A Small Victory

I'm going to do my part... just so you know there'll be one member of the media who hasn't forgotten and isn't trying to help others forget.

When is 9/11 going to become a holiday? Like Memorial Day or Veterens Day? I'll give up Labor Day for it.

I"m with you 100% on this. Hopefully at least us bloggers will pick up where our sorry ass media falls short! Thanks for all you do on your site.

I am all in favor of doing everything we can to not forget but I don't think it should be a holiday like labor day.
It should be like Pearl Harbor day, forever embedded in our calendar but a day we go on and do all the things that make and continue to make this country great.

That was a beautiful post. We can all take heart in the fact that there's a B-1B out there named "Let's Roll".

It may be a bit harsh, but I think we need to see it again. To see the buildings falling To see the horror. Because to many, out of sight is out of mind

And I think we need to see something else. Newsfeeds from then of the repulsive celebrations that occurred--and then intersperse them with the celebrations from 2002 and the ones that will be going on on the day.

There are muslims who will be celebrating--some right in New York--not 'fringes', not 'islamists' or 'islamofascists', muslims. We must not forget that.

There will be the usual lefty retards celebrating the day America got it's comeuppance, dancing in the blood that was shed that day and the blood that 'militants' continue to shed now. We must not forget that.

We must get mad. Madder that the media has decided that this horror merits no remembrance. Mad even that so many want to focus on 'healing', on 'surviving' as if this was some sort of natural disaster and not a wanton act of premeditated terror

When we say 'Remember Pearl Harbor' we are not just reminiscing about the dead, we are claiming the fortitude that we aquired after that attack to win WW2.

Remember the WTC. Remember 9/11. Grab the unity and sense of purpose we felt after the attack. Grab the righteous anger that we felt as we realized who had done this to us. Stay strong. Stay awake. Never forget

Ummm...I'm with Jack. To put it bluntly, we need our faces re-rubbed in the shit. We seem to have forgotten how badly it stinks.

I won't forget, ever. I won't forget the dead, or the heroes, or the human scum that did this to us. And I certainly won't forget seeing the jubilation in the streets in the muslim world.

All those mainstream muslims. Dancing in the streets and declaring a holiday. That's what we need to see, over and over again.

A beautiful post. It sure seems that these days people have the attention span of the average garden slug.

To make this all about me for a moment.

My last drunk was Sept. 10, 1988, a night I now remember but rather wouldn't. Thus Sept. 11 was my first full day of sobriety and has lasted through the present 24 hours. As my sobriety anniversary, Sept. 11 has always been a personal holiday for me and a day to which I do an annual countdown.

I recall the rocky landing toward Sept. 11, 1989, in which my sponsor and a lot of others doubted I'd make it (apparently a lot of people slip right before one year ... and I resisted a lot of the AA program and was told by too many people that if I didn't think the way they did I'd slip; one friend later said, "I've never seen anyone use spite as a higher power before.")

And I remember Sept. 11, 1993, during the long dry season in Central Africa, when I shared with a new friend in the Peace Corps that I'd made five years.

And getting coffee the morning of Sept. 11, 1998 at a convenience store in Philadelphia on the way to a job I loved, and recognizing the woman behind the counter from AA, and whispering, tears welling in my eyes from gratitude, that I'd made 10 years and glad I could tell someone.

I don't want to talk about my 13th sobriety anniversary, except to say I was on a business trip and that on Sept. 12, a couple of punks on the Atlanta subway moved away from me. This year, it's a countdown to my 15th.

This isn't about me, of course. Sept. 11 is the birthday of one in 365 people on the planet (16.5 million people), a significant number of wedding anniversaries, a day people mark that they fell in love, or broke up, and yes, sobriety anniversaries and other personal milestones.

All that is overshadowed -- rightly -- by the horror of Sept. 11, 2001. I'm not sure why I bring this up except to say that Sept. 11 can be also be a day that we can express our simple gratitude at being alive.

Well said Troll King.

Last Christmas, my wife gave me a book I had wanted very much, Here is New York; A Democracy of Photographs. After unwrapping it, I leafed through a couple of pages ... and then shut it. I haven't touched it since. As much as I'd wanted that book, something inside me said, "save it."

Maybe it was a wise subconsious decision, because on September 11, I'll be mostly tuning out the media. I've got a book of nearly a thousand photos, by hundreds of people (from pro shooters to Brooklyn Grandma's), all of whom were so immediately touched by the horror that they were moved to try and capture the history they witnessed. For me, there is nothing more pure.

Certainly not media "remembrances" disgorged by dithered committees of suits. If you want to remember those lost in a meaningful way, don't rely on the media, yer gonna have to roll your own.

All due fairness we have seem to move on from the first major terrorist act on U.S. soil which was the oklahoma city bombing. While obviously alot smaller in scale it was none the less as devistating to anyone who knew or lost a love one that day.

If were going to have a holiday for 9/11 lets make sure its a day other then 9/11 and let it reflect all those lost in sudden tragic events (pearl harbor, oklahoma city, 9/11, ect)

Michele,

Thank you.

Sept. 11th is my wife's birthday. It's hard to celebrate when others mourn.

We also live in Seattle. As horrible as that day was, it was also so distant. I don't know anyone in New York, Philidelphia, or around the Pentagon. I don't know anyone who lost someone. It's still surreal to me...

But I remember when I first heard about it. I was thinking, "Why isn't the SportsRadio station talking sports?" As I listened, and began to understand, I couldn't wait to get to work, get to a TV or the internet and find out what in the world was going on.

A few weeks after Sept. 11th, our church made a collage of images and feelings from that day, a big piece of plywood with words and images to try and help us tangibly express our thoughts and feelings. That collage now hangs in our house, as a reminder for my wife and I what that day was like, and what it means aside from a birthday.

I'm not sure what all I just said, or if it made much sense...just needed to express something, I guess.

I have three video clips I saved from the days after 9/11/01: the first and second planes to hitting the WTC, and the Palestinians celebrating.

I watch them occasionally, whenever I feel the urge to sympathize with the Palestinians, or worry that we're focusing too much on the War on Terror. They help keep things in perspective, and remind me of who our enemies are, and what they are capable of.

I seem to remember that one of Misha's LC's wanted to organize a commemoration of 9/11 in the Blogosphere. I was in the chat room last night and no one seemed to know who it was. So, even though I don't have a 'blog, I do have over 30 URL's related to 9/11: flash, music, stories, and resources from various sources, which I will gladly contribute.
As the day grows closer, I will find and save more.
My other eMail is fdisalle@hotmail.com

I cannot believe what kfx is saying here: http://kfx.toastmedia.com/archives/00000037.htm#comments

I'm in shock. I actually swore in a comment there.

Thankfully, we do have a day set aside for remembering all Americans killed for their country: Memorial Day.

You are right on the money Michelle.

Last time I checked Memorial Day was for war casualities not civilian ones...

