10 years ago I was loading the car to head to Taos for the weekend. I was practically a newlywed. My wife and I had no children.
It’s become a cliche to say that everything changed that day, but it’s true nevertheless.
I never made it to Taos — still haven’t, in fact. Instead, I started looking for news. I was disappointed and dispirited by what I found on the major networks — at first oblique but later quite transparent suggestions that the US had brought these attacks on itself, that 3000 innocents weren’t so much innocents lost to an orchestrated and unprovoked act of war by a murderous politicized religious cult, but rather were, by virtue of being Americans (for the most part), capitalist imperialists whose deaths were an understandable result of legitimate political and social protest, particularly from the point of view of this exotic Other who we were told we didn’t understand, but who we were assured we must learn from in order to atone for our cultural sins.
So I found news elsewhere — on FOX, which I’d never before watched; in magazines like National Review, The New Republic, The Weekly Standard, and Reason, none of which I’d ever before read; and online, through a budding blogosphere and commentators like Instapundit and Andrew Sullivan.
I then started my own site two months later, and it became clear to me only after readers came to label me as such — both those who supported my views and those who vehemently disagreed with them — that I was, by the standards of the day, a “conservative,” though I had always thought myself liberal, having not been particularly politically active, and having not allowed as yet for the degree the New Left had taken over the Democrat party, turning what was once a party filled with Reagan Democrats into what is now an ideological hotbed of hard leftism and liberal fascism.
8 years later we elected a President who to this day apologizes for America and refuses to allow for its exceptionalism. He is the same kind of hard leftist who appeared in the wake of 911 to demean his own country, to preach its sins, to rise to power as a corollary to its hoped-for diminishing.
Lately, though, America seems to be regaining some of its strength and resolve, pushing back against a political class that will use the anniversary of an attack on our country to spin revisionist history and lecture us on the morality of multiculturalism and “tolerance”.
I’m having none of it.
I remember that day 10 years ago as if it were this very morning. Our country was attacked. Our way of life was attacked. And we’re just now beginning to come out of the apologetic daze that overcame so many of us in the aftermath.
We have nothing to apologize for. And in fact, we should use today as a reminder of the need to redouble our efforts against all enemies, foreign and domestic, who would like to see the country weakened, punished, or fundamentally transformed in a way that we lose the very liberties that have made us the envy of many a man and the target of despots everywhere.
If we are attacked in again the way we were a decade ago, I hope our response will be immediate and brutal, and that we learn from the last decade that it makes little sense to try to fight sanitized wars.
Liberty left undefended is liberty stolen.
Remember.
Yes.
I’ve got my flag up outside my home. I wait to see how many others in the neighborhood will be flying today.
I was at work, having spent only about nine months at my new job. We’d just bought a house, and that house happened (we still live there) to be close to MCO takeoff and approach paths. Not quite under them, but close enough that you hear the airplanes, and have to shut the sliding glass door to keep them from drowning out the football game.
Productivity on that day took a tumble. It affected everyone for the days and weeks to come. And all I could think of is: I hope that my small part on this program (a new targeting system for various military attack aircraft) helps in some way to hunt down and destroy those responsible, the people that helped them, and the people that celebrated the event like it was Christmas.
That last part I regret a bit, but that’s what I thought at the time. And, really: if it’s a valid response for people outraged at our presence in the Holy land of Saudi Arabia to hijack some civilian airliners and murder thousands of civilians and attempt the murders of many thousands more, on what basis do the people who grant standing to such actionss condemn our responding in kind?
This is more a questioning of their logic than a cheerleading of bombing civilians. But, as I said, at the time I was ready to sanction dropping some serious tonnage on the crowds ululating in celebration.
I forgot to mention the remarkable silence that came with the cessation of all air traffic, and how loudly and violently that silence was broken on the arrival of the Presidential motorcade (and, I guess, Air Force One, although I didn’t see it come in) on a C-5 Galaxy. That was the first sign of things getting going, as far as I could see.
>>>>8 years later we elected a President who to this day apologizes for America and refuses to allow for its exceptionalism.
No big deal, man.
I was working the day flights resumed, and on this day the site was right under the departure path for the Atlanta airport.
