September 11, 2001
Eight years on and the tears still well up and my body tenses with anger whenever I see footage of that morning.
As I do every year since the events of that day, I steel myself and watch the Fox News and ABC News coverage of the event as archived here. This has become one of my rituals every year since the first anniversary; I don't ever want to forget what happened that morning. And eight years on, nothing has changed, the feelings are the same. September 11, 2001 is the watershed event of the second half of my life.
This iteration of our war with (radical) Islam began on November 4, 1979 in Tehran, Iran. This year marks the thirtieth anniversary of the takeover of our embassy, an act of war for all, except liberals and progressives. Four years later, the Marine Corps barracks in Beirut was blown up, and my favorite president left the Middle East instead of taking the war to them; the Achille Lauro was hijacked in 1985 highlighted by the heroic act of throwing an invalid Jew overboard; TWA Flight 103 in 1988, an event recently brought back into the limelight by the release of the only convicted terrorist by Scotland on "humanitarian grounds"; the First Gulf War in 1990, with its indecisive and portentous resolution; on a cold and snowy February 26, 1993, the World Trade Center was attacked the first time by Ramzi Yousef and the apostles of the blind Sheik Rahman; the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996; the US Embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998, on the same day, within minutes of each other (two more acts of war); and the attack on the USS Cole in 2000 -- yet another act of war, as if the previous three were insufficient for the appeasers, the hand-wringers, and the cowards. All of these events preceded the events in New York City eight years ago.
It’s not as though we hadn’t been warned.
On that Tuesday morning eight years ago, so clear and blue, I was freelancing at a nationally-known retail company that owns hundreds of stores in malls all over the United States. Two of those were large retail stores in the lower malls of the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center. I had been hired to write some new manuals and specification documents and to tweak some technical documentation. It was my sixth month there, and it was to be the penultimate month the corporation would be headquartered in Miami-Dade County; it was moving to the mid-west with the usual lay-offs, transfers, resignations, and tears. My consulting gig was scheduled to end on the last day of September. The mood was already depressed and sullen.
I was in the office they had assigned to me, having coffee and reading emails. A little after 9:00 AM a CNN news bulletin arrived in my email inbox that said that a small airplane had crashed into the World Trade Center. I immediately logged on to CNN.com and saw the breaking news flash on the home page. Frankly, I didn’t suspect anything; I knew about the B-25 bomber that had crashed into the Empire State Building in the 1940s and I went along with what the initial reporting had to say. My mom called to tell me the video and pictures she was seeing on CNN so I started to follow the event closely. By 9:20, after the second plane struck, amid the frantic bulletins being put out by CNN, I realized what had happened. My phone calls became frantic. I called my wife who had been organizing a huge event at her work to go to the nearest television to see what was happening. I felt helpless and angry. We were under attack again, this time in a unprecedented fashion.
I was able to get to the already packed lunchroom on the ground floor where a large television set bolted to the wall was displaying horrifying images. Both buildings on fire, the smoke, and those poor people trapped on the upper floors. Some of the employees who were in store operations started calling the two stores in the North and South towers. We heard, through the grapevine the crowded lunchroom had become, that the employees were confused because they had been told to evacuate, then to stay, then to leave, again. Screams had been heard during those telephone calls. My mind can scarcely imagine what was behind those screams. With about fifty other people, I saw the first tower collapse. The sound of uncontrollable sobbing surrounded me. I was in a state of shocked disbelief. I didn't know what to feel and what to do. I went outside to clear my head and think while smoking a cigarette. My wife was not answering her cell phone. Around 10:15 I answered a call from my sister-in-law. She was in the service at the time and living in Maryland. I'll never forget her words: "George, they're attacking the Pentagon! What the hell is going on?"
After 11:00 AM the company let most of the non-IT employees and contractors go home. My wife's project, a project she had worked her ass off to organize for months, had been cancelled. I went to pick up our then five-year old son who had been dismissed early from his kindergarten class. After my wife arrived home, a little after two that afternoon, she and I spent the next ten hours (and the days after that) watching the news coverage, seeing the carnage, and that terrible, terrible sight of smoke rising over those smoldering ruins. We saw the second airplane hitting the tower and the resultant orange and black fireball. We saw the footage of the people running away from the Towers, covered in gray dust, some in dust and blood, and of the people jumping to their deaths as the favorable option to burning alive. We saw the first tower collapse. We saw the second tower collapse. My wife gasped when she saw the replay of the towers collapsing; she had not seen it happen live. We saw the carnage at the Pentagon. We saw what remained of the heroes of Flight 93 in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. But the ruins, those awful ruins of what had been there hours and days before, those I think, will be the signal images of that day for me. We cried, together. We were witnesses to a seminal moment in history.
