This post is dedicated to those who knew they were about to die and who tried to call home and only got answer machines. And those who weren't home and so they missed talking for the very last time to their loved one.
And to those who jumped. The very least we can do is try to understand what you went through. Trust me, we'll never forget your fear and desperation. That could have been any of us.
And to all on those absolutely amazingly courageous patriots who crashed in Shankesville trying to protect us. I guess I could go on and on with dedications for 9/11.
If you had to pick one thing or one person or any one thing about that day that particularly resonates with you, what would it be?
God bless them all. I hate it when my posts make me cry as I type.........damn those people who changed our country forever.
z
51 comments:
What stays in my mind was the feeling of helplessness. i wanted to strike out, but didn't know how or at whom.
As for me, I remember September the 11th for the Attack on my Country, for the Attack on my City and for the Attack on my fellow Americans. NOT for it being a "National Day of Service". As Barack Obama has asked, because he doesn't want to "offend" anybody!. In my opinion this day is NOT a day to go to my local Soup Kitchen and volunteer to serve the Homeless. This is not what September the 11th means to me.
Let’s be honest: When we talk about “the meaning of 9/11, we are referring to the Savages that murdered 3,000 innocent people. If I wanted to serve the Homeless which I don't there are 364 other days in the year to do that.
Z - I can't pick any one person or situation that makes me feel the worst. As soon as I do - then I think of another thing. The whole thing is just so horrible.
May we remember them and appreciate what happened.
One thing I remember since I was in DC and a few miles from the Pentagon, is the sense of fear I had. I thought we were under attack and was IMing my brother to tell him I loved him very much, in case something would happen.
After that it was one week of being very depressed. And in a way, since then, I've never felt the same. I started questioning everything and I have lost a bit of joy since the incident.
Z, that day hit me on a personal level. I had taken my mom to the airport early that morning for a flight to Vegas and for hours I did not know how big this terrorist attack was or where she was, he flight was diverted to NM. Im still pissed about that day and im glad Bin Laden has been converted to shark shit!
I have never forgotten the sight of the people jumping from the building.
It took so long for them to fall
I was in the Air Force and I sat in a command post that day. I knew our world and our lives had changed forever, and the change has turned out for the worst.
I'm very touched by your comments.
ConF...I know what you mean.
Dude, I don't get the service thing, either...it's like a diversion from what happened, not a remembrance of it.
I was just watching Panetta speak, standing in front of Obama at the Pentagon, saying "They tried to attack our democracy, our economy, our military"...and I couldn't help thinking "and the guy behind you's doing the same thing now...only worse"
Sue, exactly...well said.
FB...I think sometimes it's easy to forget that we didn't know what might come next ...
Mr Z and I were walking in Paris and passed Au Nom de la Rose, the flower shop that carries nothing but roses...there are always petals thrown out of the store on the sidewalk, it's gorgeous. As we passed I said "Honey, imagine a world without roses?"
When we got home, I put CNN Int'l on, he went into his office, and I yelled that a plane had hit the World Trade Tower; he came into the den and then we saw the second one hit.
A few weeks later, I thought of what I'd said and realized we were now living in a world without roses, metaphorically.
We'd always felt so safe, we'd always been so proud of America's invulnerability....it's changed everything FOREVER AND EVER...and, as SF says, 'for the worst'.
CnC...we'd just put my mother on a plane back from a visit with us in Paris...the DAY BEFORE. Had she left that day, she'd have spent a few days alone in Maine, I guess.. I'm so grateful that didn't happen to her.
Chuck, that is THE indelible moment in my heart and mind, too. I literally can't bear to see those videos anymore...of them falling...for so long.
I'd been told that you pass out from pressure on the brain, but recently I was told that's not true. I wish it was.
SF...right...absolutely forever and undeniably for the worst.
We could have been so together, and were for a while....until DOnahue and Brokaw sat on a set and talked about how ridiculous it is to wear flag pins as if that shows patriotism.
I saw that a few days afterwards, I think...not sure..maybe weeks?. It wasn't so much who said it but when I saw them talking like that, I knew something really deep and almost perverted had happened to us ...