We won't forget, just like we've never forgotten Pearl Harbor or the Titanic tragedy or any other large and awful event in the nation's history. But none of these other events gets an entire day set aside to do nothing but dwell on them, so why should 9/11? I mean, it's impossible to forget events such as these, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't move on with our lives, that doesn't mean that we must continually drop what we're doing to dredge it all up again for an entire day. The media isn't covering 9/11 all day this year because it's not big news -- it's an anniversary of an important date, sure, and like Dec. 7, it'll get mentioned on all of the newscasts, but it's an anniversary, not breaking news. We don't drop everything on Dec. 7 and watch continuous coverage of Pearl Harbor being attacked, after all. Sometimes, you just have to pause, remember, then go on with life.

Well over 2,000 people will be remembered forever and memorialized as victems of the worst terrorist act committed on United States soil. But the 30,000 Afghani souls killed in our violent veangence for that day will not be remembered. Most of those 30,000 probably were guilty of no more than ill will against a foreign power purging their lands.

I would give my life if an invader came to murder my country. Are these people so guilty? I would and could not sully the memory of those 2,000+ people who died on 9/11, but as a country we have lost relatively little compared to the pain we have caused. Personally, I know the dead Afghani's just as well as I know the dead Americans. If you had a personal relationship with 9/11 victims, then you would be with the greiving families who did memoralize 9/11 at the site. My mother was there herself.

It seems to me our national pride is getting in th way of our logical thinking. Sorry the TV networks didnt stop for a day to cover 9/11 anniversary, but those people wont be forgotten. I would rather memoralize those who surely will be.

hold your memorabillia close its been 2 years, you must like the pain and sorrow to want to make such a big deal out of it. dont get me wrong im not against remembering the dead but its been two years why showboat it all over your media? is it a moral booster for the falsity of your government? sense of patriotism? ive read what kfx wrote and what you have written; is name calling really how you want to remember the dead and show your american loyalty?

I pre-empted myself on this issue a couple of weeks ago: "I probably won't have any special speech, memorial, or misdirected rants to commemorate the second anniversary of 9/11. Even typing my rememberances (as somebody safely in Austin who didn't know anyone who lives in New York, much less anyone hurt or killed in the attack) is an empty, pithy exercise. All I can hope is that the Independent 9/11 Commission gets the funding and cooperation it needs, and that it produces a report acceptable not to the pundits or the blogosphere, but to those people whose lives were directly affected by the tragedies."

Also to add: the networks half-assing a commemoration is worse than no commemoration at all. Everyone should take the second half of your and Rachel's advice, search out your own meaning and memorials, and for every else--- don't let anyone do the remembering for you.

September 11 used to be my birthday. I say "used to be" because, as someone said above, I don't feel much like celebrating.

I'm originally from New Jersey and now live in DC, so neighbors in both my homes were attacked. Many of the towns in Jersey where I grew up and lived in as an adult had devastating losses, and there is a palpable sense of terrible, quiet sadness whenever I visit. It's not the same.

Here in DC, I work as a contractor to the Navy, and last year the office wanted to take me to lunch for my birthday - ON my birthday. I was awfully uncomfortable with the idea, as many of the people I work with had been at the Pentagon on 9/11/01 and had otherwise put themselves in peril in defense of the nation, which I certainly can't claim for myself. When I epxressed my discomfort, a compromise was made: instead of convening at a Chili's or something, we all met up in a nearby park and made it a day for everyone. Many co-workers came directly from the Pentagon memorial service to be there, all in their dress whites and glad to be a part of the event. I was touched and mystified, but then someone explained that it is a very military thing to pause and remember, and then to continue on with the mission - in this case, life.

As much as I will never forget 9/11/01, I will take the lesson I learned a year later to heart just as fiercely.

I for one will be boycotting all TV on 9/11. They don't have the _______ (fill in right term here...I can't seem to think of one) to make 9/11 a priority, then I don't need to support them in turn.

Michele, you are so right on the money. Excellent blog.

Very powerful, very moving. The metaphor that I've blogged about for where we all are now is based on the semi-obscure medical term "debridement." (Ask a burn victim.) Thank you michelle.

I have put up a 9/11 memorial page on my site at http://www.jimlynch.com/911.htm You can watch some flash slideshows that were made right after 9/11 by various people. These slideshows contain photos of everything that happened that day.

They are very moving and will help us all remember what we lost that day. Please pass the URL on to anyone who wants to remember 9/11.

My memories of 9/11:

I live in DC, been here since 1989, but never really focused on what it meant to live in the nation's capital until that day. Most long-term DC residents, particularly those of us not intimately involved in the political machinations of the city, are blase about living in the same town as the federal government - it is just our home town industry. Rochester, NY has Kodak, Seattle (had) Boeing, we have Uncle Sam.

Until that day. It was so clear, so refreshing after the thunderstorms the night before (my boss almost ended up stranded in NYC because of them, she and her colleagues were even booked into the hotel at the WTC). It was so mundane I had dropped my car off at the dealer that morning, to repair a leaking tire. I had noticed it during my friend's wedding the Saturday before.

I got in a little late, and was just settling down when I noticed a lot of people going up from the 5th floor to the 6th, where my firm has its only TV, and someone told me a plane hit the WTC. Picturing an accident, I thought no more of it, and settled down to get some work done. Then a colleague stopped in and told me it was 2 planes, one in each tower, and we knew something was wrong.

The images seemed to be of another planet, and yet so real at the same time. It couldn't be happening, but it was. Even then, at 9:15, 9:20, 9:30, as Bush spoke, no one at my office (7 blocks from the White House) expressed any concerns about DC - this was happening in NYC.

After Bush spoke, the viewers started breaking up, drifting back toward our desks in what we knew would be a mostly unproductive day, but never considering anything further could happen - I mean, they hijacked 2 planes, any more would be impossible. That was at 9:38.

I did not hear or feel the jet hit the Pentagon (less than 2 miles away as the crow flies). Some of my co-workers did see and feel it, as all the windows on one side of our building "flexed" from the impact and the smoke plume was quickly visible. I knew the Pentagon was hit only because, at the exact moment I entered my office, my sister called from New Hampshire, where she was watching the Today show and had witnessed the impact first hand, as the NBC Pentagon correspondent stopped in the middle of a broadcast to tell the viewers that something had happened.

I ran back up to the TV, and met a co-worker coming down the stairs - she was sobbing, nearly incoherant, and another co-worker was leading her to her office, talking about calling for news. Her two children were at the Pentagon day care center (they and all the children turned out to be fine).

From then it was a blur of calls to New Hampshire (while the phones still worked) and reports of bombings at the State Department, at the White House, in the Metro system. No one knew what was going on, and the reports of a 4th hijacked plane only made things worse.

By 10:15 we were evacuating, a colleague offered a ride home (without the Metro, I was walking)and for the next 2 1/2 hours we sat in traffic, desperately trying to get home and get in contact with our loved ones. By 11 or so that morning we learned that there were no more hijacked planes - the worst was over.

