Remembering 9/11

[Fake-Fat Sunny]

I start this thread to simply move beyond some morbid and sorrowful thoughts prompted by the release of the 9/11 tapes by NYC prompted by a lawsuit from victims families and the media.

 

I do this because though it is necessary in living life to move beyond sad events (be it the loss of a loved one or a tragedy like 9/11 or Bosnia, or Darfur for that matter) I think it is important to remember these sad events even while we move beyond in daily life.

 

This is a football board so I even ask the moderators if this topic bogs down TSW then move it. However, I not sure where you want to move it to as my intent in remembering 9/11 is not to make any political or punditry point (the right uses terrorism to justify the Pres' Iraq policies while the left uses terrorism to claim the Pres' Iraq policies sshould instead focus on 9/11 so remembering 9/11 is not a political statement either way in itself).

 

At any rate, the thing I would add to the mix is restating my own experiences with 9/11.

 

Like many Americans, my first interaction with this terrorist act was through the 24-hour news media.

 

I was more oblivious than most to the bin Laden threat or the perceived US financial weight that led to the selection of the WTC as a symbolic target as I was just back the night before form celebrating my 12th wedding anniversary with my lovely wife with a trip to Canada (we had moseyed across the Lwesiton brdge and stopped at Old Man River for bunny dogs and ice cream the night before and remarked to each other that we should have extended our vacation in Canada past our 9/10 return as we were having a great time across the border (if we had made that move we likely would have been in Canada a few days as the border was essentially closed on 9/11 even with our longtime friend and biggest trading partner Canada).

 

At any rate, I got up late on 9/11 and flipped on the tube as I got on the treadmill and saw the burning towers and thought for a brief moment in confusion what movie was this on TV. The reality of the tragedy became all to real to quickly. I watched in horror and awe for awhile and then wandered upstairs to awaken my wife from beauty rest and simply said "the world is now very different than it was last night when we went to sleep."

 

My personal interaction with 9/11 actually did not occur until January when I went to NYC for the first time since the attack for a couple of conferences. I had already booked a trip to Denver from Buffalo in late Setember before 9.11 happened. It only took this experience with lengthy delays at airports and travel delays punctuated by two hour lines at metal detectors to get me to lay off my previously exocitc and relatively constant travel schedule for the rest 2001.

 

The new year saw me finally make a several trip for conferences which were important to me in NYC so off I went. The weekend gig was great and pretty well attended despite many folks obviously having stopped traveling as I did. Perhaps life was resuming (among normal events which occured that weekend was taking a little time away from work to watch NE win its first SB).

 

On the Monday morning I was awakened with way to cheerful a call from a Buffalo buddy also attending the conference (on the seemingly esoteric issue of recombinant DNA and its relevance to communities and neighborhoods) who asked me whether I wanted to do breakfast. A reply came back to her of no thanks since that morning afforded a chance to go down to Ground Zero and pay homage.

 

"Who said that." I said to myself after we hung up as I had not planned to go down to Ground Zero. I had not had any plans whatsoever to go down to the WTC, or as I later admitted to myself this thought was in the back of my mind but I had not even admitted it to myself. Treating 9/11 as some tourist opportunity did not sit well with me at all so I did not even entertain any thoughts to myself about going down to gawk at this site of carnage.

 

Nevertheless in a moment of early morning honesty before I was awake enough to put the usual barriers up, I hasd unbidden articulated my desire to go down to the WTC site not to gawk and enjoy but to pay homage to and acknowledge for myself the tragedy. My foolish experience interacting with 9/11 on TV and just coming off a vacation has no comparison whatsoever with NYC folks, DC area folks, or PA folks who experience the attack firsthand. It does not compare remotely to the tragedy suffered by families who lost loved ones. I can only begin to think even remotely about the terror felt by individuals who were in an attack site or who jumped to their deaths rather than be biurned alive. I did not go to Ground Zero even to feel what they felt because I cannot. However, I realised that in whatever feeble way I had to go to the site to somehow share in their pain in a more real way no matter how feeble it was.

 

After dressing, I stopped by the conceiarge desk because I really had no idea how to get best get down to this disaster site from the mid 50s on the east side where I was staying. Leave it to our hearty friends in the NYC hotel and tourist industry who have lots of practice dealing with us out of town yokels that a timid request to the help desk produced a map, schedules and other materials about how to make the trek from the hotel to Ground Zero.

 

As one needed to make a reservation the day before to go through the viewing area above the hole and I had not done that, I decided to take the subway down and get as close as I could whatever that may be.