The noise was a bit more distracting than usual, but I think that was also the day I decided that a trip my wife and I were planning that October to visit my family in Sacramento, would go ahead after all. We made that flight, and the next time I saw my mother was the following January just hours before she passed away.
I think I have the guys on Flight 93 to thank for our not canceling the earlier trip.
W.T.F.???? I’m a grandparent and I OBJECT!!! This day is not for anything else but remembering the 3,000 who died and WHY.
If you weren’t a black-and-white thinking, anti-science insane retarded RethugliKKKan, you’d realize that al-Qaeda killed those Americans because of Bush’s foreign policy in the Middle East and for being lackeys of the Jews.
They killed Brits in response to Blair helping the US push its power around in Iraq.
They killed Spaniards because of the upcoming elections where they might have elected someone who might help the imperialist USA push its imperialist power around in the Middle East.
They killed Iraqi Muslims for accepting the imperialist West’s help.
They killed Algerian Muslims because a UN office was there, and although the UN generally opposed the West’s actions in the Middle East, the UN’s main office is in New York, near where many, many Jews live.
They killed Indonesian Muslims because of their imperialist… nightclubs?
They killed government officials in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and Yemen because they weren’t quite Muslim enough in denouncing the West’s imperialism in the Middle East and I’m sure something about the Jews.
They killed Australians, Jordanians, Indians, Russians, Emeratis, Qataris, Dutch, Moroccans, French, Saudis, Belgians, Kenyans, Germans, Tanzanians, and those of many, many other nationalities because of the… well, the imperialist… ummmm, Jews… and their war… and the Koran-flushing… and other stuff.
COMING HOME TO ROOST! (or should I say “JOOOOOOST?)
What the Obama says is not important, and I do not hear his words.
I was sitting at my desk at my crappy job, looking at videos. Or admin girl (Whom I had gone to high school with, but didn’t realize it yet) told me about it.
I immediately remembered (And I’ve mentioned this before) a class in Navy boot camp. It was a one hour deal on geo-politics.
The instructor was rambling on, and then he mentioned that the Soviet Union (This was March or April 1982) was going to implode within about 10 years. I remember, thinking “sure government lackey”. I thought this was a good thing. Then some one asked why are we pushing all this miltary stuff (Paraphrasing). He then answered, that it was tough to tell if it was a good thing. The thinking was, that for all of their workers revolution bullshit, it was really about supporting their corrupt regime and stealing what they could. However he said, the real problem was going to be a few hundred million islamic crazies would be loosed on the world to pursue their insistence on a world wide caliphate and that it would cause more terror and anarchy than anything The USSR or China could do. I honestly didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about. Hell, I still didn’t realize that to be religious didn’t necessarily mean that you believed in Jesus. I was (Or am) a moron.
All of my world politics thinking has been influenced by that one hour class, because man that dude nailed it.
And that was my first thought on 9/11.
The following Thursday, when George Bush stood up in congress, I remember looking at Tom Daschle, Ted Kennedy, and Dick Gephardt et al, and all I could see was a bunch of guys who were pissed off because they knew, KNEW that the 2002 elections were toast for the democrats.
That was my second thought on 9/11, cause I was numb till that moment.
Me and the petty officer were right.
I was loading my van with tacos for pre-breakfast.
[…] 9/11. Open thread We have nothing to apologize for. And in fact, we should use today as a reminder of the need to redouble our efforts against all enemies, foreign and domestic, who would like to see the country weakened, punished, or fundamentally transformed in a way that we lose the very liberties that have made us the envy of many a man and the target of despots everywhere. […]
I would point and say, “Geek!” but that means I know the reference, too.
By the way, can anyone be more transparent about trying to rewrite the past than associating this date with grandparent’s day? This is supposed to make us forget. I don’t think it will work.
Ten years ago I stood in an attorney’s office; watched the towers fall on a 13″ TV; fought for my legal rights against a corrupt system of government and eventually prevailed. That summer forest fires had rained smoke and embers on my town, such that headlights were required in daylight. 2001 was not a good time.
Ten years ago I distinctly remember the scared, shocked-back-to-reality, urbanist NPR on this day initiating roughly six weeks of actual normal news and commentary, only to spiral back into the decade of bullshit they’ve dispensed since.