Since that day I've listened to countless stories from friends, acquaintances and colleagues who were there, in New York City, near Ground Zero. The story that affected me most was told to me by one of my best friends. Because of a fortuitous desire to have a real breakfast, he, along with his partner, were running late for a 9:00 AM meeting with the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, then headquartered in the World Trade Center.
"George," he recounted, "that day remains so clear in my mind's eye I can relive it almost at will. It was like being in an episode of the Twilight Zone. Around 9:30 that night we were walking down Lexington Avenue towards 49th Street, trying to find a place to have a bite, and we were the only people on the street. Imagine that! Midtown Manhattan and we were alone, everything was closed. I saw people sleeping in hotel lobbies who had not been able to go home. Eerie doesn't come close to describing it." He went on to tell me, with emotion in his voice, that the folks they were meeting that day became like family, concerned as he was with whether they had survived or not. Ironically, the only one scheduled to meet with them that did not survive that day was John O’Neill, ex-FBI and the new head of security for the Port Authority.
I visited and marveled at these structures, I went to the observation deck to view New York City in all its glory. I ate at Windows on the World. I shopped in the malls under the buildings and then caught the train back to mid-town. Every time I see a movie where the Twin Towers are featured in a long shot I seethe. The New York skyline is incomplete. The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan weren't just buildings, they were symbols of American ingenuity, of our know-how, of our indomitable can-do attitude, of our unapologetic capitalism. Those two great American symbols died on September 11. Only the future will tell us what else we lost on that day.
The very flawed and biased 9/11 Commission Report stated that our government exhibited a "failure of the imagination" in not seeing the warning signs that had been pointing inexorably to the attacks of 9/11. I agree. But, the American people are guilty as well. Most of us tend to live our lives in such a way that we want -- no we demand! -- bad news to go away. We want to live in a bubble, living our lives in hopeful optimism, being happy, having fun. Please, don't bother us with all that negative stuff, okay? We just want to be left alone to follow our bliss. But the last time we could afford to feel that was on September 10, 2001. Especially in today's world, with an administration making nice to the worst regimes in the world.
On September 11 we came face to face with an implacable, ruthless, and merciless enemy that has sworn itself to our destruction and the destruction of Western Civilization. It has been working at it for almost 14 centuries. It doesn't matter what country that threat comes from: whether Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Libya. Or whether it's Hezbollah, Hamas, or the PLO. It doesn't matter whether it comes from within our own borders and the radical mosques we dutifully ignore so as not to offend. It doesn't matter what flavor it is, whether Sunni, Shia, Salafist, Wahhabi, secular Baathist. It doesn't matter. What matters is that we cannot ignore the danger that we, our children, and our children’s children, face as we hurtle into the second decade of twenty-first century.
Best post ever written on this blog.
God Bless you George,
We are on the same page.
Bless you George.....
We need to keep that memory alive in our hearts so that it does not happen again.
We are on the same page.
As I write this, I have tears streaking down my face after watching the videos of that fateful morning 8 years ago and reading the post. It was as if reliving it all over again. George, as always, great post. We must never forget.
It bears repeating and remembering that Miguel Bose, the ultra-fashionably leftist Spanish singer who expressed approval of the 9/11 massacre, is one of the main figures in the scheduled Juanes concert in Havana. It appears that our Secretary of State, who met with Juanes in setting up this concert and gave US approval, had no significant problem with that little detail. Just don't ask her what her husband thinks about it. THAT would bother her big time.
That day is the one that will forever be a part of my current conciousness, more than any other event. We must never forget! Great post George.
Thank you, George.
A real turning point indeed.
Thanks, George. That was a beautiful and true statement.
I add my thanks.
Now the twelfthers, who understand that something happened on the eleventh, are going to try to get America back on the right path.
I will be in Washington tomorrow; will anyone else?
Somewhat but not completely off topic: Debka Newsletter (a news source believed linked to Israel intelligence, usually but not always accutate L.D.) Sept 11, 2009 reports "in a DEBKAfile Exclusive 06 Sept. Sunday, Sept. 6, Hugo Chavez joined Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on a visit to the mausoleum of Emam Reza at
Meshhad, revered by Shiites as the Seventh Imam. DEBKAfile's
Iranian sources disclose that this gave them a chance to discuss a major project to replicate Iran's key nuclear installations in Venezuela and set up a nuclear program on the Iranian and North Korean models."
[...] remembering 9/11, I will defer to Babalu today. I agree with one of his commenters. It is the best post that I’ve seen on his blog, [...]