Back then I lived just outside the city, in Silver Spring, right between Walter Reed Army hospital and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. I always knew there were government buildings all through DC, but it never bothered me until then. For the next two days, all I could hear were helicopters and jet planes overhead. Thursday we went back to work, and found armed National Guards and Hummers on the streets.

It seems pretty normal in DC these days, but I am always suspicious of abandoned cars, parked trucks, and lost backpacks on the train. I hate the window that sits between me and the street below - wondering how much time I would have if a truck exploded just outside my building. Since 9/11 there has not been one person who refuses to evacuate for a false fire alarm (someone is always burning popcorn in this building), and we have elaborate procedures for evacuating, getting home and getting back to work, if possible.

It is the same and different here I guess.

Late for work again, I was pulling into a parking space in the garage at work when Howard Stern (I rarely listen to him...but this day I did) announced, live, that he just watched a plane fly into the WTC across from his studio. I don't know where Howard's studio is, or if he has the view he described, but he said he saw it outside his own window with his own eyes. I thought it was, maybe, yet another crass Howard thing. I turned my car off, and went to the elevator to start my day.

I got off on my floor at the State Department (I was a contractor with them at the time), and went to work as usual...nothing abnormal...until a few minutes later, when everything suddently turned surreal. I don't remember how it was publicly announced at the office...that detail, and many others, escapes me. There were some announcements over the PA. We quickly flocked to the conference rooms (they have TV); janitors, secretaries,
senior management, contractors, everyone. I can't remember exactly how long we stared at the TV, scrambled around, and made telephone calls.
The phones started ringing from friends and family; nearly simultaneously, all of the phones just lit up. The second plane hit.

There were rumors that a truck had exploded outside our office. They were confirmed. Then they were denied. Confirmed? Denied. Confirmeddeniedconfirmeddenieddenieddenied. Each person I talked had different information. There were other rumors that a plane had been heading towards the Capitol, but "we" had shot it down. Those of us in the office weren't sure whether to believe these or not...they all seemed plausible on that day. We simply had no frame of reference from which to judge plausibility any more. Everything was possible; everything was absurd.

Each face was visibly concerned that the US Department of State might make a pretty good next target. We were stressed, yes, but impressively calm and lucid. No panic whatsoever. We would do what we needed to...because we didn't really have any good options. Believe it or not, many of us went back to our cubes during breaks in TV coverage and tried to get a little work done, or check emails. Someone from the conference room would yell out when something new was announced, and we'd all pour back around the TV.

Someone (I didn't know her) had a son at one of the Towers. She wept uncontrollably and was consoled by her coworkers as best they could. I hope he made it; I just don't know.

I called my wife at some point. I told her what I knew (I didn't know about the Pentagon yet), and I told her that I was sure we would be evacuated, and I told her to - RIGHT NOW, THIS INSTANT - get a quick change of clothes, get in the car, & drive to Baltimore; I'd meet up with her later. She had turned the TV on by then, and told me that the roads were jammed.

Again, I insisted that she go on to Baltimore; I'd try to meet up with her if I could. Now, we were both a bit nervous. She said she would do as I asked. It didn't really seem real. Movie script.

While preparing to evacuate, she heard fighter planes go over our Arlington apartment, shaking the whole building and scaring her into laying down on the floor between the bed and the wall with her hands over her head. She didn't know if those planes were "ours" or "theirs". She didn't know anything.

The commute from my apartment to the State Dept. job, with light traffic, was about 7 1/2 minutes. It took me over 5 hours to get home on 9/11. Maybe 7. A long, long time. I had planned to head out the GW Parkway to the Beltway to Baltimore, but I had to go home instead, because any road to anywhere BUT home appeared to be closed or jammed solid. Starting on that day - and to continue on for about a month - my fellow commuters and I were positively patient and considerate with one another. We waved and let each other into the lane in front of us. Very peculiar, that...in D.C. Don't get overly excited, however...it has since reverted back to the characteristically-aggressive mahem with which D.C. drivers are intimately familiar.

My wife slept in a Baltimore hotel that night; I slept in our Arlington apartment. We talked on the phone a lot. She told me she loved me, and she asked me to stay safe for her.

That was a very long night.

I was absolutely glued to the TV for the next 2 weeks or so. I was in denial; then I raged; then I cried. I'm not very political at all, but I went to a bunch of memorials and sit-ins and vigils for a while. I just had to...I was thoroughly compelled for the first time in my life. Later, I burned candles by the roadside to support the troops at the base next door. Right next door. They were going to the Middle East to fight for me. I made it a point to thank every serviceperson for their sacrifice. Believe me when I say, when you live outside of a military post gate, you have a lot of opportunities to thank people. And they didn't seem to think I was being cheesy; they seemed to understand and appreciate what I meant to say.

I broke down in tears out of the blue one day, and she asked me what was wrong. I told her what made me lose it...what made me fall apart right then. I told her that it had just sunken in; what would happen next, what was required of our country now. We would HAVE to go to war, and we would HAVE to kill a whole lot of innocents, and we would HAVE to torture people to extract vital information that would save the lives of my family and my friends and my neighbors. I cried, because I realized the horror that was released that day...I cried because I knew that our country had now been FORCED to become brutal against an enemy that hid in civilian clothing and pretended to be civilians. I cried harder than I ever remember crying before.

We had been tied into a Gordian knot of needing to become despicable and brutal in order to conquer a greater evil, and still - somehow - maintain some sort of moral high ground. Impossible.

What happened that day has nothing to do with foreign policy, or building schools and hospitals and mosques, or with negotiating more equitable relations with the Muslim street and culture. Of course we need to improve all of those things, but that is NOT what this was about.

We did NOT create this situation. But, and this is why I cried, we absolutely, positively, MUST respond to it.

If we do not, then I say we are a chickenshit country and culture who do not deserve the liberty and freedom that our family, neighbors, friends and ancestors died for. And I simply do not believe that for one instant.

You mess with my neighbors; you mess with me. You kill my friends; I need to have you dead. A brutal stance, maybe...not politically correct, perhaps....but this is WAYYYYY beyond time to negotiate. Whoever perpetrated this atrocity needs to be hunted down, captured, or killed. A big part of me prefers the "killed" option.

Whoever might be - right now - planning to attack our cities at a later time needs to be taken out before they can commit the crime. The rules have just.simply.changed. Some people need to be taken out of the picture now. We Americans didn't want, anticipate, or plan for this. This change is EXTERNALLY MANDATED. "THEY" did it (Of course, we need to accurately identify "they", don't we?)

Several weeks after 9/11, I was going down the Metro escalator, and I felt a palpable shiver. What if a terrorist put anthrax/smallpox/whatever down there? I shook it off & got on my train.

My last thought regarding this. The most extraordinary thing happened in the days immediately following 9/11. We all became Americans again. Every taxicab driver, from every imaginable country/culture/religion, had American flags prominently displayed. Every business was "proud to be an American". Not from fear, not to prevent looting or violence, but from solidarity. Soooo many people I saw at the 7-11 asked the Muslim clerk there; "Are you all right? Is anyone harassing you? Is your mosque safe?".

