'Ground Zero' has moved from military
lexicon to awful new civilian meaning
By Kevin Dougherty,
Stars and Stripes
NEW YORK — U.S. servicemembers past and present have mixed emotions about the
media’s constant use of the term "Ground Zero" to describe the World Trade
Center site.
Some believe it’s the perfect description, given the magnitude of the damage in
such a confined area.
Others believe the term is historically inaccurate and has become such a cliché as to
be insensitive to the people who died there.
Even some of those who have no trouble with the term, which originated during the
development and testing of the atom bomb, wonder aloud if the media is going overboard in
its repetitive use of the term.
"It is being overused," said Bill Woolfolk, a former Marine who now works as
an officer with the Security Service in Washington.
"I think Ground Zero is not the most appropriate term to use. They are beating it
into the ground."
"Ground Zero is a term that won’t be associated any more with the military,
after what has happened in New York City," said an Air Force noncommissioned officer
in Washington, who declined to give his name. "It’s also a civilian thing
now."
The phrase arose in the early days of the nuclear age. While most people assume the
term was coined during the development of the atom bomb, that’s not entirely clear.
A U.S. Department of Energy brochure at the National Atomic Museum in Albuquerque,
N.M., states the tower used in the first atomic bomb test was designated as "point
zero." The base of the 100-foot tower was referred to in the 1994 brochure as
"ground zero."
But a check of some documents previously classified as top secret indicates that may
not of been the case.
A detailed 1945 map of the test area makes no mention of Ground Zero, only point zero.
Immediately after the test, the U.S. Army, which oversaw the Manhattan Project, asked
for eyewitness accounts from nine principals involved in the development and testing of
the bomb. Not one used the term Ground Zero. Philip Morrison came the closest of any of
them, using the term "zero" 10 times in his brief narrative.
In addition, an Army photo taken at the detonation site two months later — after
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed — featured what remained of the base of the tower.
The Army simply labeled the photo "zero."
The first time the phrase Ground Zero was seen in print was in July 1946, when a New
York Times reporter used the term in a story about the bombs that won the war in the
Pacific.
Since the dawn of the nuclear age, the term has more routinely been used to describe
the center or origin of a rapid, intense, or violent activity or change.
Robert Thompson is a professor at Syracuse University in New York who runs the Center
for the Study of Popular Television. Over the last half-century, according to Thompson,
the term was almost universally used in a metaphoric sense. Using the phrase to describe
the scene in lower Manhattan is a more literal usage.
"This is the closest the United States has gotten to having a nuclear bomb dropped
on it," Thompson said.
But it also works in a metaphoric sense, he added, because the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks signals the beginning of a new age as the nation awakes to the realization that is
not immune to terrorism.
He understands, however, that some people might be tiring of the phrase in current
usage.
"These days you can create a cliché and wear it out in three days," Thompson
said.
Back to October stories
Page Two news roundup
Stories from September, 2001
Stories from August, 2001
Stories from July, 2001
Stories from June, 2001
Stories from May, 2001
Stories from April, 2001
Stories from March, 2001
Stories from February,2001
Stories from January, 2001
Stories from December, 2000
Stories from November, 2000
Stories from October, 2000
Stories from August and September, 2000
Stories from June and July, 2000
Home |
