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I had just laid down from working night shift when a friend called me and told me to turn on my television. We were under attack.... Years later it is stunning how one lady remembers her conversation with her 5 year old son about what had happened.

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A railroad is a ravenous destroyer of towns, unless those towns are put at the end of it and a sea beyond, so that you can't go further and find another terminus.
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We were working out River Rd. Towards the Point Restaurant. As I drove towards the work site, I was listening to John Boy and Billy's radio show. They had a tv on in the studio and reported a crash into the first tower... thinking it was only an accident. Then the second plane hit... it became obvious it wasnt an accident. When I got to the work site, we all listened to the radio. We all soon left to go home to be with our families, not knowing what was going to happen next.

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  • 9-11remember
I was sleeping in that morning, didn't have class that day (I was attending UNA). I'm a veteran and my father called me yelling 'the SOB's attacked us, they actually attacked us.'

I had writted a paper back in 1999 for my Freshman English class titled 'Will The Forces Be Ready' and it was about how the Clinton Administration had cannibalized the military and that we had lost our military might because of it, leaving us a target for an attack similiar to Pearl Harbor. I never in a million years thought it would be targeted at civilians, though. But my father called me that morning telling me that he never believed what I had predicted would happen.

It is very upsetting that we have not made this a national holiday. Tomorrow should be recognized for those lost and those that gave their lives in an effort to prevent more loss. Pearl Harbor was a terrible thing, but it was a military move on military forces. The loss in New York was so much more....

Kirk
DF,
You just can't contain yourself any more.

I suppose that Veterans Day and Memorial Day should be abolished as well. How about the 4th of July?

And of course Halloween, Easter, and Christmas along with Good Friday. Lets also do away with Mother's Day and Father's Day.


I have reached the conclusion that you are nuts.
quote:
Originally posted by DeepFat:
If I were young enough, and felt the way I do, I would want to engage Al Queda, with a knife in my teeth and a rifle. I still do, but they won't take me. Who knows, perhaps I will go anyway.

DF


I understand you completely. I had the exact feeling, had it after the Cole was attacked as well. I sat in the lobby of the journalism building (where they have speech class) at UNA for hours watching that on CNN. I spent 6 years in the Navy, and the attack on the Cole probably hit home just as hard for me. You realize what folks on that ship were doing to save that ship and their mates. Just like you think about what those folks in the towers were doing and thinking.

I do agree that it may be too early for a holiday, but, if we wait and do it later, it may end up like memorial day (BBQ's, parades, etc). If we make it a national holiday soon enough, more people like you and I may be more willing to spend the day thinking about those people and those times and celebrate their heroism.

I see us getting further and further away from that strong nationalism we felt that day and for MONTHS following. I am guilty of it too. The Flag does not fly in as many places and we are getting closer and closer to Sep 11th becoming another day of rememberance, instead of a day of action, a day of nationalism. We are beginning to loose the feelings that we had for a long time after Sep 11th:

"We are not Republic or Democrat, we are not black, white or asian, we are not Christians or Muslims, we are not men or women, We are Americans, nothing less.

I hope we can find that feeling again as a nation and remember that, no matter what, we stand as the symbol of freedom for all those that seek it....

Kirk
L,

You may reach whatever conclusion you want. I do not want to celebrate a day when thousands of our fellow citizens died because of the religious madness of certain Arabians.

If we are to remember it, and it comes up tomorrow, let us remember it as a time when we assumed the world liked us and we were wrong. Let us assume it was a day when those who we were helping attacked us.

I hate to conclude that we were naive, but that is the inevitable conclusion. There are those people in the world, with resources, who despise us for our secularism, our democracy, our freedoms ("Freedom go to hell" said more than one poster in protests here and abroad).

We are reminded, once again, that freedom is not a natural condition of mankind, and that we enjoy it at a considerable cost.


DF
quote:
Originally posted by DeepFat:

Sounds harsh? We are the stewards of the planet. We must take out the garbage.

Those fundamentalists of whatever stripe, who crave the End of Times must be stopped, at whatever cost, before they destroy us all.

This is serious. The time is now to end fundamentalism. The place is here, first, then elsewhere.

It begins with the mind.

DF


Yes Sir!

I too believe that until fundamentalism is eradicated these kinds of attacks will only continue. Each crazy god loving group will have their own reasons but they will all say they are doing it for *add deity here*

As for 9/11 being a holiday I am once again of the same mind. Do we "celebrate" this occasion? I think not. We don't have a holiday for the attack on Pearl Harbor!

I say we don't cheapen it with "9/11 day sales" at JC Penny's.
September 11, 2001, has profoundly affected our family--besides the obvious grief as a nation, watching it unfold on tv. My husband is on his 4th trip over there right now. The afternoon of Sept 11 our little boys were playing in our woods, having a good romp, and my husband said, "That's what we are fighting for. Our future." He also told me he called his CO in the Reserves and requested to be put on the top of the list of volunteer call-ups. His specialty group gets broken up and attached to other groups. He was the first of his unit to go. Now the boys are teens and we have a daughter born after 2001--all she knows is her daddy's doing something important, and she misses him.
I was in a hotel lobby about to check out and there was a television on in the common area. Several people were standing around it and I could see over one mans shoulder that one of the towers was billowing smoke.

As we stood there watching the other plane hit. I was standing next to a man I didn't know at all and I just instinctively grasp his hand. He never took his eyes off the tv but he squeezed my hand and held it.

I was scared. I was all alone in a strange town and I thought all hell had just broken loose. What would happen next? Were there going to be more attacks? The man I had latched onto was an ex-police officer who was from out of town also and there for a job interview. We stayed in that lobby for 4 hours and watched everything unfold. We cried, and hugged and ranted! I will never forget that horrible day or the other scared, angry, proud Americans I spent it with.

That day in that lobby no one was Democrat or Republican.
A few days after 9/11, I got my truck washed. Osama bin Laden was on TV, with a recorded speech.

An old lady said to me, as we watched it, "he's scary, isn't he?".

I said "No. He's a punk in a cave, and we will deal with him."

It's time we Americans forewent instant gratification and learned to embrace patience. We will kill him. And none too soon.


DF
Yes, I remember the day very vividly and to this very day I still find it extremely hard to put into words the emotions that I experienced. My children were in pre-school at the time and as my husband and I watched the second plane hit we were both forever changed. We didn't know if we should run and pick up the kids or what, we were totally lost. I remember sitting on the couch watching the news coverage for the next week, barely able to move and with a steady stream of tears.

NEVER FORGET!
quote:
Originally posted by DeepFat:
A few days after 9/11, I got my truck washed. Osama bin Laden was on TV, with a recorded speech.

An old lady said to me, as we watched it, "he's scary, isn't he?".

I said "No. He's a punk in a cave, and we will deal with him."

It's time we Americans forewent instant gratification and learned to embrace patience. We will kill him. And none too soon.


DF


Despite all the things DF posted on here that I disagreed with, I must say I AGREE with this post 100%!!! God bless America!!!

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