In other words, another: Yes.
National Soros Radio pines for some warm fuzzy taliban goodness
No matter how many times I’ve seen the footage, my arms break out in goose pimples and the hair on the back of my neck stands up. Every time.
I don’t think it will ever stop. This was truly the defining moment of our lives. :(
That day
10 years ago, I was awoken by a phone call from a friend, who said “Turn on the TV”. “What channel?”, I asked. “Any channel”, he said. Oh shit! I knew it was something bad.
I had the same reaction to the Media telling me it was our fault. I had a special emnity for that sneering Peter Jennings disparaging Bush’s leadership, “Well, some presidents are just better at it than others”, from that day forward.
awakened, whatevs.
Paul Krugman posted vile today…
What’s a shame, Krugman, is your very existence. Cans he has a retroactive abortion now?
I worked at Park Ave. & 23rd St. on 9/11. I rode in from Staten Island on the ferry and remember what a clear day it was, looking at
the WTC for the last time as it turns out. Rode the subway underneath the WTC maybe 25 min. before the attack. NEVER have I seen a
more surreal scene then out on the street about 2 hrs. after. Everyone just walking around in a daze. Some people crying, some just
sitting on the stoops with their head in their hands. Walking home across the Williamsburg Bridge, there was a Hasidic Jewish guy handing
out water to anyone who crossed the bridge. Wow. I’ll never forget.
Leftist scumbags like Krugman are who made 9/11 a “wedge issue” and have never let up in their efforts to make it “an occasion for shame”. What a fucking asshole. He’s as bad as the Troofers… if not worse, because he’s spewing his poison from a position of Respected Media Authority™.
9/11.
I had called off sick from work that day. At that time I worked at Pantex in Amarillo, TX. I was a technician that assembled/disassembled nuclear weapons for the DOE. As I watched the attack from beginning to end, the anger I felt convinced me that I somehow had to get into the fight. I ended up at home for over a week as the plant closed due to the fear of Pantex being the next target.
At first I tried to re-enlist (former navy… got out in 91 after the first Gulf War), but was over the maximum age. Eventually I landed a civilian training job that sent me first to Iraq… and then to Afghanistan. My duties took me to the front line operating FOBs and COBs, working side-by-side with America’s finest against those who can truly be defined as evil. The systems I trained were Force Protection systems that helped protect our soldiers. Through that work, I saw what is TRULY going on over there… not what an agenda driven media would have you believe. And I would like to believe that my work may have saved some lives. It is my hope and prayer.
I also hope and pray that I never again have to look in my childrens eyes and see the fear and confusion I saw on 9/11. It is burned into my memory like so many other things about that day.
May we be worthy of the sacrifices of the fallen of 9/11 and the War on Terror.
#21- serr8d
Noticed that coward Krugman disabled comments on that POS.
Too bad… I’m sure I could have evaded the content filter enough to get through what a twatwaffle he was, is, and continues to be.
You just know that krugman would throw some kid off of a lifeboat.
I had no idea that Jeff was a pre-9/11 Democrat.
My (now) wife and I had planned to marry in July 2001 but her MS took a bad turn and so we postponed it till November. Since she needed me to get through the day I had moved in with her.
I worked nights and every morning would fix us both coffee and log into the internet to check out news from over night. Usually at the web site Free Republic as people would post up news stories for comment. Someone remarked in a comment that a plane had flown into the World Trade Center. Some people figured that the comment was a joke but others confirmed it.
I went and turned on the TV to Fox and told Anne that she should come in and see this. Before she got there the second one hit. Until that moment I, as many others, had thought that this was just a tragedy, after the second one we knew that it was worse, we were at war with someone. Who was yet to be known.
Every year (at least) we watch this in remembrance.
geoffb
To this day, that is one of the most moving of slideshows.
If I were a grandparent I would be thrilled and honored I think to “have my loving presence” forever linked to one of the most horrific days in our countries history.
Worst. President. Ever.
Instapundit linked to another site that carries it too and seems to have over loaded their server.
I got up the morning of 9/11 and checked the Star Tribune web site, as was my habit.
My first reaction when I saw the front page of the Star Tribune showing the burning towers was that someone hacked the Star Tribune web site. (okay, so I had a little break with reality for a bit)
I started checking around and realized the pictures were real. Or surreal, as the case may be.