A sad day indeed for many people especially those who lost loved ones, this is our generations Pearl Harbor, but keeping things in perspective rember that after the war Japan became an ally. We must also remember that in a moment of mass blind panic the US interred thousands of innocent civilians that happened to be of Japanese descent (Nips).
This is not a blame the US for the troubles of the world just pointing to facts in the hope that mistakes are not repeated (government seizing of every 7-11 and quick marts).
I never bought GWBs line that "they hate us for our freedom" the simple fact is that they hate us becuase we along with the british helped create and maintain Israel (i'm not blaming Israel or saying we should abandon it, just stating a fact, you can't begin to solve a problem without facing the truth).
As I said before a very sad day for many including myself, and infuriating because OBL the master perpetrator of this heinous act still walks the earth. Remember atrocities or acts of violence are not exclusive to any one group. We must be vigilant both against terrorist and those who using fear as an excuse would usurp our freedom (or whatever is left of it after Income tax, Patriot Act, Tarp, Bailout and soon to come Bailout II and Obamacare).
Catus the younger:
Perhaps there were Jews in Israel under the Turks, under the Romans and way, way before that ... and way before the migration into Egypt etc...(;>)
Excellent post.
I was in junior high/senior high when the hostages were taken in Iran. I'll never forget that.
I was in Army basic training when the Marine barracks in Lebanon were bombed. I'll never forget that.
The other events, I only vaguely remember. I was mentally asleep at the wheel. I woke up again on September 11, 2001. I'll never forget that one either. Ever.
Thanks for again, an excellent post. God bless you, God bless our troops and God bless America and protect her now more than ever.
Yeah Larry, even in along the Galilee 2000 years ago.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/09/11/jerusalem.synagogue/index.html?section=cnn_latest
Larry and Ziva of course there have been Jews in the ME for thousands of years just as there have been arabs and others (persians,kurds etc). it's Cato the middle aged to you.
Jews and the state of Israel are not one and the same.
Cato, they hate us for our freedom, our success and our happiness. With all of the ingenuity they use to destroy, imagine how much they could achieve with positive behavior.
You are quite wrong about their hating us because of our support of Israel. That was a clever ploy they developed so gullible people could find a rationale for their insane behavior and thoughts.
But suppose some of them do hate Israel and our alliance with her. A rapist hates women. Do I care? Stop him any way you can. I am not interested in the motives of killers and destroyers of freedom. Period. Don't give the motives of insane murderers a second's thought. Just scare them or stop them.
Honey your rapist analogy overly simplifies a very complex issue and quite frankly is misleading. Jews and Arabs lived side by side in Palestine/Israel (or whatever else you want to call that geographic location) for centuries.
Chaim Weitzman got a lot done for "his people" but at the expense of others and there in lies part of the problem.
One mans terrorist (rapist in your analogy) is another mans hero remember Menchem Begin (former Israeli PM) he was a leader of the Irgun which commited numerous terrorist acts including the bombing of the King David which killed scores of innocent civilians.
Israel is a relatively new creation based on the biblical accounts that are 2000 years old. It was formed with the help of western nations. S0 what if instead of Palestine the Bible said Israel had existed in Cuba and the UN created a jewish state there and we Cubans became second class citizens in our own former home or given a "homeland" in Islas de Pino? Who would be the "rapist" then?
You also must identify "they" or "them" should I be afraid to walk into a Quick Mart or 7-11?
It's not about rationalizing "insane" behavior its about facing the problem, because only by facing the truth can you begin to solve the problem. sweeping it under the rug or pretending it never happenned will not solve anything.
That does not mean I in anyway condone the 9-11 attacks I think OBL should be strung up to the nearest tree ( I am POed it hasn't happenned yet, asme goes for Begin), but 9/11 should not be the driving force behind ME policy.
My rapist analogy refers to those who planned and carried out 9/11. My reference was I do not care what their reasons were. They are like rapists who also have their reasons. A heinous criminal's reason are irrelevant. Nothing excuses evil, no reason, no motivation excuses evil behavior like that. Those people in the buildings or on the planes do not have anyone in occupied lands. These terrorists, these murderers who cheered in the streets that their act was successful are idiots, failures and should not be excused by you or me.
Your examples about Begin and King David and the creation of Israel are familiar and I could argue with you, but I don't feel like it.
I just don't give a fig why Islamists hate the U.s. That's all I was trying to say.
You Never Answered My Question.
S0 what if instead of Palestine the Bible said Israel had existed in Cuba and the UN created a jewish state there and we Cubans became second class citizens in our own former home or given a "homeland" in Islas de Pino? Who would be the "rapist" then?