I will never forget. And shame on the networks for trying to let me forget.

September 11, 2001 started out bad. I had a friggin' training to go to for work. It was our tri-annual "rally the troops and get ready for accreditation" meeting for the employees of our social service agency. There were three sessions that day, and I picked the one at 9:00 am to get it out of the way. I got up at my usual time, got ready as usual, fed the barely-one-year-old baby, and made sure I ate a good breakfast since I was newly pregnant again. The phone rang. When I heard the voice of my buddy on the line, the thought "What the hell are you doing up?" had barely formed in my head when he told me to turn on the tv. "I just saw a plane fly into the World Trade Center." Thinking it was a little prop plane, I obliged just so I could say that I did. Lots of smoke, fire, horrible accident, yes yes yes, and then saw plane #2 hit with my own eyes. I woke my husband. I called my mother. This was no accident. What was happening? Not knowing, I got in the car and went to my stupid meeting, which seemed to be getting more stupid by the minute. I turned to talk radio, since the pop stations had nothing, and AM already had live feeds from CNN. I heard that a third plane hit the Pentagon, and a fourth may be headed for the White House. My friends, whom I loved dearly, who lived in DC and had a newborn baby, were in serious trouble. That was followed quickly by another thought:

Is this the beginning of the end?

I tried to wrap my brain around that idea. Couldn't. Too scared. Ignored it. The next thing I knew, I was in the parking lot at the meeting. Everyone was talking about it, but filtered into the room like it wasn't really happening. I looked around at everyone, some were murmuring, some looked anxious, many were joking and having their coffee and danish as usual and I wanted to scream, "What the hell is wrong with you people? The world is ending!" I broke into tears. I had a baby. I had babies -- what was I doing bringing children into this world? The CEO came over and asked if everything was allright. In my head I screamed "What the hell do you think, fuckhead?" Out loud I said I was merely afraid for my friends. People near me said "Oh yeah, me too, very tragic," and went on with the business of the day.

Seriously.

I was in a roomful of 100 people who were mostly in denial of what was happening. I couldn't sit there, and I left to watch CNN in the dining room. But the corporate bigwigs carried on like nothing was out of the ordinary. When we heard of the plane crash in Pennsylvania, the meeting went on. When the first tower fell, the meeting went on. When the second tower fell, the CEO was still talking about things that DIDN'T EVEN MATTER ANYMORE.

And that's what is wrong with this country.

You may think that our society has ignored the anniversary of September 11, but I'm here to tell you: Some were trying to ignore it the day it happened. Some people were so wrapped up in their miserable, insignificant lives that they lacked the mental faculties to comprehend what was happening around them, and are so diseased with their own self-absorption that they see no need to remember.

I, for one, hope I never EVER forget.

I have an original animated gif I'd like to contribute to this site:

http://members.aol.com/webfire42/Sept11th.gif
(Feel free to load it onto your server if you choose to use it)

I'd also like to contribute my story, which can be found at:

http://asmallvictory.net/mt/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=4324

It's the one that's posted by me, (ScottC) at August 29, 2003 01:18 AM

I know you've heard it before, but thank you for creating this site!

Here's my own September 11 story, written two days later while it was still raw. I worked in the Trade Center. (The link, without HTML:
http://baseballcrank.com/archives/001004.php)

For context, at the time, I was writing only about baseball in a column for The Providence Journal; they actually ran this in the physical, dead-tree paper that Sunday (no doubt in part because there were no sports events to write about and Projo didn't exactly have a ton of staffers in Manhattan on September 11).

Postscript about my firm: We did wind up being back at work the following Monday -- with empty desks, it was like Whoville on Christmas morning, they took everything we had but dammit we're still here. We lost one person that day.

I'm glad to see people sharing their stories and feelings about 9-11 and I would also like to say that all of the people who volunteered we're heros in every since of the word. There is an online support group for them at http://www.groundzeroassn.com

This has been rolling around inside of me now for a very long time, so I guess it is time to put it out there for all to see. This may be a bit long, but it is all me.
To read it all:
http://biscuitsandgravy.blogspot.com/2003_08_31_biscuitsandgravy_archive.html#106261797750472454

Nicht vergessen!

German for "Don't Forget!" It's a 1' × 2' corkboard I acquired when I was stationed in Germany in the early 80's. Something you would pin a grocery list or something similar to. It has been hung directly in front of my office chair in my home office since Sep. 12, 2001 - always in sight. After their (Germany's) participation in the Axis of Weasels affair, I would have trashed it - except for the single thing pinned there. Two Amtrak Metroliner tickets. One is a stub - Philadelphia 30th St. Station to Newark Penn Station - 11Sep2001, arrival time 8:45AM. The other is the return ticket for that afternoon - unused.

If you are not familiar with the geography, Newark is right across the river from Manhattan. As the train nears Newark, the NYC skyline is clear and close. As many people have noted - it was a beautiful fall day. Crystal clear blue sky, no clouds, wonderfully pleasant 70 degree day. The kind of day that makes you forget winter is right around the corner - you put that out of your mind to just enjoy the day.

The train was a little late. As it neared Newark, I clearly saw the smoke plume from the first impact. It did not register. Get that? I saw it, you could not miss it. My mind refused to grok it. I convinced myself it was just a perceptual trick - there was a fire somewhere, the breeze was just right, the smoke plume just looked like it was coming from the WTC. The other 100 or so passengers in my car had to see it too - no one said anything about it. Mass self-delusion? Who knows. I put it out of my mind.

I was making a client visit in a high-rise. We had just started a meet and greet breakfast thing. I was there with 4 other members of my company. The sales manager comes in and says, "Hey - a plane just hit the WTC!" We all say, "Yeah right." He convinces us to look. One face of the building looks out on the Manhattan skyline. OK. That looks bad. Why didn't I realize that from the train? OK - it was a Cessna or something. Bad, but hopefully just took out a few offices on one floor.

I had to go work in the computer room in the basement. A while later, someone comes in crying, saying it was an airliner and a second one just hit the other tower. We go up to the 11th floor - HOLY SHIT!.

Janitor comes in - says one hit the Pentagon. NFW say several of us - they would shoot it out of the sky if it got close. Had to apologize to him later in the day.

OK - real bad - but they'll get it under control. Islamic terrorists were the frontrunner right from the beginning. No one doubted it.

Stood there, 11th floor, across the river for a long time. When the first tower fell, we all assumed it was just smoke. We could not see that tower anymore due to the smoke. Right? Then they evacuated the building. There were supposedly more hijacked planes flying around up there, a high-rise was not the place to be.

The worst thing to me that day - 75% of the people in that building had a loved one or friend in the WTC. No I did not take a poll. 10,000 people came out of the building and were milling on the sidewalk. I could see it by the number on people crying, hugging someone, desperately trying to make a cell call. A later company poll did put it at close to 75%.

