Posted on 09/11/2010 12:30:49 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
I was probably one of the last people in the world to learn about the attack on September 11, 2001.
I was deep into revising my dissertation on Walker Percy for a committee member who ultimately had to be replaced; like many faculty members he insisted I present the dominant view of the U.S. as fascist. Three other committee members thought my original version was suitable for a book. But today’s graduate student will have even less of an opportunity to work with decent faculty members than I did. The sociopaths in charge have simply replaced such retiring members with their own kind.
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
It was Thursday morning, two days after the terror attacks of September 11. Standing behind his desk in the Oval Office, the President telephones New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Gov. George Pataki, offering words of comfort and support, pledging to provide “anything it takes to help New York.”
“I can’t tell you how sad I am — and America is — for the people of New York City,” he told them, pouring his heart out. His words genuinely conveyed the grief, the anguish, the hurt and sorrow gripping a nation grappling in the aftermath of 9/11, the worst — and most deadly — terrorist attack ever visited on American soil.
After the phone call, which was televised live, the President spoke with reporters, one of whom asked if he could “give us a sense as to what kind of prayers you are thinking, and where your heart is for yourself as you ... “
“Well, I don’t think about myself right now,” Bush interjected. “I think about the families, about the children,” he added, choking back tears. “I’m a loving guy and I’m also someone, however, who’s got a job to do, and I intend to do it.”
When history is written, that brief exchange will go down as Bush’s defining moment. It captured the essence of who he is: Compassionate, yet firm; kind, yet resolute; humble, yet determined; consoling, yet resolved; warm, yet tough; dignified, yet defiant.
But, above all, a leader with clarity of purpose and a strategy for victory.
It may not be politically correct to say it, but darn it, I’ll say it anyway: Among the heroes of 9/11, is President George W. Bush.
You know it, I know it, and, most importantly, the American people know it.
The press, the pundits, the Democrats deny it, of course — derisively. Republicans, spineless as ever, won’t dare suggest it.
Yet, think about it: Why does Bush remain so immensely popular, lo! 12 months after 9/11, long after conventional wisdom predicted his star would fade? And this, despite a headwind of negative press, a hostile media, collapsing stock market, a “limping” economy, the Enron smear, the 9/11 smear, endless second-guessing, endless attacks, at home and abroad — you name it.
Yet, none of it stuck, the President’s approval ratings refused to budge, prompting some in the media to calling him the ‘teflon President.’
They still don’t get it. The sustained appeal Bush enjoys has nothing to do with teflon, nor Karl Rove, nor tactics, nor polls, nor focus groups nor wily political maneuvering. This isn’t ‘slick marketing’ — it’s bonding. Simply stated, this President forged a bond with the people, one of almost unprecedented dimensions. It’s a bond rooted in trust. People trust him, what he says, what he does — they believe in him.
Amid the staggering trauma in the 9/11 aftermath, Bush became a pillar of strength, a wellspring of solace. Amid the intense sorrow and shock, his comforting voice helped heal the wounds, the wrenching pain and distress. His unflappable resolve, clear grit and determination lifted the nation off its back: America’s ‘can-do’ spirit was rekindled. Amid the rubble, Bush promised defiantly to rebuild. His soaring optimism rallied the country, boosted morale; a wave of patriotism swept the nation.
He also brought sharp moral clarity to the table, much to the bitter chagrin of a media elite steeped in moral relativism. He called the perpetrators ‘evil doers’, vowing to find them, ‘dead or alive’.
The bottom line is this: Leadership. Bush’s leadership. It’s key. His ‘take-charge,’ pull-no-punches verve was catalyst for national recovery, it put the wind back in America’s sails. The President more than ‘rose to the occasion’, he set the nation on a course to victory.
In Afghanistan, America made quick work of the Taliban, liberating a country from the clutches of one of the world’s most repressive regimes, and depriving al-Qaeda its headquarters for operations.
But the War on Terror didn’t stop with Afghanistan. From former Soviet Georgia to the Philippines, America was on the offensive, taking the battle to the enemy, putting a global network of terrorists on the run. To date, thousands of al-Qaeda fighters have been killed or captured; indeed, Osama bin Laden, terror mastermind himself, may well be among the dead. Some of his chief body guards are in custody at Gitmo.