A few days after 9/11, I received the first of the “let’s not rush to war” emails.
I sent a blistering response to the person who forwarded me the email.
I was in the air that morning (early morning flight from Denver to Chicago O’Hare). Consequently, I didn’t find out what happened until after pulling up to the gate and the aircraft PA announcement that a nationwide ground stop was in progress. At the time, the only thing I could think of that would bring every aircraft in the country out of service was either (bad) the long-creaking Air Traffic Control system finally gave out, or (horrific) a wildcat nuke just went off somewhere.
After getting off the plane, confusion reigned. The airport CNN monitors were shut off, the cellphone network was completely jammed (although, as in other disasters, SMS service worked considerably better than voice calls), and a grim game of “telephone” transpired as third, fourth and fifth-hand rumors were running rampant at the time.
By the time I got out of O’Hare (as the one n’th-hand rumor I did pay attention to was that O’Hare was going to be quarantined off – consequently I made a run for the “L” station while I could), downtown was essentially a ghost town, the Chicago police I saw were pissed, and I was wondering how – or when – the hell I was going to get home from what was supposed to be an overnight trip.
I also recommend giving Karl Denninger’s take of 9/11 10 years later a read. Entirely on-target.
Darleen, you and me both.
I got out of the shower and told my wife, who also had that day off work, “Could you turn on Fox News and see what the hell’s going on in New York?”
The morning crew on the radio station I’d been listening to in the shower hadn’t been long on details.
serr8d
Paul Krugman deserves, at least, a severe beating. I like that his immoral monstrosity is right under a bolded headline: The Conscience of a Liberal
I was in my office getting ready to go out to the field. There must have been 30 of us gathered around a 5″ TV, all but speechless when the second plane hit. I too became a conservative at that moment.
In an odd, awful way, al-Qaeda did America something of a service that day. They woke an awful lot of us up, and not a moment too soon. Others of us, they exposed. We needed both.
Grandparents Day? Fuck you, Mr. Presentdent.
Nice and subdued. I’m sure Id be no different had this happened elsewhere, but the annual remembrances have really reached the point where they make me throw up in my mouth a little.
If this were a truly just world, Krugman would have been struck by lightning while typing that headline. Twice.
As soon as I saw the second plane hit, I knew I was going to be going somewhere, sooner or later, in uniform. Turns out that was the case. More than once.
I remember the confusion of the media, and have looked at them as less than reliable in a moment of crisis ever since.
I find Ann Coulter’s classic 9/11 column a good Krugman antidote.
I remember awhile after sitting in the bar at the sportsmen’s lodge a couple weeks later with some friends for no reason and mtv played this and I remember thinking wow they’re already starting to gay it up
so I waited for “the artistic community” to have a more better response but they never did
think of all the musical artists from NY and none of them fuckers came up with jack shit that resonated widely
just a couple odd country singers
very sad
of course this all happened before gaga
A default designation.
Even back in my grad school days, I remember supporting Forbes and then, yes, even Perot.
I woke up the day that air traffic resumed–seeing a contrail in the sky, I first through “good.” Then I realized that the only reason my wife and children were still alive was because they did not happen to be passengers on those planes, or visiting the Pentagon, or at the WTC on 9/11.
Krugman is a vile, petulent worm.
think of all the musical artists from NY and none of them fuckers came up with jack shit that resonated widely
Nah. The real surprise is that no artists in LA did anything since it’s the epicenter of commercial whorebagging. Nobody here wanted or needed a stupid song.
The best song was already done years earlier: “Don’t Tread on Me” by Metallica.
no what terrorist-raped new yorkers needed after 9/11 was a strong nannyfag mayor and a cowardly cunt in our white house
that’s how they roll
RE. National Grandparents Day:
Why it is issued annually I don’t know, but it ain’t on Obama. It’s even already on my calendar.
Excellent post, Jeff.
no what terrorist-raped new yorkers needed after 9/11 was a strong nannyfag mayor
You mean the Republican they elected in the aftermath of 9/11 on the assumption that he was a man like Giuliani as opposed to a faggot like Mark Green? Part of what’s especially annoying about the 9/11 reminisces of people from freaking Idaho is that you people have no clue about the sanity which briefly enveloped NYC. As in, lefties everywhere openly thanking God that Al Gore wasn’t president. It was like two months without happyfeet singing the praises of mano a mano butt sex would be.