Of course we gave up work for the day. Our little group made our way to the Marriott nearby. We found a café that had the TV on. Eventually we even got some food. The mayor was a rock. I'd vote for him for any office.

Some of our group ran out to try to give blood. Long line, they only wanted papered donors, and it quickly became apparent there would be few survivors. Gave that up.

In the afternoon we started seeing people coming up from Battery Park. Businessmen and women - suit coats tucked under their arms, covered from head to toe in dust and grime. In many cases tear tracks cut through the dust. First time I saw the "thousand yard stare". What these people had been through I did not learn for days and even weeks.

Speculation quickly turned to Osama, and then to Afghanistan - consensus by about noon was that the Taliban was toast. The only thing for the odds-makers to do was to bet when the first bomb would fall.

Late afternoon we heard the trains were running. Back to the train station. They were running, then not - bomb scare. Nothing to it. We waited around a few hours and eventually got on a local that connected in Trenton with SEPTA which might get us back to Philly. The station was mobbed - but it was the politest crowd I ever saw. More polite by a factor of 10 than the typical workday commute. No pushing, no cutting in line. If someone had a need to be first and get on a train and expressed it - they went to the front of the line - no one bitched. Anyone covered in that damned, damned dust went straight to the front.
It was crowded and hot and the worst day of most of our lives - and it brought out the best in everyone.

Weirdest experience of the day - a "raghead" came walking up the train. No crap. Sep 11, 2001 evening - this guy comes walking up the center aisle of the train - big turban on his head. Everyone stopped what they were doing and watched. No one said a thing to him. Everyone just stared. He did not even seem uncomfortable. I'm thinking that takes big brass ones. I suspect he just didn't have a clue how close he cut it that day.

When we made it to Trenton the damned Metroliner pulled up. Forget the SEPTA connection - we went in style. Just jump on. We stood - it was a lot like the cattle car days of my military experience. The conductors were packing on as many as the trains could hold to get people out of NYC and surrounding area. No one checking tickets that day - the conductors were mostly looking for the dust covered - made sure they were comfortable and left alone. Amtrak went up a huge notch in my book that day.

Back at 30th Street Station in Philly - TV cameras everywhere. Many daily commuters to NYC. Local reaction etc. "So how did it feel to see the towers fall?" What are you - f*n nuts? How the hell do you think it felt? Get outa' here you damned parasite.

Home around 11 PM. Couple of stiff drinks and bed. Woke up to the first day of the rest of my life - and a new world. Thank God for Dubya. Can't imagine wishy-washy Gore in charge. Just thank God.

I work in the Alexandria office of a national engineering firm; our office was on the river, with a great view of the Capitol Dome out one side. In 2001 one of our projects was a small part of the ongoing Pentagon renovation.
On 9-11 I got in to work about 8:30. A few minutes later a co- worker heard the first report that a small plane had hit the World Trade Center. Someone else pulled up a website with a photo from the scene. It was an odd news story, a short diversion from work.
Ten minutes later someone out in the cubes called out, "there's been another plane crash." People started pulling out radios; a dozen of us gathered around a desk and listened to a local station, with a live feed from a NYC station. It was surreal. One plane on a clear day was weird, two planes was certainly not an accident. Who in their right mind would do this? How? Why?
Work in the office pretty much stopped. I went back to my office briefly but didn't stay away from the radio for long. Then the radio cut away from the NYC feed to the local studio, with a live cell call - a man on the Shirley Highway reported a huge cloud of smoke at the Pentagon; then another report of an explosion there. There was an immediate chorus of "no"- sheer disbelief- from our group around the radio. I ran back to my office and called the contractor we worked with at the Pentagon. Amazingly, the receptionist answered.
"What's going on- we heard there was an explosion," I asked.
"I didn't hear anything but there's a lot of smoke outside and my phone is going crazy. I've got to go."
"Stay safe," I told her. (Turned out, the plane hit exactly the opposite side of the building from the construction trailer.)
I ran to the river side of the building, looked north. An ugly cloud of smoke was rising up the river. This can't be real; it is.
Back to the radio. Rumors started flying. Around 10 I felt the windows in my office rattle, then heard a boom. Later we figured it was planes scrambling from Andrews; I think the sonic boom was the source of rumors of car bombs at State Dept and the Capitol. (Both of which sent us running back to the river side of the office to check the view.)
I actually got some work done that morning. We had a plan submittal due the next day; around 10:30 it became clear that since no one was very motivated, and there were not going to be any FEDEX or courier pickups that day, we weren't going to make it. I called the client in Baltimore; he didn't seem to be on the same planet. "We really need that- do you think you can get it up here tomorrow?"
Hell- I don't know if we'll be alive tomorrow, I wanted to tell him.
Phone service was spotty, but I talked to my wife at work, my Mom in Arkansas, my kid's school- yes we're safe, yes we're scared. I considered going to pick up the kids- but if there are car bombs on the street, and another plane coming in, they are safer at school. I hope.
We pulled a TV out of the conference room and set it up in the area called the War Room. (How appropriate!) I didn't watch long- I recall ten people staring at the screen, silent and dazed. All I could see on screen of the NY skyline was smoke. I'd heard, but not seen, about the buildings collapse. I figured a corner had fallen off, or the top ten floors had caved in. I couldn't wrap my head around both buildings completely falling in, not until I turned on the TV at home that afternoon and saw the building falling, falling, falling, for what seemed like hours. And felt sick all over again.
Four of us walked a few blocks to lunch, more to get outside than from hunger. Now we could not just see the smoke two miles north, we could smell it.

Even before lunch the office email reported news from our firm's other offices: the New York office had closed for the day; the LA office had closed; the Cleveland office had closed. (Cleveland, I thought. Sure, if I'm a terrorist, that's at the top of my list.)
We closed the office about 2:00. I got home, sat on the front porch with the radio- but there was nothing new. My wife got home with our kids a few minutes later. The next door neighbor came home soon; her husband, an assistant chief with Arlington Fire Dept, was at the Pentagon for most of the next two weeks. We took comfort, that day and that fall and since, in the company of friends.
We are lucky. We have several degrees of separation from the tragedy. Some of my wife's students had parents injured at the Pentagon, but we lost no immediate friends in New York or at the Pentagon.
But it didn't end there, and it hasn't ended yet. In November 2002 I heard the same conversation from three different people. It went something like this: "After 9/11, after anthrax, after the summer of encephalitis and malaria, and now, finally, after the snipers have been caught and we can let the kids play outdoors and gas up the car without worrying- I want a break. I don't need one more thing."
We all know it's coming. And we know we can't forget, and don't want to forget, and won't forget.
This spring we moved our offices to less expensive, roomier space; we're still two miles from the Pentagon. I still have a private office but without a window now. I miss the view, but I feel a little safer.
We like where we live; we enjoy our jobs, our neighborhood, our church, our friends- but we wonder if maybe the folks who've moved from DC for a good job in Pennsylvania, or gone home to Ohio, were motivated by something besides the job and a more leisurely pace of life. And if maybe they have the right idea.