 

I hopped off the train at a lower Manhattan exit which I knew was near the WTC and was marked as such. the first thing I noticed as I walked to the exit was how clean the subway was at this stop. I relaized in horror as I marched to the exit that this site was probably only a couple of blocks from the falling WTC buildings and that the subway probably was filled with dirt and dust. The wals were so clean because they had probably needed to be scrubbed as part of cleaning out the dust. I had a sudden immage in my mind of the Shakespeare play where one woman kept trying to clean out the bloodstain of a murdered person and wailed "out out damn spot." No matter how much she cleaned and rubbed the spot the stain or murder and tragedy could not be removed. So too with the subway station walls.

 

The secnd thing I noticed when I came out of the station was the smell. I had never smelled that odor before but I can only describe it as what a couple of hundred stories of falling building must smell like. I was shocked that this smell would still be there over 4 months after the event. I ound out later that though the winds had in fact disperesed the old smell, that major digging and unearthing work in the pile was still going on. As they exposed buried wreckage, occaisionally new fires would break out in the rubble long shielded from oxygen but stll hot as it lay buried. If the wind happened to blow in a particular direction while this digwork went on once smelled what the falling/burning buildings smelled like.

 

The third thing I ran into which struck me was a non-temporary looking sign on one of the streets which warned hoes and bulldozers to raise their plowblades as the street was uneven due to metal sheets put on it. The fact that these signs had been manufactured and printed like street signs was a clear indicator of how long that folks expected to be here doing the clean-up. Oh my god.

 

I came out on the street and looked left and right expecting to see fairly easily which way to go toward Ground Zero. Seeing nothing I began to wonder whether I had come out of the wrong exit. I asked a guard at a nearby bank which way to Ground Zero and with an accent typical of a recent third workd immigrant to out merlting pot he suggested I take a path that involved walking a block over, a block down and then I could look and not miss it.

 

Intrepidly I set off and did as instructed. I walked a couple of blocks and looked and saw nothing an was a bit confused. I walked in a different direction and came to a point where I could see my starting place a couple of blocks away and also the open space I had spied when I first came out a couple of blocks away.

 

It was then that I realized that the "nothing" I saw was in fact where the WTC was. They had not needed signs to point one to the WTC in the old days because it simply dominated the area. When the towers fell, there was no "tourist site" left to come to, here was simply nothing there. As I drew closer I was able to see that there was nothing but a hole in the ground, a hole in the skyline (and perhaps most important a hole in our society and a hole in our hearts) where the WTC had been.

 

Having no reservation at the "official" site I did not get a birds-eye view of the site, but in many ways I am glad of this because I resist the notion of this tragedy as a tourist site at all. Hwever, there were plenty posters of lost souls, remembrance signs, and other pieces left by victim's families which made this more real for me without taking the tour. There was the overwhelming smell. For me personally, because of a neurological issue I have I actually had presswed into service a hiking stick my father-in-;aw had used on a trip to the Himalyas to help me wander around NYC. With all the aimless walking my leg hurt quite a bit.

 

Yet, feeling physical pain in an odd way made me feel even closer to the indescribable pain felt by those at Ground Zero on 9/11. My pain was not the same as it was voluntary and I was off to a lofty conference and a nice facility at Columbia U. that afternoon. The folks who really experienced 9/11 as one can tell from listening to the just released auditapes were scared, facing the unknown and stll performed enormous acts of courage and helped their fellow people in need where they could.

 

The pain I felt in my joints was nothing compared to the bleak reality of that day, but i'm glad I had my little experience with pain and smell to make it more real for one of those fortunate to carry on with life.

 

So all in all, I am happy that the victims won their suit, hope the media spreads this info around the world and hope that people are strong enough to listen to these tapes and remember.

 

There is nothing we can do to bring the folks who died back. There really is little we can do to salve the wounds of those who were hurt that day beyond do the best we can to help. There is a lot that many are trying to do to stop a tragedy like this one from occuring again. Folks can and should debate about whether those actions will or will not improve the situation. I am not debating these actions here.

 

However, the one thing I do know for sure is that we must never forget 9/11. We must not foget the pain suffered that day. We must not forget the actions or let off the hook the cowards who caused this pain and their rational (or irrationale) for doing it.

 

Moderator move this from this football site if you must, but if only one peson reads this and remembers a event they would not have thought about today then I am glad I took the time to write this and the time it remains available to folks.

 

In fact. even if no one reads this, it helped me to remember to write it. I value that. Never forget.

[Chilly]

Never forget indeed. And it did remind me of somethign I wouldn't hvae thought about today.