Ignoring a torrent of media complaints, the President in November signs an executive order authorizing creation of special courts — military tribunals — to try captured terrorists, fulfilling his promise to bring swift justice to the perpetrators.
On the home front, the battle was joined as well. Muslim “charities” suspected of funneling money to terrorist groups were shut down, and the office of Homeland Security was established. Immediately after 9/11, the Justice Department rounds up over 1,000 suspects for questioning, issuing deportation orders for 300,000 illegals.
“Taking suspected terrorists in violation of the law off the streets and keeping them locked up is our clear strategy to prevent terrorism within our borders,” said U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft.
The upshot: No major terrorist attack since 9/11.
“For those who have lost loved ones, it’s been a year of sorrow,” the President told the nation tonight, a year to the day after hijacked airliners slammed the World Trade Center and Pentagon building, killing thousands of innocents and thrusting America to war.
“For members of the military, it’s been a year of sacrifice and service, far from home,” he added.
“For all Americans, it’s been a year of adjustment, of coming to terms with the difficult knowledge that our nation has determined enemies, and that we are not invulnerable to their attacks,” the President observed, adding that “the attack on our nation was also an attack on the ideals that make us a nation; our deepest national conviction is that every life is precious because every life is the gift of a creator who intended us to live in liberty and equality. More than anything else, this separates us from the enemy we fight.”
The President’s address, delivered live from Ellis Island, capped an emotional day of commemorative ceremonies and solemn speeches, marking the painful first anniversary of 9/11. It was a day mixed with sorrow and victory, grief and triumph, pain and defiance, anguish and pride, agony and hope, trial and conquest.
It was a day of remembrance, America honoring her 9/11 heroes, both living and fallen, as well as the thousands who perished that day.
The President’s Midland, Texas roots were on full display today. He showed, yet again, he is one of us, one with the people. Visiting Ground Zero wasn’t without substantial risks to him physically, with America at war and the target of terrorists galore. To U.S. Secret Service, Ground Zero is a security nightmare. It took guts, it took courage to be there, but that’s George W. Bush for ya.
For many 9/11 families who greeted him there, President Bush doubtless brought a measure of closure. You could see it in the eyes of widows as they hugged him, kissed him or cried on his shoulders; you could see it in the eyes of fathers who lost a son or daughter the day the towers fell. The hole of Ground Zero was today filled to the brim with love overwhelming.
If Clinton shrunk the presidency, George W. Bush has, less than two years in office, restored it to greatness again. And if September 11th was the face of evil, September 11th, the anniversary, will be remembered as the face of heroes.
Anyway, that’s...
My two cents...
“JohnHuang2”
It was early September 11, 2001 — just another beautiful, sparkling summer morning in America. From Florida’s comely, sandy beaches, across the Carolina Smoky Mountains, to sensual Mt. Rainer in Washington State, it was just another typical, uneventful work day. The roads and highways bustling with rush-hour traffic, factories humming right along, tireless shopkeepers, vendors and farmers were busy as ever.
The imperturbable, mundane serenity augured not a clue of the nightmare to come.
The clock strikes 8:46 a.m. EST. Suddenly, seemingly from nowhere, a colossal, titanic explosion rips the heart of New York’s financial center. A Boeing 767 passenger jet had just plunged into the World Trade Center’s north tower. Instantly, a hellish fireball erupts, engulfing the skyscraper’s upper-third, the towering flames scorching the morning sky. The explosion’s unbridled power and fury were felt miles from the infernal epicenter.
Then, minutes later, yet another jet from hell rumbles over the trembling city, flying low as it eerily swoops towards the embattled WTC. At 9:03 a.m., the gruesome horror is repeated; this time the south tower is struck.
The world knew then this was no accident, no unlucky mishaps. This was terrorism — the evil misdeed of savages.
But, more than that, these were acts of war. America was under attack.
As if to remove any doubt, reports of yet another kamikaze strike crosses the wires — barely an hour after the south tower was struck. This time, the nation’s military nerve center was the target. At 9:43 a.m., American Airlines Flight 77 crashes into the Pentagon in Washington.