Michelle, thank you for this project. My apologies for the length- edit it as you need to. God bless you, and keep up the terrific work.

Aligned with this goals of this site, our site provides a place for the survivors of the "forgotten" building at the World Trade Center. 3WTC, the location of the Marriott Hotel, was one of the buildings destroyed in the attacks.

Please visit the site for more info:

http://Sept11MarriottSurvivors.org

Aligned with this goals of this site, our site provides a place for the survivors of the "forgotten" building at the World Trade Center. 3WTC, the location of the Marriott Hotel, was one of the buildings destroyed in the attacks.

Please visit the site for more info:

http://Sept11MarriottSurvivors.org

I saw the towers on fire from the top of our office building on 56th Street. It was the clearest day I've ever seen. Even now when the weather is like that, blue sky and calm air, I always say "this is how it was on September 11th."

I didn't yet know about my wife's friends at Cantor Fitzgerald, or the sweet young woman whose baby was born fatherless a month later.

And almost every day I live in New York and I think about these things, and I'm enraged, and sick, and I'm NOT MOVING ON.

There are so many memories of that day and the days that followed that changed all our lives,. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share my thoughts, feelings and memories of that time with you and anyone who cares to read them!

I remember so clearly turning on my computer first thing in the morning and checking the MSNBC website for news, seeing the pictures of that first plane hitting the World Trade Center and wondering "why would someone make up something so awful", then realizing it wasn't made up. I went into Mitch's office and told him to check his computer. The Internet was already getting overloaded and he couldn't open any news sites. Other people started coming into the office and saying they had heard more on the news.

I insisted that someone in our office go get rabbit ears to make our conference room TV work, they kidded and said, it was just an accident or a joke, then we saw on MSNBC.com that the second plane had hit and we all realized these were no accidents. We got the TV up and running in a conference room and all of us sat around most of the day watching, leaving for a while when we couldn't stand it, coming back to watch in horror while our world changed forever.

I considered myself lucky because I was able to get ahold of my step-son who was then in the Army in Korea, he couldn't reach his dad or mom so I was able to let them know that he was safe. He's in Iraq now, as a direct result of 9-11.

I called my mom, checked on my kids, worried and wondered as all the conflicting reports came in and prayed for our country and for the souls in hell in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

My ex and I were scheduled to take a plane on the 13th of September to Kokomo, Indiana for the country's largest Vietnam Veteran's Reunion and of course all the planes were grounded. We decided that we would drive from Kansas City, Missouri to Indiana and attend the reunion anyway, if, and only if, my 12 year old daughter was comfortable with my going, which she was, as long as I wasn't flying.

On our way to the reunion my 22 year old daughter called and said "Mom, if the President says he needs people to enlist, I will enlist, Dad doesn't want me to, is it OK with you?" The only possible answer to me, as an American and the daughter of a Marine was, "I expect nothing less from you."

She also (being from Texas) reminded me that "George Bush is a Texan, he's never been afraid to shoot at anything in his life, and he hits what he shoots at!"

I remember driving past Kansas City airport and St. Louis airport and the airport in Indianapolis and thinking: My God, when has the sky ever been this quiet, where are the planes, this is just wrong!

The Veteran's Reunion was the right place for me to be that weekend, I will never forget the feeling of being surrounded by 25,000 men who had served their country as we all sang Lee Greenwood's song "Proud To Be An American". I cannot imagine anything will ever move me more deeply than that moment.

When we came home I went to my Civil Air Patrol meeting. I'm the Deputy Commander of Cadets and I had 25 cadets at the meeting that following Monday. These kids are 12 to 18 all of their lives had been changed so radically and I knew they would need to talk about it. The first question I asked them was, "How many of you are willing to get back on an airplane today?" All 25 hands went up. Then I asked them "How many of you are willing for your parents to get back on a airplane today?" Not a single hand went up. These children 12 to 18 years old, had realized the mortality of their parents and their world, and it broke my heart. Every one of them that day was ready to sign up with the military and fight for their country.

NEVER DOUBT THE YOUTH OF THIS COUNTRY, THEY ARE STRONG, THEY WILL BE ANOTHER GREATEST GENERATION AND THEY WILL NEVER FORGIVE OR FORGET.

NEVER FORGIVE, NEVER FORGET, NEVER ALLOW OTHERS TO FORGET.

Written in response to Michele Catalano's "Voices" project, over at A Small Victory, asking people to write down their memories of 9/11, so as not to forget.

Dedicated to the future.

Belgium, September 1st 2003

We didn't expect it to happen ... nobody did. Draped in a warm cocoon of luxury we all thought we were safe. Sure, "We wouldn't forget" ..., we saw the -- by now sloganesk -- writings in movies, plays and books a hundred times and more: "Never again" ... . But we still did forget.

In a timespan of half a century the idea of war was pushed to the backs of our minds. Things looked quite good anyway: we all had cars to take us through a cold winter morning. We had television to entertain us and make us forget the sorrow of a slightly more difficult day at work. And hey, the Wall came down, one less problem to deal with, why worry? The evils of fascism and communism were defeated and the Age of Aquarius was coming, mankind developed and it was time to think about the future, in a not-too-modest positive way if possible.

People who work in shifts tend to feel a bit strange now and then. It's strange to come home at noon and having the feeling it's night already. But you try to adapt, you eat something while listening to the radio, one ear hearing the radio, the other is there to hear yourself thinking about what you are going to do with the remaining part of the day.

Vaguely I overheard that something had happened in New York, a building on fire ... special news report ... probably an accident ... no surprise in that ... all those skyscrapers ... busy airtraffic ... damn ... .
Then another news report, and another, ... quite normal actually ... the "Media Contemplating the Big Apple ... ". A few minutes pass, I was already on a slightly higher state of alert than I was when I came home. When I was young I used every second of my spare time to read about space and everything that flew beneath it. I never liked it when one came down.

The music stopped. Not in the kind way. Not in the way music is fading out when radiopeople want to announce a traffic jam, or even put a few giggles in between. It was done the hard way, with the push of a thumb instead of the gentle strike of the index finger, unorganized. You could here the unrest even in the speaker's voice.
Connections were broken, re-established again, texts were spoken with a lot of pauses in between. My hartrate had already gone up quite considerably by that time.

"A second airpl ..." was all I could stumble. It was all that I needed. Things went fast from then on. Something had announced a very long day, well into a short night, into a new era.

I felt myself rising from my chair, dropping everything at hand, knife and fork falling loudly on my plate. Things were still falling when I was watching CNN, the only American channel Belgian cable companies were providing at that time.

Staying at my parents' house, there was a small couch on four wheels in front of the TV, about 3 meters away from it. That's where I sat for the next two, three, four hours ... for the rest of the day, hands between legs.
All those questions running through one's head: "Who did this? Why? How many people are in there?" Then a third plane, a fourth, still later a fifth. "How many were there? How did they do this?" At the time, I didn't yet realise which effect this was going to have on everyone's lives. I think it was only later, at the same time that a helicopter pilot could be heard yelling "Holy shit!", that anger and bitterness started coming in. Before that, it was only bewilderment.