 

I'm not trying to be political here, but am rather trying to comment on the mood of the ceremonies that are going to remember 9/11. It'd be nice to see our government remember 9/11 in a somber way, with say a candlight vigil on that night. Its more rememberence of the pain everyone felt and a reminder of what we have to do.

 

Note: I'm not trying to make this a political debate about the Dems trying to turn the event into a political issue by calling it a "party" (they are), I'm just commenting that the mood in the ceremonies should be like this post.

[Astrobot]

Thanks, FFS. A wonderful, poignant, real account, before the media does its thing this year.

[Fake-Fat Sunny]

BUMP

[Terry Tate]

BUMP

It's a nice post. I would suggest creating a blog, cutting and pasting it there, and adding a descriptive link/sig line in your profile to link to it.

[goober]

Nice post.

 

Note: BlueFire did NOT try to make this a political debate about the Dems

[Ghost of BiB]

BUMP

407109[/snapback]

 

Maybe you should learn blog?

[Fake-Fat Sunny]

BMP- I hope folks still think about 9/11 at least from time to time.

[envirojeff]

I start this thread to simply move beyond some morbid and sorrowful thoughts prompted by the release of the 9/11 tapes by NYC prompted by a lawsuit from victims families and the media.

 

I do this because though it is necessary in living life to move beyond sad events (be it the loss of a loved one or a tragedy like 9/11 or Bosnia, or Darfur for that matter) I think it is important to remember these sad events even while we move beyond in daily life.

 

This is a football board so I even ask the moderators if this topic bogs down TSW then move it. However, I not sure where you want to move it to as my intent in remembering 9/11 is not to make any political or punditry point (the right uses terrorism to justify the Pres' Iraq policies while the left uses terrorism to claim the Pres' Iraq policies sshould instead focus on 9/11 so remembering 9/11 is not a political statement either way in itself).

 

At any rate, the thing I would add to the mix is restating my own experiences with 9/11.

 

Like many Americans, my first interaction with this terrorist act was through the 24-hour news media.

 

I was more oblivious than most to the bin Laden threat or the perceived US financial weight that led to the selection of the WTC as a symbolic target as I was just back the night before form celebrating my 12th wedding anniversary with my lovely wife with a trip to Canada (we had moseyed across the Lwesiton brdge and stopped at Old Man River for bunny dogs and ice cream the night before and remarked to each other that we should have extended our vacation in Canada past our 9/10 return as we were having a great time across the border (if we had made that move we likely would have been in Canada a few days as the border was essentially closed on 9/11 even with our longtime friend and biggest trading partner Canada).

 

At any rate, I got up late on 9/11 and flipped on the tube as I got on the treadmill and saw the burning towers and thought for a brief moment in confusion what movie was this on TV.  The reality of the tragedy became all to real to quickly.  I watched in horror and awe for awhile and then wandered upstairs to awaken my wife from beauty rest and simply said "the world is now very different than it was last night when we went to sleep."

 

My personal interaction with 9/11 actually did not occur until January when I went to NYC for the first time since the attack for a couple of conferences. I had already booked a trip to Denver from Buffalo in late Setember before 9.11 happened. It only took this experience with lengthy delays at airports and travel delays punctuated by two hour lines at metal detectors to get me to lay off my previously exocitc and relatively constant travel schedule for the rest 2001.

 

The new year saw me finally make a several trip for conferences which were important to me in NYC so off I went.  The weekend gig was great and pretty well attended despite many folks obviously having stopped traveling as I did.  Perhaps life was resuming (among normal events which occured that weekend was taking a little time away from work to watch NE win its first SB).

 

On the Monday morning I was awakened with way to cheerful a call from a Buffalo buddy also attending the conference (on the seemingly esoteric issue of recombinant DNA and its relevance to communities and neighborhoods) who asked me whether I wanted to do breakfast. A reply came back to her of no thanks since that morning afforded a chance to go down to Ground Zero and pay homage.

 

"Who said that." I said  to myself after we hung up as I had not planned to go down to Ground Zero. I had not had any plans whatsoever to go down to the WTC, or as I later admitted to myself this thought was in the back of my mind but I had not even admitted it to myself.  Treating 9/11 as some tourist opportunity did not sit well with me at all so I did not even entertain any thoughts to myself about going down to gawk at this site of carnage.