I agree OBL and his accomplices have no excuse for their actions, my statements concern the aftermath and how we resolve the issues of the ME, which if it were not for Israel and oil would not concern the US one IOTA.
"Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto". TJ
I deliberately ignored your question because your assumptions are so ridiculous that I choose not to answer you.
If it pleases you to think you have won, enjoy yourself.
I have no patience for people who rewrite history the way you have.
This is still America. I have the right to refuse to answer and I am taking that right.
Cato,
You are endorsing the hypocritical ideology that the enemies of the state of Israel use when you forget the fact that Jews were in the area for centuries (actually much longer) and have the right to have their state there.
I’m very sure that if all the Palestinians would cease their hostility towards the Jewish State the State of Israel in return will give its seal of approval towards the creation of a Palestinian State and would also help in the economic development of that state and the welfare of it's citizens.
The painful truth and the fact of the matter is that Israel has been making significant concessions to the Palestinians since the 1990s and in return the State of Israel continues getting hostility from the Palestinians as they still want the Jews to be thrown into the sea (that’s much worse than your point of the Palestinians living in their own land as second class citizens).
In my view the Palestinians deserve to live in the conditions they’re living totally until they learn to live in peace with the State of Israel and the Jewish people.
You put on emphasis on Menachem Begin’s terrorism but you fail to mention Yasser Arafat’s, Hamas (how fitting to your argument) and the other Palestinian terrorist organizations (you only mention Osama Bin Laden).
I guess Palestinian terrorism is OK with you; for you the terrorist in the Holy Land was Menachem Begin.
The funny part of it is that all the Palestinian terrorist organizations have killed (and continue killing) many more innocent people that Menachem Begin ever did in his lifetime while oppressing and killing their own Palestinian people that they claim they’re trying to liberate (that’s the ironic horseshit about these groups) and at the same time keeping them in disastrous poverty by stealing from their treasury the funds that should go to the Palestinian people.
At least you cannot claim that Menachem Begin did oppress and killed his own people and stole from their treasury.
Cato one last point,
The problem in the Middle East is not going to be solved by removing the State of Israel; (maybe those are your wishes and the terrorist groups) but is neither the problem nor the solution in that area of the world.
If you have not learned this fact by now I doubt you ever will.
Freedom,
Not to mention that there was no Palestinian Homeland except Jordan, ever. When Jordan kicked out the Palestinians, they wandered everywhere and some showed up in this place. There is no Palestinian National Anthem, and no history, except in Jordan, who will not take them back.
This myth of "occupation" was a clever ruse concocted by Arafat and company to gain the world's sympathy after the Arabs lost their AGGRESSIVE war on Israel. Show me a VICTOR in any war, let alone one of self defense, who is then called an occupier and forced to give back the spoils of war.
Begin and King David - The Irgun called up the hotel and told the people inside to leave because they were going to bomb the hotel. They were ignored. So the deaths are the fault of those occupiers.
Freedom, your points about Begin were good ones.
I said I wouldn't argue with wrong assumptions. Okay, consider me responding to Freedom's response.
"(maybe those are your wishes and the terrorist groups)"
Aprendiste mucho de Fidel, so my position is now in your narrow mind equated with that of a terrorist. Simply for stating a fact and I at no time have advocated for the removal of the state of Israel.
FFC (Fidel Fing Castro?)said "you forget the fact that Jews were in the area for centuries (actually much longer) and have the right to have their state ther"
From my earlier post "Jews and Arabs lived side by side in Palestine/Israel (or whatever else you want to call that geographic location) for centuries." see I didn't forget the fact you just forgot how to read. So using your logic (or lack there of) the Seminoles and Miccousukees should rule Florida (they where here for thousands of years) and we should be on the reservation, right Pale Face? Most Jews living in Israel are of European not ME descent.
Honey said "Begin and King David - The Irgun called up the hotel and told the people inside to leave because they were going to bomb the hotel. They were ignored. So the deaths are the fault of those occupiers".
That's classic Honey, so its ok to place bombs as long as you tell people? And that of course absolves you of any damage or death the bomb may causes. can you point out the statute that condones such behavior? Did you make the phone call or answer the phone?
"I guess Palestinian terrorism is OK with you; for you the terrorist in the Holy Land was Menachem Begin'
Fidelito for the record I think they are all terrorist and equally dispicable, the only difference between you and I is that I have no problem facing the ugly truth on both sides and you and other like you want to sweep things under the rug and pigeon hole people.
The only bomber I would excuse is one that placed one right in Fidel and/or Raul's arse. Everyone else that takes the lives of innocent civilians is a terrorist and a coward NO IFS ANDS OR BUTS.