Throughout the whole day and many days more from then on, I tried to imagine what it was like for the people inside. A young man above the hole where the first plane hit, calling on the phone with his grandmother, comes to mind, asking her what that "rumbling sound was he could hear in the background" ... .
Tower Two was gone ... I felt frozen.

If this one came down, the other one is going too, I remember thinking, and the people inside Tower One must realize it. Later investigations showed that at least some of them did. They broke the windows to get some air, some cameras captured them waving their shirts or whatever they could find, crying for help, in vain.
Some jumped or fell, nobody can ever forget those images. Nor the sounds of people crashing into glass, which I later saw, frightened even the Firefighters. Some researchers brought forward that it may very well have been that people didn't choose to jump, but instead searched on hands and knees, keeping low to escape the smoke and the heat, trying to find a way out, not realizing they were going towards an open window.

It was such a long day. I remember feeling exhausted when Building 7 came down, as I was preparing to go to bed. "How many more?"

When you look back at things, you realise how much our world has changed. A new -- formerly ánd now still -- underestimated threat has come into our world. Letting those two years run through my mind, I see the days, weeks and months afterwards, reading all the articles, watching all the news, hearing a lady captured under a firefighting-truck scream out for help through a radio she had found.

I lost friends because of differences on how to fight this struggle.

Notes Made on 11 September 2001
by Gerard Van der Leun

[What follows is a slightly edited transcript of what I saw and how I felt on the 11th of September, 2001 from Brooklyn Heights in New York City. On that day I was posting to a West Coast Computer Conferencing system known as The Well. As a result, even though I was writing from Brooklyn Heights, directly across from the Towers the time stamp reflects PST]

Tue 11 Sep 01 08:07

Saw the first tower collapse from the Promeade across the river in Brooklyn. Fine white and pale yellow ash everywhere. Lower manhattan covered in smoke with ash still drifting down.

Military jets overhead every five minutes or so.

Lower span of Brooklyn Bridge jammed with people walking out of the city, many covered with white ash. Ghosts. The Living Dead. BQE empty except for convoys of emergency vehicles.

Sirens in all directions. Ferry ships emerging from the smoke heading to the Brooklyn shore riding low in the water… fully loaded.

This is monstrous.

Deaths in the thousands in New York.

My body is trembling with sorrow and rage. I saw the first tower fall. Everyone in it would have been killed. This, all this, must be stopped. Those who have done this must be wiped out to the last.

War with whom?

Any and all terrorist organizations, foreign or domestic, must now be brought to a swift and complete halt no matter where they are located.

I watched this happen. The enormity of it cannot be communicated. Vile and bestial.

We need to destroy any and all capacity of anyone living anywhere to do anything like this ever again. There were thousands in those buildings. Thousands.

There is no justice swift enough or sure enough.

All that we have must be brought forward and used without restraint. This is an act of war beyond Pearl Harbor.

Military jets overhead again.

More ash on the street. I am cooled down. Way down.,

This is pure evil.

*Tue 11 Sep 01 12:33 *

There is no more World Trade Center visible from the Promenade. But you can smell it from there—a sort of burnt stench as if someone lit newspaper in a trash can and then poured water on it. That kind of wet burnt stench.

It is bright in the sunshine now except for where the Trade Centers stood and there is still a plume of thick brown smoke smouldering up from there and making the sun behind it look dim and oily.

Just now I saw three large military helicopters land across the river from the Heights on the big pad at the foot of Wall Street. People on the streets are talking quietly many of them on cells now that some of those nets are back up.

Everything is as quiet as it was this morning when I got up and began to take a shower.

Showering I felt a vibration shake my building in Brooklyn Heights like a subway train passing deep underneath the structure. I didn’t think much of it. I’ve felt similar vibrations before.

Getting out of the shower I was dressing and I heard the second explosion from the second plane striking the buildings.

I turned on the radio and found out what was happening.

I dressed and left the house and walked a block to the Promenade at the edge of Brooklyn Heights and saw both towers in flames sending huge gouts of smoke into the air.

You don’t know what to think. You don’t know what to feel. You are just reacting. The promenade was jammed with people with more arriving.

Then as I watched the first tower just imploded and plunged, it seemed to me, straight down. Then a huge brown and black rolling cloud of smoke came boiling through all the streets between the buildings and surged outwards towards us on the other side of the river and, at the same time, upward until it took over the center of the sky.

You could see bright shiny bits of metal squares tumbling up and down and drifting out of the smoke that moved up and blew out to the south east… it was like confetti or stuff tossed out of windows in a ticker tape parade. I felt the sound before I heard it and it shook everything around me. I heard gasps and screams around me. People were turning away. Everyone with children was leaving the promenade. Some were moving closer.

The smoke took over everything. I knew that anyone in that building was dead and I started to shake and to weep and to look around at the others who were in all states of reaction. And I had to go back to my house to regroup.

After I was in the house for a few minutes I heard another larger explosion. I went back out and down to the promenade again but this time I couldn’t see the sky as I had before. This time the whole sky had been darkened and, the wind having shifted, this fine white ash was swirling down the street. Not heavy, but everywhere around me and it was settling down lightly on all the surfaces.

When I got to the promenade again the entire southern tip of Manhattan was enveloped in a dirty brown cloud, No buildings visible at all. Nothing. It filled the sky and made it dark. Turning the corner if you looked uptown past the Brooklyn Bridge which was filled with hordes of people walking towards the Brooklyn shore you could see the buildings start to emerge from the smoke. People were sparse on the promenade now although down towards the end there were more and if you walked down there you could see a little bit into the downtown section of Wall street. And there were ferries moving out of the smoke at high speed.

And then I started to hear the military jets but I didn’t see them. But no other planes are to be seen.

Now it is still smoking there. The trade centers are just gone. Erased. 50,000 people they say work there and 150,000 pass through.

What do I feel? I don’t know what I feel except that I want vengeance and complete vengeance. I want everything this country possesses put onto the people who did this, and the people who supported this act, and the people who believe this is the way in which political ends are achieved. I want there to be a war and a big war until these people are eradicated who ever they are and where ever they are. I want it made clear that anything even approaching this evil act will be met with utter destruction-people, families, villages, cities, nations. This is an act of war and war must be the response.

We will be having a long series of mass funerals for many weeks. I only hope that this country finds the stomach and the resolve to carry retribution forward until it is complete.

That is what I feel, now, today. And I’m not alone. I’m not alone at all.

Tue 11 Sep 01 12:42

We need to be in a state of War and to pursue the real aims of war. Against what country? Against a list of countries that support, harbor, or approve of terrorism.

A list of countries. All of them. And we need to take action that is terrible and unilateral. Individuals, families, villages, cities, nations.. all must be pursued and eliminated.

There needs to be revenge and there needs to be a balancing of the scales.

This is the greatest single evil act against Americans in history. It cannot be allowed to stand.

