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American Morning
America Strikes Back: While September 11th Attacks Directed at Washington and New York, Fear is Nationwide
Aired October 10, 2001 - 09:55 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: For the first time since the nuclear threat of the Cold War, Americans are living in fear, a fear that has been heightened by recent statements from Osama bin Laden and his followers. While the September 11th attacks are directed at Washington and New York, the fear is nationwide.
And in the first of a special series, CNN's Candy Crowley takes you along a special series in the Midwest, where the fear is real, but so, too, is the resolve.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The service was under way at the Victory Baptist Church in Manhattan, Indiana.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look at the world's situation. We need to wake up.
CROWLEY: It just about the time missiles began to fly into Afghanistan.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Listen to me, life is uncertain. We ought to wake up today. We ought to wake up. No one was aware the assault had started, but they knew, even hoped it was coming, and they know as well what's coming next.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't think it's going to stop, as far as overseas conflict or anything like that. I think it's coming back to us.
CROWLEY: Manhattan, Indiana is about 750 miles from Manhattan, New York, 625 from Washington. But fear is not slowed by distance.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I thought if I was a terrorist, I wouldn't stop there. I mean, why stop on big, major cities? Why not hit anywhere? so it could happen here. Could happen in little Manhattan, Indiana.
CROWLEY: Inside this independent fundamentalist church, there is certainty about life after death. What's troublesome now are the - uncertainties of life on Earth, like the planes overhead, following the normal flight path out of Indianapolis.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You think about the plane now, you look at it and you think how different everything was from that moment.
CROWLEY: But do not, by the way, assume that fear prevails in this Manhattan any more than in the other one.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Giving them what they wanted, and I'm not going to let them do that to me. I would fly tomorrow. I would go to Europe, anywhere. I'm not afraid to do that.
CROWLEY: What prevails is defiance and a new sense of carpe diem -- seize the day. It brings one church visitor from San Diego home to where she was born and raised.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I asked my children, I told them that I would like to go home and see my uncles, my family, because I may not be able to make it again.
This afternoon, we are having a family reunion and because, you -- we don't know when our last day here on Earth may be. What prevails is a sense that if living life requires facing new fear, then so be it. What prevails a sense they will and must move past the fear by all means necessary.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We prayed about it a lot. And it's just hard to get over.
CROWLEY: New fear merely exists here, a part of life in the new normal.
Candy Crowley, CNN, Manhattan, Indiana.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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