Chuck - The people jumping off of the buildings - to me - is unspeakable.
It is the one thing that I can't bring myself to think about.
Z, this is beautiful. I love the angle you chose for this tribute. What I remember the most is the shock and the helplessness. As a New York resident at the time, it was the constant dread of a next attack for weeks and months and even years after. God bless our country. May we never forget that terrible day.
Z - Your post has made me think about September 11, 2001 - as it should be.
Everything that happened that day is unspeakable - yet we must speak of it and think about what happened - lest we forget. Those who faced their deaths in such a courageous way. And as you said - how it has changed our country.
And we have to recognize that there are those who are still suffering as a result.
Lives cut short - we remember them - and the stories of courage that will never be told - there are probably as many as the ones we do know.
Thanks Z - for posting this and helping us to remember that day.
FROM Z:
Sue, you're so right about that....so much courage, so many affected.
But....aside from the HORRIBLE NEVER ENDING DAMAGE this caused to America and her psyche,
THE JUMPING IS THE WORST.
Missing those phone calls is right up there with the jumping though...
Picture getting home after having heard about the attacks while you were out and realizing your husband might be dead and then hearing his "Hi, honey....don't worry, but it's not looking good for us up here....I think this is it for me. I love you. Tell the kids and my folks I love them........."
I don't think I could get through that, personally.
I missed THAT? I wasn't there for him?
man
I walked into the church office where I was Minister of Education and the pastor and staff were glued to the TV.
They told me what had happened to the first building and we watched in horror.
When the second plane came "around the corner" we looked at each other. I was the first to speak and said, "This is no accident."
We are different, now.
Z this is what needs to be said,not only the fact we were attacked but what those people went through. I think of that all the time. To be that scared that you are forced to jump out a window so high up and as Chuck said the fact it was such along fall. I can't even phathom what that was like and how toturous it is for the families and friends knowing what their loved ones went through.
And I didn't want to get political but to hear Obama talking and in the back of my head thinking of Bil Ayers and the Rev Wright saying how America's Chickens have come home to roost.
"i wanted to strike out, but didn't know how or at whom."
Indeed...and neither did GWB strike back at the real perps...the Saudi's. I still say we've should have obliterated one of their cities.
We would have recovered from the gas shortages in time. And a clearer message would have been sent. I still think we missed the real target.
Then I think about the incredible coming together of all Americans. And the stunning, unforgettable bravery of the NYFD and the NYPD...and how those men never hesitated to enter those buildings to save others...and lost their lives in the process.
Then I think about the cowards in NYC today....namely Bloomberg who would allow ( in the name of "diversity" ) that site...the graves of those brave ones...to be mocked and desecrated by a mosque near that place. While not allowing the reconstruction of a Christian Church that was obliterated in the attack.
For me...I can't ever forget that day or where I was. In a Lear 35 at 36,000 feet on the way to Washington National ( of all places )...when Miami center handed us off to JAX center and told us to land.
Or after 3 days of being grounded....on another trip to Teterboro, across the Hudson from the WTC...and flying north up the Hudson river and seeing that smoke rising from the ruins.
I'll never forget that...and never forget that we still owe someone our wrath after 11 years.
FROM Z:
Imp, being told to land elsewhere must have been quite amazing. Did you know why they were asking you to do that?
Lisa...I heard a little of Obama this morning talking about Osama and how we're so much safer because he's gone and I shuddered and the nativitee...and the credit-taking; on the other hand, a president today could hardly not mention that in view of the occasion, could he.
Still........there are ways.
I can imagine Bush mentioning it, were he president today, too, but I think he'd have given the SEALS all the credit..."osama's dead because of our great men and women who risked their lives...yadda yadda"
I didn't always love what Bush did, but I SURE miss his class.
FT...you did catch the truth about that day and what it's caused...
Joe....I think it's SO WEIRD that so many saw that second plane; i guess it was because so many were shaken by the first one and so they dragged everyone they knew to "COME LOOK!"
"being told to land elsewhere must have been quite amazing. Did you know why they were asking you to do that?"