Tue 11 Sep 01 22:11

All day the images have repeated themselves on television while the smell of the smoke persisted in my rooms. Off and on, all day, I walked to the promenade to look at the reality of it and watch the smoke that didn’t stop. It will now play itself out, over and over again in my mind, until the day of my own death.

Television and reality. It is very difficult to separate the two, and when one has no reality, television is the thing that replaces it.

And because it is through television that those responsible for this monstrous act receive their impression of this country I believe they have made a fundamental miscalculation about the deeper nature of the United States. A miscalculation that will cause to be visited upon them what I pray will be a terrible lesson; a lesson that will make the survivors envy the dead.

If you look at television and the endless products of pap and nonsense that are piped out of the media centers of the United States, it is easy to see us as a weak, self-obsessed and foolish people. And many of us are that, even if we pretend to be other than weak, self-obsessed and foolish.

We have sitcoms and MTV. We have endless opinions about things which are not really central to serious life questions and serious policy decisions.

Our young people look foolish in their vanity and their fashions. Our military institutions are often ridiculed. Our entertainments are light and vapid. Many in positions of influence give short shrift to millions more with deeply held religious and traditional political convictions.

Our “major” issues on a day by day basis rarely rise above the level of fretful worry about the “safety of restaurants that allow smoking,” or whether or not a flower will be threatened by an oil well. These are serious issues to many Americans, and it is easy to see why such wet and weak concerns would lead others elsewhere in the world to hold us in contempt as a weak and decadent society that cannot defend itself against attack.

They see our men as feminine and our women as masculine and, to the fundamentalist mind, this signals a weakness in the blood and bone of the nation.They believe that they can attack such a society with a kind of impunity, or with the expectation of a careful and delicate response. They even note that our President is a man who communicates in a clumsy way, who is an illegitimate ruler, and who does not have the support of many of the ruling elites of the country. They hold him to be easily frightened and stupid.

And perhaps he is many, if not all, of these things: clumsy, weak, illegitimate, frightened and stupid.

But it will not, in the long run, matter. And I pray it does not avail them. That is all the television America.

But there is and always has been another America, and it is this America that I hope will emerge from this day and remind all those who seek to harm us that we can be a nation that is as terrible as it seems foolish. That we are a country of deep resolve and capable of striking back in cold anger without compassion or regret. That we are, as the Japanese knew and were to discover, a sleeping giant and you wake us at your own risk. And once woken we will destroy you, and then rebuild you. The Japanese had their lesson and have learned. Germany had it’s lesson and has learned. Now it is the turn of a number of nations in the middle east.

We will first tend to our dead. Many funerals will take Place over the next month or so. At the same time we will also prepare for our vengence and I pray it will be terrible and without hesitation or compassion until all terrorists and all the villages, cities, and nations that support them are reduced to rubble.

This will be an America whose anger is not hidden beneath grief and the committment to save those not yet dead in the rubble of New York and Washington.

This is the America you see when you watch the head of the Fire Department of New York try to express his feelings at losing 300 men in one terrible moment. This is the America of the thousands of rescue workers on the job tonight trying to dig through the rubble. This is the America of terrible resolve that you can read on the face of the Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when he states the military is ready to do whatever is required of it. “Whatever is required of it”,and I pray we require them to visit horror on our enemies that is a thousand fold worse than what we saw today.

You see, it doesn’t really matter “who” is the President. It matters only that there is a President.

The President is only one man and in times like this he does not really have to lead. He has only to follow and get out of the way.

After that what takes place will be done by many, many others in the hundreds and thousands. These people will not be a group of lame celebrities with their puling little concerns whose lives are just roles on television. They will not be a host of sensitive new-age babblers whose fantasies of a perfect world blind them to the evil of this one and the need to tear it out root and branch. These will be Americans with terrible tools and with even more terrible weapons, and the skill and the will to use them. They will be filled with a terrible intensity and, I hope, a deep sense of mission which will not be lightly put aside.

This mission should be clear to everyone who has some experience of the world and how the world operates… how reality operates. This mission should be nothing less than one that is willing to use whatever means necessary to target terrorism and to destroy it, wherever it exists. If this means the wholesale destruction of nations, so be it.

This mission should be to remind the world that while we are a nation committed to peace, we are a nation to be feared at war. We have the power to do this. We must use it without hindrance. If peace needs to be purchased with the sword, we should be ready to do this. We must become what we were during the Second World War-ruthless and unrelenting.

Those who think we are only what they see on our foolish television, need to have a hard and burning lesson on who we are when we decide to turn off the sit-coms and get real.

If we cannot do this, we will suffer this again and we will deserve it. The time to fill ourselves with the resolve to crush this monster is now and I pray we are up to the task.

Wed 12 Sep 01 07:30

[I wrote above that we must be…] capable of striking back in cold anger without compassion or regret

[A Well Denizen responds: “Perhaps boswell [ my Well handle] has never spoken with any WWII vets who were active in (e.g.) the bombing of Dresden.”

You have no sense of shame or patriotism or anything other than your limp, feeble and twisted sense of a perfectable world that vanished yesterday morning.

Do I have a sense of WWII vets who bombed Dresden and what they feel today? I am sure they feel bad about it. I am sure that they felt bad about it at the time.

Feelings… upon which so much of your useless world view rests… have nothing to do with this.

Only by doing what has to be done to protect and preserve this nation will we be able to maintain a way of life on this earth that makes your ideas and feelings possible.

In my family, I have four uncles. Three served in World War II and of those three, one, the most handsome and dashing—I have the pictures—was a navigator on a Fortress. He was lost over the North Atlantic in the closing days of the war against Germany. His name is carved into the stones of the monument to these men that stands at the foot of Manhattan. I haven’t been to it in some years, but when the smoke that I can see from this office clears and we are allowed to go there, I plan on making a visit.

Another uncle, a younger one, was in Korea at Inchon. He never speaks of it, but once when I was young I found an envelope filled with black and white pictures that he took during his time in that battle and they were horrific.

So while I in truth do not know the feelings of the bombers of Dresden, I know something of the effect of war on families in this country and I do not take it lightly.

The French has a saying that translates as “Revenge is a meal we eat cold.” Cold is what it will be and all your smary small comments will not change that one whit.

Wed 12 Sep 01 08:05

To answer leroy, I am back at my absurd day-job. So far I’m just about the only one here. Maybe eight people out of 200+.

I don’t know quite why I am here, but then, in truth, I’m never sure why I am ever here other than that my personal life obligations require me to be here. That may have to change.

At any rate, I woke up and could only take about five minutes of the endlessly repeated images of disaster, and having, literally nothing better to do, decided to try and come in.

I first walked to the Promenade to see where the Towers were. The vile smoke blooming across the river was still there as it has always been, probably as it always will be in my mind where I will see it first as that moment when the first tower went down carrying thousands to a death I cannot imagine.

Still there. And the faint smell lingers too. And there were small clumps of people standing around, one couple even posing for a picture ag