Then, reports of United Airlines Flight 93, and still another hijacking. At 10:03 a.m. a Boeing 757, bound originally for San Francisco, slams into a field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, killing all 40 on board.
All told, the most barbaric acts of domestic terrorism snuffed out the lives of more than 3,000 men, women and children. These innocents became the war’s first casualties.
The unspeakable horror and agony that day had broken the quietude and serenity we had long casually taken for granted.
America would never be the same again, her innocence ravished and raped that black September morning.
Suddenly, bursting before our eyes, what hitherto had seemed beyond unimaginable. The nation, whipsawed in terror and sorrow, stumbled and staggered.
Gone forever was our sense of sheltered invulnerability. The unfettered brutality and virulence (common-place in Bogota and Beirut, perhaps), could never befall on American soil — or so we thought.
That indomitable aura of invincibility, like the World Trade Center itself, lay in ruins.
Amid the seared and parched remains, the smoldering corpses, the shrieks of agony and bellowing cries for help from under the sizzling rubble, as jolted rescuers, shrouded by plumes of blinding smoke, scurried heroically in search for survivors, the inevitable question “why” ricochet across the lengths and breadths of our shaken land.
What kind of animals would deign to perpetrate such dastardly, despicable horror?
The answer would soon be forthcoming, as the trail of evidence pointed inexorably towards an all-too-familiar name, Osama bin Laden — perennial enemy of the United States.
The shadowy, elusive Saudi national had long ago become a household name, having been the terror mastermind behind a deadly series of devastating attacks in the 90s, involving hundreds of casualties — all under the unwatchful eye of the Clinton (mal) administration. The pathetic, halfhearted/half-baked ‘military’ ‘retaliations’ which followed would only embolden bin Laden and his al-Qaeda camarilla of war criminals.
While Clinton diehards deny it, September 11 has become an indelible blotch on the Clinton “legacy” — a stain far more tarnishing than Lewinsky.
Today, exactly one year to the day after the harrowing carnage that awful morning, we commemorate the victims of 9/11 — the more than 3,000 innocent men, women and children who perished that infamous day.
Three-thousand lives pulverized suddenly, senselessly.
Three-thousand hopes, 3,000 dreams, 3,000 candles of life extinguished, for no reason.
Among the victims, someone’s father, someone’s mother, someone’s son or daughter, aunt or uncle or dear friend.
But all of them, fellow human beings.
A part of America died with them that terrible day.
September 11th was a cruel and vicious attack on all of us — as Americans.
September 11th reminds us all of our shared humanity, and our common mortality.
The stupendous and miraculous out-pouring of love and support from people all across America during those darkest hours stands as living testament to the greatness of America itself. Our resilience as a people is what makes us uniquely American.
Our enemies may bomb us, hijack our planes, topple our buildings, but our shared sense of community, our effervescence and our love for each other can never say die.
This indomitable spirit moved the gallant heroes of hijacked Flight 93 to fight back, sparing the capital even greater carnage and destruction. Todd Beamer, who led the passenger revolt, epitomizes the courage and spirit and valor of America. This nation will never forget him.
The invincible spirit of the firefighters saved countless lives that day. The stories of heroism, of courage overcoming seemingly insurmountable odds would take more than a lifetime to recount. These brave men boldly defied death in the face that day, again and again.
Take the story of the men of Ladder Company 6. It’s a story of how six New York firefighters were miraculously saved from the jaws of death — all because of Josephine Harris, a woman they call their very own ‘Guardian Angel’.
Stationed in downtown Manhattan, Ladder 6 heard the harrowing explosion when the first jet slammed the north tower. “A plane has gone into the World Trade Center!”, boomed the intercom.
Ladder 6 rushed to the scene. Three minutes later, they saw “pieces of aircraft lying on the sidewalk and there were computer monitors smashing in the street”, firefighter Billy Butler told the Guardian newspaper.
Butler, a seven-year veteran on the force, recalls how they “waited for the debris to stop falling and grabbed our stuff and made a beeline for the front door.”
Captain John Jonas told Dateline NBC that, as they entered “One World Trade Center, the [north] tower, there were two badly burned people right there at the lobby door.”