I'll say...both of use were pretty worried...when ATC ( which never happened before & hopefully it won't ever again ) gives instructions like that...we pretty much figured we had somehow screwed up. We couldn't figure it out if we were being violated or something worse. We did hear a little chatter from some other planes in route about ATC shutting down. But it really freaked us out. And I was flying with a naval aviator who never broke a sweat either.
We caught up to what happened when we landed. My flight partner....was in tears. He knew what this meant.
Hell...he was ready to go back into the Navy.
I just hope we never have an incompetent President who would ignore the many warnings that this was about to happen.
FROM Z:
Man, Imp....it was such a horrid day for everyone.
You know, come to think of it, maybe that's part of the devastated feeling we all had; not only was it such a terrible occurence but it happened to EVERYBODY ...at ONE TIME. The same awful thing. That's pretty rare, when you think of it.
A real collective nightmare.
I wish someone would show that video you can get on line of the hundreds of boats which came to save people off Manhattan island...small boats, large boats, etc...all got about a million New Yorkers across the rivers to their home boroughs and that was hardly discussed in the media. They just kept picking people up and taking them across the river... Almost nobody I know had ever heard of that astonishing event..it wasn't unlike Dunkirk, really...........civilian boats, tugboats, tour excursion boats...they all answered the call......and to hear the pilots of those boats interviewed is so uplifting; so many said they felt part of the biggest thing they'd ever felt part of...that they did such good and felt so good about it...
amazing.
" just hope we never have an incompetent President..."
Yea...as soon as we get rid of the bowing and ass kissing doofus in the WH now...maybe we can retrieve our honor, dignity, pride and stature.
Fist time I've ever agreed with you...libtoad.
Liberalmann; you know, I really appreciate your saying that because it shows you even more transparently than all the other nutty things you say.
What do you think, Lib...that Bush should have just shut every airport down until we had no more threats coming in to the State Department?
Could you please link how he should have known when, which planes, and how we were going to be faced with this nightmare?
you speak so authoritatively, and so do your moronic lib sites you visit, so COME ON!
Or, tell us, do you really think they heard a rumor of Arabs threatening us with our planes..nothing else, no other information at all, and they should have stopped every plane from flying?
Stopped every foreign plane from entering our air space?
COME ON, Libboy, YOU CAN DO IT!! TELL US. I'm so eager to hear.
But don't work too hard on it; no intelligent rational writers, right or left, have ever suggested "we should have known", so.....knock yourself out... don't work too hard in supplying the link for us.
thanks!
that last ANONYMOUS was Z from work, by the way.
Come on, LibBoy, we're waiting :-)
Imp; good point!~
I just hope we never have an incompetent President who would ignore the many warnings that this was about to happen.
Cutting and pasting again.
I called this little worm on this same exact post at AOW's. He hasn't responded yet...
FROM Z:
Hi, Chuck...that's exactly why I asked for a link about the silly remark.
only REALLY far left dopes thought Bush could have prevented this.
Imagine? All he'd have had to DO is stop all air travel forever :-)
Z, my response to him at AOW's was that I agreed with him - Bill Clinton showed incredible incompetence for letting al-Qaeda grow into the threat they became. ;)
FROM Z:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/new-book-points-damning-finger-bush-administration-warned-9-11-earlier-thought-article-1.1156709
I was looking at my Yahoo homepage and found that there is a new book saying Bush didn't think his intel briefings were legitimate warnings...the article linked above is provocative but has absolutely zero input on what might have been done to prevent anything.
As a matter of fact, the article infers he knew the problem was going to happen on 9/11...but when an intelligent person reads that, one sees that it's misleading. Probably purposeful, to throw libboy and others like him off.
"What do you think, Lib...that Bush should have just shut every airport down until we had no more threats coming in to the State Department?..."
Damn Z...you knocked that out of the park! Of course these lib toads have 20/20 asinine stupidity when dealing with reality. Of course Bush should have shut down our entire transportation system...of course he should have deprived every America the right to travel. Especially the moonbeams like libturds travel to his gay pride rally or Code stinks next disgusting parade of vulgarities.