I was in midtown and everything was a mess. I walked to Grand Central terminal but that was shut down and I went out to Park Avenue and then I saw them: the army of walkers, coming up from downtown, a fair amount of them coated white.
I got home six hours later and found out my daughters best friend’s father, a neighbor, didn’t get out and that a guy I worked with when I was a trader didn’t either. A day later, my best friend called and said some guys we went to college hadn’t also.
A grim enough time.
that brief sanity happened here in LA too but it was just cause people were scared I think not that they were following any particular thought process
Vanderleun:
And:
54. Abe, I was going to say the same thing.
Working in media, I was surprised by how many of my single, liberal colleagues had morphed into a hybrid of Erwin Rommel and Sauron, full of candid plans for the elimination of all current and possible threats to, well, everything. There was a complete and utter unpretention to their desire for revenge as well as the understanding that what was NOT needed was a series of analytical symposia on the complexities of finding the Taliban/ AQ et al. It was broadly understood that the modern democratic party was not up the task.
LGF was especially interesting in this regard.
If you say so, hf. It must have been a rough time to be in a big soulless sprawlburb.
I remember the studio where I was working started making us pop our trunks and they had those mirrors on sticks to make sure there wasn’t a bomb under my car… it took like 4 people to process you into the parking garage
then we all had to go out on the lot for a ceremony and my boss got mad cause I stood with my old department not her one
it really upset her
Mark Steyn has spoken in depth about what Abe mentioned in #54.
If I recall, he once said that the problem with the “Free Tibet” bumper stickers was not that they exist, or that China decided to occupy Tibet and depose the Dalai Lama et al., it’s that if the US ever decided to actually “free” the place, the very act would be condemned at a fever’s pitch.
It’s the hypocritical connundrum of the Left: To get bad guys out, who actually DO the things that are generally falsely leveled at the US, you need the threat–or the actuality–of the US’s muscle.
But if you have to use that muscle, well, good night Irene.
It’s the hypocritical connundrum of the Left: To get bad guys out, who actually DO the things that are generally falsely leveled at the US, you need the threat–or the actuality–of the US’s muscle.
Well, part of the problem is that the left contains both an obviously misguided but at least nominally-principled anti-American permanent protest class and a fundamentally unprincipled, purely political class. The latter, which is larger, has the capacity for sanity either when they’re in power or, as was the case of the post-9/11 period, when the earth shakes rather violently.
Is that National Grandparents Day crap for reals?
Krugman’s sweetheart.
Maybe Congress should consider making National Grandparents’ Day permanent — on the second Sunday after Labor Day.
Obama, the true 9/11 President. No really.
Percy Harvin is a stud.
I think, had my grandparents been alive on 9/11, they’d have been terrified and shrieking and swearing terrible vengeance upon every muzztard in existence. You know, like my mom was. Good times. Warm loving presence. Thats how I’m gonna remember ’em this day.
The progs didn’t disappoint on this day.
See: ‘Progressives Shame the Country on the 10th Anniversary of 9/11’.
Krugman’s problem is dishonesty–plain and simple. To say that Bush and Giuliani are “fake heroes” for doing their jobs on 9/11 is the height of hypocrisy, since neither man has ever claimed the mantle of “hero” and neither has claimed that his response to 9/11 was un-flawed. Each man did what he thought was his duty given the parameters of the job he held that day: a truly “rubber meets the road” moment for each. Clinton never faced one so we don’t know what he looks like in an emergency. We know what he looks like when he acts the part of Onan, but not much else. . . .Obama has not faced anything similar. Reagan acted in ways so foreign to Krugman’s sensibilities that he (Reagan) directed history away from disaster–now, there’s some true heroism with which to reckon. Why doesn’t Krugman contemplate the differences between Giuliani’s response to 9/11 and, say, Ray Nagin’s to Katrina? Giuliani could not see the Al Queda tsunami coming for a week before it hit–but Nagin could see Katrina. . . . But Nagin’s a put upon victim of federal bumbling when neither he nor Governor Blanco apparently has ever even heard of posse commutatis? Give me a break.