 

Nevertheless in a moment of early morning honesty before I was awake enough to put the usual barriers up, I hasd unbidden articulated my desire to go down to the WTC site not to gawk and enjoy but to pay homage to and acknowledge for myself the tragedy. My foolish experience interacting with 9/11 on TV and just coming off a vacation has no comparison whatsoever with NYC folks, DC area folks, or PA folks who experience the attack firsthand. It does not compare remotely to the tragedy suffered by families who lost loved ones.  I can only begin to think even remotely about the terror felt by individuals who were in an attack site or who jumped to their deaths rather than be biurned alive.  I did not go to Ground Zero even to feel what they felt because I cannot. However, I realised that in whatever feeble way I had to go to the site to somehow share in their pain in a more real way no matter how feeble it was.

 

After dressing, I stopped by the conceiarge desk because I really had no idea how to get best get down to this disaster site from the mid 50s on the east side where I was staying.  Leave it to our hearty friends in the NYC hotel and tourist industry who have lots of practice dealing with us out of town yokels that a timid request to the help desk produced a map, schedules and other materials about how to make the trek from the hotel to Ground Zero.

 

As one needed to make a reservation the day before to go through the viewing area above the hole and I had not done that, I decided to take the subway down and get as close as I could whatever that may be.

 

I hopped off the train at a lower Manhattan exit which I knew was near the WTC and was marked as such.  the first thing I noticed as I walked to the exit was how clean the subway was at this stop. I relaized in horror as I marched to the exit that this site was probably only a couple of blocks from the falling WTC buildings and that the subway probably was filled with dirt and dust.  The wals were so clean because they had probably needed to be scrubbed as part of cleaning out the dust. I had a sudden immage in my mind of the Shakespeare play where one woman kept trying to clean out the bloodstain of a murdered person and wailed "out out damn spot."  No matter how much she cleaned and rubbed the spot the stain or murder and tragedy could not be removed.  So too with the subway station walls.

 

The secnd thing I noticed when I came out of the station was the smell.  I had never smelled that odor before but I can only describe it as what a couple of hundred stories of falling building must smell like.  I was shocked that this smell would still be there over 4 months after the event. I ound out later that though the winds had in fact disperesed the old smell, that major digging and unearthing work in the pile was still going on. As they exposed buried wreckage, occaisionally new fires would break out in the rubble long shielded from oxygen but stll hot as it lay buried. If the wind happened to blow in a particular direction while this digwork went on once smelled what the falling/burning buildings smelled like.

 

The third thing I ran into which struck me was a non-temporary looking sign on one of the streets which warned hoes and bulldozers to raise their plowblades as the street was uneven due to metal sheets put on it.  The fact that these signs had been manufactured and printed like street signs was a clear indicator of how long that folks expected to be here doing the clean-up. Oh my god.

 

I came out on the street and looked left and right expecting to see fairly easily which way to go toward Ground Zero.  Seeing nothing I began to wonder whether I had come out of the wrong exit. I asked a guard at a nearby bank which way to Ground Zero and with an accent typical of a recent third workd immigrant to out merlting pot he suggested I take a path that involved walking a block over, a block down and then I could look and not miss it.

 

Intrepidly I set off and did as instructed. I walked a couple of blocks and looked and saw nothing an was a bit confused.  I walked in a different direction and came to a point where I could see my starting place a couple of blocks away and also the open space I had spied when I first came out a couple of blocks away.

 

It was then that I realized that the "nothing" I saw was in fact where the WTC was.  They had not needed signs to point one to the WTC in the old days because it simply dominated the area. When the towers fell, there was no "tourist site" left to come to, here was simply nothing there. As I drew closer I was able to see that there was nothing but a hole in the ground, a hole in the skyline (and perhaps most important a hole in our society and a hole in our hearts) where the WTC had been.

 

Having no reservation at the "official" site I did not get a birds-eye view of the site, but in many ways I am glad of this because I resist the notion of this tragedy as a tourist site at all.  Hwever, there were plenty posters of lost souls, remembrance signs, and other pieces left by victim's families which made this more real for me without taking the tour.  There was the overwhelming smell.  For me personally, because of a neurological issue I have I actually had presswed into service a hiking stick my father-in-;aw had used on a trip to the Himalyas to help me wander around NYC.  With all the aimless walking my leg hurt quite a bit.

 

Yet, feeling physical pain in an odd way made me feel even closer to the indescribable pain felt by those at Ground Zero on 9/11.  My pain was not the same as it was voluntary and I was off to a lofty conference and a nice facility at Columbia U.  that afternoon. The folks who really experienced 9/11 as one can tell from listening to the just released auditapes were scared, facing the unknown and stll performed enormous acts of courage and helped their fellow people in need where they could.