But lets's put it into perspective for this moron today...OK? Does he know that the asskisser in chief has been skipping his intel briefings for quite some time now?
We can't expect him to look out for the security of the country while he's doing what he knows best...HOW TO FRIGGIN CAMPAIGN and read a TelePrompTer.
And just what intel tidbits, rumors and innuendo must a real President act upon?
Given the billions of bits of intel, chatter, rumors and diversionary crap our Intelligence picks up every day?
Hell...it's so scary out there...no wonder the butt head is ignoring the intel info....it's only his buds that are doing the plotting and threatening.
Crickets.
Other than the feeling of "knowing" this was the start of the end of the world, I kept imagining how the evil bastards that planned this must have been so pleased with how effective it was.
Frogburgger's right. We can never be the same.
Libdip, I guess you ahem a point, Clinton ha drew chance to kill Bin Laden and chose not too. Why did he ignore how long this had been planned ? You truly are a complete numbskull. Go be Ed or Sybil or whoever else your ignorant alter-ego is.
Can anyone imagine what's its like for the President-Elect whenhe gets his very first security briefing. I can imagine this idiot in chief Obama thinking, "Holy crap, I think this is above my paygrade. "
IMP, libturds are mostly sociopaths, they don't care about anything but their own ass and opportunities to bash the opposing political party while trying to make it look like they care about something.
And on today of all days...we have the mutts...the islamists POS in Egypt and Liberia ( once an ally ) attacking our embassies and burning our flag...over a film clip...most likely, 2016.
Thanks to the asswipe in Chief....who's not only drawn us back into the race conflicts of the 50's ( according to J. Lewis and his ilk ) but has single handedly turned the entire ME against us. Israel and the peril it faces in light of every one of these scummy islamist shitholes be damned. Matter of fact...the PM of Israel wil be here...and the asskisser of muslim kings....will not meet with him.
I say to Israel...you're all alone out there...do what you have to...defend yourself and get the job done. The asskisser in chief whose loyalties since day one are to his muslin brothers won't be there for you.
Neither will the Jews in Hollywood.
IMP, I'd say there is some value in remembering 9-11. I heard some young folks on the radio today, who said they were too young to understand it then but do now. And it's important to them.
A while back I picked 9-15-2012 as the date Israel would attack Iran.
We'll see how it goes. I think mainly they should do it before the election. Maybe I'm wrong in that thinking but I don't know how.
And who is to say the barbarians in Egypt attacked the embassy because of a film, it may have been because they were all juiced up over celebrating 9-11 again.
Rita! "Go be Ed or Sybil"
What?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDOrzF7B2Kg
Boatlift: The story of rescuing half a million people stranded at the tip of Manhattan as the WTC burned and collapsed.
Anna Nymous
A Northern State-Troopers pulled over a couple of muslems, and requested a background check, their visa's were not quite right. And guess what the response was from the voice on their radio?
Let them go - orders from the White House!
Those muslems were the one's later flying the planes into the WTC Towers!
Guess who was the President? BUBBA
IMP, I'm down with that then. Yea, WTF is wrong with people who want to embrace such evil.
At the core of it, I believe you'll find: Cowardice, Sociopath, Ignorance.
Peaceful Muslim? Moderate Muslim? No such thing. If they(muslim) reject the violence then where are their actions, let alone voices ! Non-existent. Not a one of them should be given any quarter.
IMP.. Kind of OT. Did you see the clinton commercial for obama where clinton says 'obama has a plan to rebuild the country from the ground up'?
Why does the greatest country in the world need rebuilt from the ground up. And it's obviously total socialism plus that is going to come through the door.
And watch how many people will vote for this Without Even Knowing What The Plan Is.
A plan by an imbecile who never worked a day in his life. Who would fail at any position at a McDonalds.
Beyond words.
Kid, bad visa's - should have been deported.
Orders from the White House? How did they respond to the Troopers so quick? And Why from the White House, not from ICE or any other Dept.?
Kid, are you KIDDING? "clinton says 'obama has a plan to rebuild the country from the ground up'?"