People may or may not be Bush or Giuliani fans now (or even then), but I think it is fair and honest to say that their handling of matters as they unfolded in real time was truly able and inspiring. Neither man freaked out or came unglued. Neither simply “reacted.” Neither put on a sweater and cried or went to Camp David or Martha’s Vinyard. And niether man wears “mommy-jeans” and a sissy helmet when he rides a bike.
In 1996 I stood at the foot of the south tower and stared up at its massive height, thinking, “Damn, what kinda rubble pile would these suckers make if they ever fell?”
And then I left, comforted, that NYC doesn’t get earthquakes.
The Left, save for Krugman, dissapointed me today. That American Thinker blog is thin gruel in terms of presenting the Left in its full bloom (all respect to Donald Douglas, of course.) I was honestly betting that they would show themselves in their true state: Doctrinally opposed to any American action, and never more so when it came to matters of self-defense.
Some anonymous comments in friendly precints and a moron diarist at FDL. Yawn. Where is the barely disguised nihilism and inclined-to-fascism posts from the usual suspects?
The Krugman piece is museum quality, to be fair. As recently as 2000, he was required reading on economic matters. It really WAS a long time ago, wasn’t it? I should note that the HF linked “Life was easier under the Taliban” bit from NPR was red meatish.
It seems the TV message today is that this is a day to be sad. For me this is a day to be angry, and determined. Till the day she died my Grandmother hated the ‘sneaky japs’, as she invariably referred to them, for Pearl Harbor. It’s like that for me with these 7th century barbarians.
rhymes with jackoff
Link
The Left was just a little early. It’s not like they get caught up in the whole “date” thing when a preemptive strike is so much better.
The left today displays their general impotence and irrelevance.
I am still amazed at our reticence and reserves, even in the face of continued Islamist attacks, albeit on a generally smaller scale.
But deep down I know, this is a nation with a proven capacity to slaughter it own, in number to-date unseen, when deemed necessary. Heaven help our enemies when we are truly out for blood. I remain convinced that one more mass casualty event could be all it takes for the people to demand an immediate and irrevocable solution to the Islamist problem.
Maybe then the lefties would have something valid to criticize.
Anyone know what’s up with Bob Reed? Worried.
no. 1 religious war
Revisiting 9/11: Unpublished Photos by James Nachtwey
Stephanie, you are not alone, a number of us are too.
09/11/01 found me in the surgical waiting room while my mother’s back was being operated on. They only had FOX and ABC down there at the time, and my former college roommate brought a portable TV he had in the car up to the waiting roon.
Mother had asked me the day before why I didn’t fly down, but drove instead. I just wanted to drive-never mind that it was a six hour jaunt across Texas. After the attack I was glad that I drove. I would not have been able to fly back to Dallas for a while.
I was in South Korea, and it took me a week to get home.
I lost seven friends that day (I live in CT) and watching the videos today still brings tears to my eyes. My sister’s Wall Street partners died simply because they decided to have breakfast at the WTC.
What an outrage! Fucking seventh century demons killing three thousand people for the fun of it.
Yeah. Repect Islam and the fucking illiterate psychopath who started it.
What kind of “GOD” expects you to kill, steal, and rape children in “HIS” name?
Go fuck yourselves, Jihadists…
gack it’s from the NYT I don’t want to link the article… just the picture they have for it is…
very illustrative of something
Know what?
I just can’t leave it at that.
Islam is a “religion” of mentally retarded baboons.
Anyone with half a brain knows that Islam is not a religion, but it is a fascist bunch of shit eaters and pedophiles masquerading as a religion..Oh! Wait! Is it Halloween already?
But bend over and spread your ass cheeks in the name of “tolerance”, you assholes.
I think I’ve had about enough.
Islamophobia here I come,
Right back where I started from…
And, BTW, we used to call them “Moslems”
Way stupid, huh?
Re: The NYT picture.
So Obama puts his nose in the air, Bush bows his head in prayer, and Michelle stares straight ahead.
“geoffb posted on9/11 @ 11:40 pm
Re: The NYT picture.