“We were in the lobby when the second plane hit,” recounted Sal D’ Agostino. “You could hear a rumble and an explosion. And from the windows in the World Financial Center across the street, the reflection of the explosion came off of that, came off of those windows,” he said.
Climbing stairwell B, each carrying 110 lbs of gear on their backs, Ladder 6 reached the 27th floor when suddenly they heard a “rumble that nobody’s ever heard before — a 110-story building coming down,” Captain Jonas told Dateline. The south tower had just crumbled to earth. They were ordered to evacuate — immediately.
It was then when Ladder 6 came upon Josephine, a Grandmother who had already climbed down 46 floors from her office at the Port Authority.
Captain Jonas described his reaction to Dateline this way: “And Billy’s my biggest, and strongest guy. I said, ‘Billy, just put her arm around you, and just, we’ll do the best we can’. And she was having a hard time. She was elderly, and she wasn’t walking very well.”
“We started down with her and it was a slow process because she was extremely fatigued, her legs were collapsing,” Billy Butler tells the Guardian.
Butler: “We made it down to the fourth floor. We took two steps down the stairs and the whole building started to collapse. It threw us down to half landing. I have never been in a tornado or an earthquake but I think it was like a combination of both. You could see the stuff coming down past your face and the next minute it was going up past your face.”
“My lower legs were covered with debris”, Butler added, “and as I picked it off I heard something. It was this woman Josephine, she was laying at my feet. Then some of the other guys started getting up. The dust and the smoke did not clear for an hour and half.”
Mr Butler: “We didn’t give a Mayday initially because we thought we could walk out of there like gentlemen. Then we gave a Mayday and nobody answered, we couldn’t get a signal. The chief finally ... got a message out. Captain Jonas told them that they were in the north tower’s stairway B. The reply came back, ‘where’s the north tower?”
Richie Picciotto, the Batallion Chief, told Dateline that “there was no way out. We were encapsulated. So even though we were alive, there’s 105 floors above us.”
In fact, as Dateline reports, little did they know “those 105 floors were now in pieces all around them. The men of Ladder 6 had survived the collapse but were now marooned in one of the few fragments of the building still standing — a darkened stairwell. And surrounding them, a craggy wasteland shrouded in smoke.”
In his Mayday call, Captain Jonas kept “telling them, ‘we’re in World Trade Center One. You enter through the glass doors, you make a right, stairway B is the first stairway on the left. We’re on — between the second and the fourth floor. And my five year old daughter could follow those directions.”
But Butler has a better idea. He borrows a cell phone from a Port Authority police officer hunkering with them and calls home.
Bill Butler: “My wife answered the phone. She said how are you doing. She was asking a lot of questions. I said, listen to me. And she started to whimper a little bit, and I said, ‘You can’t cry, do not cry right now.’ She actually is writing this stuff down, so I just told her call the fire house and tell the guys where we’re at.”
Then, suddenly, miraculously, “everything cleared just for a moment. And we could see we were at the top of this debris pile. And I’m thinking, this is going to be OK, you know? This, we’re going to be OK here.”
Richie Picciotto: “There’s light there. I thought it was an optical illusion. There’s light, we’re safe. There’s life. There’s light.”
Dateline recounts how “Chief Picciotto followed the light to an opening they had not seen before, climbed out and secured a rope to show others the way. Still sounding his bullhorn siren, the chief was soon discovered by the men of Ladder Company 43. The firefighters could now climb out. But what about Josephine Harris?”
“I knew that we couldn’t get Josephine out by ourselves,” Butler recalls. They stayed with Josephine till she was rescued.
Butler explains the remarkable irony to the Guardian this way: “This woman was soooo slow, but she was a guardian angel sent to us. It was because she slowed us up that we ended up in that void. If we had gotten out of that building we may have sought refuge in our fire truck which was flattened. I saw it the other day and it’s just one twisted piece of metal.”
Folks, the story of Ladder 6 is the story of America, a tribute to this great and wonderful country of ours.
‘But that was a year ago,’ the cynic scoffs. ‘Today, that spirit is dead’.
Nonsense.