Yes, what WAS wrong with it? This is AWFUL and I'm hoping many Americans see that!
ALL of these comments are so good; I love hearing your thoughts on all of this.
I watched some news tonight, about the Egypt thing, and I think it had very little to do with that film........I think it was 9/11, it is that the Muslim Brotherhood is encroaching on a once secular country (did you see the muslim newswoman on Cairo TV is now wearing a head covering?)...and WE GIVE THEM HOW MANY BILLIONS?
I could never tell you all what I thought we should do to that scum burning OUR FLAG after we've given them BILLIONS for YEARS and after we've been working so hard for peace in that region.
But, I think my solution might scare them enough to never do THAT again...I'd like to see their faces SO SHOCKED they didn't know WHAT hit them. Then they learned and changed their lives enough that they're scared of us again, respect our power again and SHUT UP.
Then we stop our funding of terrorists.
man, we can't even feed our own people.
They Say/We Say...oh, don't tell me.
Okay...you tell me how many 'bad visas' you think there were in this country then. Deport them ALL?
They Say, I don't know. I know there were thousands of expired visas in the US.
I blame clinton for decimating the intelligence community. I put some blame on Bush for not purging the federal government of all the democrat operatives put in place by clinton.
They played a part in destroying him. And us.
Z, the things going on today are beyond description. Beyond rationality. Demoralization of almost every system in place in America. From the family unit to liberty on the streets of America and often even in your own home.
Education, Energy, Finance. Family. Patriotism. Self-reliance and accountability. The Core of America.
It's broken. It's all broken. generally speaking.
Kid, yes...decency is truly the exception to the new rules.
I mentioned this yesterday, either here or at another blog...that I remember coming back to America (9/11 happened while we lived in Paris) and seeing Donahue and Brokaw so disdainful and kind of repulsed by people who wear flag pins.
Honestly, I hadn't seen many flag pins worn by anyone so I wasn't sure what they were talking about that for, or why! I just wondered why they were looking down their noses so badly...but then I realized that people had taken to wearing them more often because of 9/11 and, apparently, these two men were just TOO COOL to do that, and they were mocking AMericans for doing so.."I don't have to wear a PIN to show MY patriotism" was the general feeling between the two as they spoke...wait, not general feeling, they actually SAID THAT.
I'd like to see their patriotism, huh? in ANY way? I don't wear a flag pin, Mr Z didn't...and who cares? But I don't mock others for doing so or suggest, like they did, that the flag wearers think they're more patriotic than others.
It seemed like that silly conversation was so indicative of what's happened since....metaphorical.
Ok, I see that no one reads my comments the way I write them.
The muslims the Troopers had-with bad Visa's--where intercepted by the White House not ICE.
How did the White House know that these muslims were sooooo special that the White House had to get directly involved? These muslims in particular were noticed by over the radio communication monitored by the White House?
All the other bad actors with bad visa's, and bad visa's in general was not what I was pointing out.
I think I am taking down my blog,
I must be such a bad writer and noncomunicator that there is no use to keep a bolg.
Sorry Ed. I couldn't remember Liddip's alter ego name. Not trying to tie you to Mr. Multiple Nopersonality.
They Say.. I don't remember the details on this: "The muslims the Troopers had-with bad Visa's--where intercepted by the White House not ICE.
How did the White House know that these muslims were sooooo special that the White House had to get directly involved?"
??
@KID..
"Why does the greatest country in the world need rebuilt from the ground up.."
Mainly because after 3 1/2 years of this turd...he's torn the country apart and ground it down.
Z
I was there and it was my second time.
Remind Ducky when the Towers were burning and the stench of death was in the air his Marxist Moron brothers held a Nuremberg style rally and blamed the Jews in Union Square. I was there an witnessed it.
I was looking for the jawbone of an ass and ready for action. I told my girlfriend I would meet her upstairs. She didn't like the look in my eye and told me I am not going home without you. No matter how I tried to spin it she knew what that look meant. Amazingly, she certainly never saw that look either before or after, but she knew
what was going to happen.
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