So Obama puts his nose in the air, Bush bows his head in prayer, and Michelle stares straight ahead.”
And then MOOOOchelle cuts a french fry fart that clears the immediate area.
Obama’s thought bubble:
“Wow! I’m really president! This is awesome!”
I was on my way to work in Manhattan at the time, but they were turning everyone back at the ramp to the Lincoln Tunnel (the towers were burning but hadn’t fallen yet). When I got home, I turned on the VCR to record the news for the rest of the day, but I could never bring myself to watch the tape.
It’s Teh Won waiting for God to kiss him directly on the lips.
#88 – that was cruel, and quite effective….nice work!
While watching football yesterday, I was struck by how many companies were clearly trying to milk the tragedy.
Never forget.
Never surrender.
There’s probably a fine line between honoring the date and milking the tragedy. It could be a damned if you do, damned if you don’t, kind of thing. You or I might not care whether a company does something special, but others might feel differently.
Darleen, on 9/12 we wanted to put a flag up at work. Our boss refused, saying if we did that “the terrorists would target us.”
In Studio City.
I was attending a three-day quarterly review of all the contractors’ support to the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (now the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency) in the Washington DC area. On the first day, we were ahead of schedule so the briefer scheduled to go up first on Tuesday got moved up to finish on Monday which allowed him to catch an early flight home Tuesday morning — American Airlines Flight 77. Our meetings came to an abrupt halt about 9:30 that morning.
After several days, no one knew when flights would resume, so a friend and I drove the rental car back to St. Louis. My strongest memory of those days was that there wasn’t a single condensation trail in a clear blue sky for the entire 13 hour drive. I think that is a metaphor for what the obvious, and less obvioous, enemies of freedom desire.
“Wow! I’m really president! This is awesome!”
Or, “Gotta make sure the cameras show just how awesome I am.”
Thanks, LTC!
In the first six months of 2001 I had been relocated, promoted, and laid off in the last days of the dot com boom. I was living on severance and working as a contractor for a company based on the 77th floor of WTC Tower 1. I had Fedexed a timecard to them on the 6th (Paper… ha!) and on the 10th they finally called to say they’d found it and would fedex a paper check to me the next morning.
That morning I was on my way to a job interview (Enron!) and the radio in my car only got one station and that was Howard Stern. I heard that a plane had hit one of the towers, so I called my wife on my pre-paid cell and asked her to check which one, and then to call my mother and make sure my brother wasn’t still in the Marriott (he was working as a chaperone for some UN thing). Of course my wife wasn’t home, and my POS radio didn’t work while driving through Crackintheass, Indiana so I put my headphones on and listened to my discman(!) for the next 45 minutes. By the time I hit civilization, my wife had called about eight times, freaking out, the guy my interview was with had called twice, and I was clueless. The thing I remember most was watching the second tower fall on the TV in the lobby of the Enron office.
We postponed the interview. I drove home, stopped for gas right away, (by the time I got home it was $4 a gallon can you imagine?) stopped and took $200 in cash from an ATM, and picked up kid 2 from pre-school, my wife went and got kid 1.
While we were out, the Fedex guy dropped off my check and I got a call from an HR lady at a large company offering me a job.
By 3pm I had found my brother, cashed my check and taken the job. Everyone in the office of the company I was working for was accounted for by the middle of the next week.
Amy Jarrett was a flight attendant on United 175 and the only person I knew personally who was murdered that day. She was a friend of my wife’s and a really nice girl.
I see, LTC, that you have resigned. I’m not sure how it’s correctly phrased, but you’ve given notice, it seems.
Which: I wish you the best of luck when you’re done, and I thank you for your service to your country.
Darleen, on 9/12 we wanted to put a flag up at work. Our boss refused, saying if we did that “the terrorists would target us.”
In Studio City.
Perhaps your boss understood the true nature of the proggs in the neighborhood.
#99 – yeah, Slart, I did. That was the most jolting thing about putting in for retirement – the letter actually says you are resigning your commission in the ILARNG and asking for transfer to the Retired Reserve. Yikes. My hand started shaking….even though it won’t be effective until 1 July 2012, I almost wanted to run back to the office and tell ’em to shred it.
But ’tis done now, and I have 292 days left as a Soldier in the Guard.
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