America is roaring back, thanks to the leadership of our President, George W. Bush. And thanks to the courage and bravery of the troops he leads, our enemies are either dead, captured or on the run.
“We’ll succeed,” thundered the Commander-in-Chief at a White House ceremony in March marking six months since the September 11th attacks.
“There will be a day when the organized threat against America, our friends and allies is broken,” the President continued. “I see a peaceful world beyond the war on terror, and with courage and unity, we are building that world together.”
Over the site of the World Trade Center, two beams of light tower defiantly into New York’s night sky, a touching memorial to the victims of 9/11. But more than just columns of light, those beams piercing boldly the darkness are unflinching towers of courage, towers of strength, towers of firmness and undaunted resolve. To our enemies, these poignant symbols send a message, loud and clear: You will never defeat us, we will never surrender, through fire and water we will triumph over you, whatever it takes.
To the victims and heroes of September 11th; to the firefighters, policemen, emergency/rescue workers — to all who were taken from us that day — these radiant beams illuminating the heavens are our way of saying, ‘We will never ever forget you.’
America must never forget.
By “JohnHuang2”
Sept. 9, 2002
Mary Grabar mega-ping! She’s written a great piece and a must-read.
It was a time that tried men’s souls. Some men’s souls came out looking pretty admirable from my viewpoint.
Damn right. Just saw the JSOC from 9/20/01 on CSPAN3...I miss that man.
Drive-by...heading to bed...reading tomorrow bump!
I always look forward to your posts.
You are my very favorite author. You always make the nastiest of situations funny, and you always post the truth.
To take a depressing and sad situation, tell the truth about it...and make me LOL...is quite impressive, to say the least.
That there is talent...I don’t care who you are. ;o)
I’m looking forward to reading this tomorrow...
Take care...and have a great evening, my good and special FRiend.
http://www.marygrabar.com/PubArts.html
I wonder if she published that dissertation on Walker Percy.
“These are the people who populate the Obama administration”
Disturbing and anger provoking read..Thanks for this and your 2 cents, John.
ping
Nice to see public intellectuals re-emerge from the long dark night of the mass media and left control of the universities through the internet.
Let me rephrase: It is nice to see public intellectuals re-emerge because of the internet from the long dark night of the mass media and left control of the universities.
From Wikipedia: Academia is sometimes contrasted pejoratively with "practice", such as daily living, employment, and business. Critics of academia say that academic theory is insulated from the 'real world', and thus does not have to take into account the real effects, results, and risks of actually performing the actions which academics study. Academic insularity is sometimes referred to as the ivory tower.
From Dictionary.com, one definition of "academic": theoretical or hypothetical; not practical, realistic, or directly useful: an academic question; an academic discussion of a matter already decided.
Again from Wikipedia: In political jargon, the term useful idiot was used to describe Soviet sympathizers in Western countries and the attitude of the Soviet government towards them. The implication was that though the person in question naïvely thought themselves an ally of the Soviets or other Communists, they were actually held in contempt by them, and were being cynically used.
The term is now used more broadly to describe someone who is perceived to be manipulated by a political movement, terrorist group, hostile government, or business, whether or not the group is Communist in nature.
Professors are people who tell us how to solve the problems of the world; problems they themselves avoided by becoming professors.
An indictment of the sociopaths that Mary worked with came in her opening sentence. No one in her “world” even phoned her to alert her and share with her the horror of what happened in NY, PA and the Pentagon.
I feel bad all over again learning of this callousness and indifference in ‘academe.’
All three were great John, thank you.
“This girl lost her mom in the World Trade Center on 9-11.”
Bush stopped and turned back.
“He changed from being the leader of the free world to being a father, a husband and a man,” Faulkner said. “He looked right at her and said, ‘How are you doing?’ He reached out with his hand and pulled her into his chest.”
Faulkner snapped one frame with his camera.
Original article:
http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/05/06/loc_moment06.html
My oldest grandson starts college next year with 10 others to follow over the next 10 years. I fear for them.
“America must never forget.”
AMEN! Thanks again for something outstanding!
May God help us to become the nation HE envisioned. May He set us on the correct path and give us the grace to walk it.
ping
Thank you so very much for bringing us your one year anniversary essay!
Keeper stuff...good job!!
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