 

The pain I felt in my joints was nothing compared to the bleak reality of that day, but i'm glad I had my little experience with pain and smell to make it more real for one of those fortunate to carry on with life.

 

So all in all, I am happy that the victims won their suit, hope the media spreads this info around the world and hope that people are strong enough to listen to these tapes and remember.

 

There is nothing we can do to bring the folks who died back.  There really is little we can do to salve the wounds of those who were hurt that day beyond do the best we can to help.  There is a lot that many are trying to do to stop a tragedy like this one from occuring again.  Folks can and should debate about whether those actions will or will not improve the situation. I am not debating these actions here.

 

However, the one thing I do know for sure is that we must never forget 9/11.  We must not foget the pain suffered that day. We must not forget the actions or let off the hook the cowards who caused this pain and their rational (or irrationale) for doing it.

 

Moderator move this from this football site if you must, but if only one peson reads this and remembers a event they would not have thought about today then I am glad I took the time to write this and the time it remains available to folks.

 

In fact. even if no one reads this, it helped me to remember to write it.  I value that. Never forget.

406714[/snapback]

Finally one of your posts that I agree with

 

Jeff

[Guffalo]

Never forget indeed.  And it did remind me of somethign I wouldn't hvae thought about today.

 

406787[/snapback]

 

I remember it each and every day, there is no way I could ever forget that day.

[plenzmd1]

I remember it each and every day, there is no way I could ever forget that day.

408567[/snapback]

 

My experience that day was deeply personal. Working out of the house in Potomac MD, had no idea what was happening until my sister called about 5 minutes after the second plane hit the towers. Sending my daughter to school for the first day, cause damnit, these idiots are not going to change our lives right before the pentagon attack. Feeling absolute panic as my wife and daughter are on the beltway when the pentagon attack occurs. 20 minutes later my sister calling in total desperation as my brother in law worked at the Doubletree virtually across the street from the Penatagon. No way to get in touch with him. Can remember clear as day about 11.15 as the TV was saying most of the planes had landed, only a few left in the air when I hear the unmistakable sound of a plane flying way to low over my house. Run outside to realize it was an F-16 now scrambled. Hear this sound sound several more time throughout the day.

 

Absolute joy when my brother in law gets through at around noon to say he is okay

 

 

Finding out about the Cantor -Fitzgerald tragedy, and how my college roomate was one of the traders who lost his life a few days later.

 

We tend to in this country to forget things rather quickly, however this is an event I think all of us over 12 that day will never forget

[Fake-Fat Sunny]

My experience that day was deeply personal. Working out of the house in Potomac MD, had no idea what was happening until my sister called about 5 minutes after the second plane hit the towers. Sending my daughter to school for the first day, cause damnit, these idiots are not going to change our lives right before the pentagon attack. Feeling absolute panic as my wife and daughter are on the beltway when the pentagon attack occurs.  20 minutes later my sister calling in total desperation as my brother in law worked at the Doubletree virtually across the street from the Penatagon. No way to get in touch with him.  Can remember clear as day about 11.15 as the TV was saying most of the planes had landed, only a few left in the air when I hear the unmistakable sound of a plane flying way to low over my house. Run outside to realize it was an F-16 now scrambled. Hear this sound sound several more time throughout the day.

 

Absolute joy when my brother in law gets through at around noon to say he is okay

Finding out about the Cantor -Fitzgerald tragedy, and how my college roomate was one of the traders who lost his life a few days later.

 

We tend to in this country to forget things rather quickly, however this is an event I think all of us over 12 that day will never forget

408609[/snapback]

 

Thanks for sharing your memories. One of my buddies from college worked at Cantor-Fitzgerald as a consultant and he lost about 5 folks he knew in the terrorist act. We talk about them from time to time and while remembering them is painful it does seem to keep the good memories and them alive for him as well.

 

One of the contrdictions certainly in life that remembering them brings both pain and joy.

[Fake-Fat Sunny]

BUMP

[Adam]

I will never forget that day- I was working in my office when someone told me about a plane crash...I thought that was terrible, but didnt think about it too much.

 

When I heard about another, I figured something strange was happening. I tried to go to cnn.com, but couldn't- then I figured something serious was happenning.

 

For the next hour, I was transfixed on the tv, watching in horror. After a girl came in sobbing, because she didn't know if her dad escaped, I had to leave on my break, just to get out.

 

Its a shame that it has been so politicized, that who we blame has become bigger to some than the tragedy itself.

[Ghost of BiB]

Why don't you bump it again, Sunny? Three of your own not enough?