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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
National
Howie Rumberg

A golf ball found in the World Trade Center rubble became a symbol of incomprehensible loss

the World Trade Center Golf
America 250 Objects Golf Ball - (Stan Honda/POOL AFP via AP)

I stood amid the rubble of the World Trade Center, passing buckets of debris down a line of volunteers and first responders. It was hours after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. A little white object poking out of the gray ash caught my attention.

Scuffed and dirty, it was unmistakably a golf ball. And in that moment, it represented an incomprehensible loss that would take years, if ever, to process.

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