ceremony serve? I do not know.