Posted on 09/11/2018 11:41:11 AM PDT by se_ohio_buckwye
I first put this on Facebook. I figured I would add it here and ask you all what your memories of that day was.
Not a 9/11 will ever go by without me shedding a tear over what happened. I was 15 in my history class at NLHS. Although I was in Ohio. I know nobody who was killed or hurt that day. It changed me forever. It got me interested in news and current events. I studied national security issues. I studied the kind of religion they practice in the middle east. It made me politically active. I had to think about death in a way I had never thought about before.
One of the local county fairs was that week. I went and it was surreal. They couldnt cancel the fair. The pigs and horses and goats were there. The rides were up. But it was strange. Rides that normally played music were playing CBS radio all evening.
I remember 9-11....I am a retired NYPD Detective. I lost many friends that day...
At that moment, on that day, and every day since, I have known only this...
Anger.
Rage.
Fist-clenching, jaw-grinding, impotent rage at the assault on my home, my city, my Country. Rolling through my house in a wheelchair, moving like a caged beast, screaming curses at the obscenities flashing before my eyes. Vowing vengeance and justice for my Country ,my neighbors, my Brothers to God in heaven.
Sound good to you? Well, it Does to me.
Yes, I want this war with islam . I demand it. I demand that violence be visited upon the enemies of my Nation. I just wish that I be one of the fortunate ones who get the chance to face the foes of America, and hurl them screaming into Allah’s arms.
But their ends, for all my labors, would be too quick. I want death for the enemy to be a lingering, burning, screaming, pleading death, just like the 3,000 souls who were murdered that day.
Watching Fox news, I got to see revenge, live and in flaming color. I reveled in the vengeance from the skies, thundering clouds of flames like the anger and wrath of God.
I want war. I want vengeance. I want flaming holy justice to descend upon the enemies of freedom, be they Muslim or Marxist. I want blood in their streets. I want ash in their skies. And I want the cry to ring throughout the land, from the book of Revalations: “Lord, Your anger is upon the wicked is righteous and just!”
If that disturbs, offends, or troubles anyone, tough. Police Officers and Soldiers have 1st Amendment rights, just like YOU do. Your rights are guaranteed by people like me, here and abroad. You are free tonight, because we are ready to keep you safe to do so. Remind a Cop or a soldier today, and when ever you see them how grateful you feel.
No, I won’t forget or forgive, either. Join me today, and every day, in the loss and the anger. The job’s not done. This anger won’t stop, until it is finished..
Do you recall the cowards who burned victims in a cage, and beheaded helpless victims on video? I want to hunt these bastards and their ilk down where ever they hide and exterminate them. No negotiations, No reasoning, No prisoners. Just dead. Years from now, I want their children’s children to cower and cringe in fear whenever they hear the sounds of jet engines overhead because their legends tell of fire from the sky.
I want them to hide in dark caves and holes in the earth, shivering with terror whenever they hear the roar of diesel engines because the tales of their ancestors talk about metal monsters crawling over the earth, spitting death and destruction.
I want their mothers to be able to admonish them with “If you don’t behave, the Pale Destroyers will come for you”, and that will be enough to reduce them to quivering obedience.
I want the annihilation to be so complete that their mythology will tell them of the day of judgment when the stern God from across the sea and the powerful Americans .. destroyed their forefathers’ wickedness.”
NEVER FORGET... NEVER FORGIVE!!!!!!!
I was reflecting with sadness some of those that I was involved with and remember on FR from that day who have left due to our wonderful forum getting much toO nasty and contentious in the years since.
I often tell people that OUR forum was one where we were talking about Osama Bin Laden within 18 minutes of the first post. That poster was Catspaw and he/she is gone since 2004.
On 9-11 the great poster “Huck” was crossing between the towers and gave an account but was headed home when the towers collapsed. Many worried about him until he checked back in a dozen hours later. He also felt he had to leave.
We need to remember people lost on 9/11 but we all need to know we can loose good fellowship when we aren’t considerate to our fellow posters as this recent reflection has caused me to remember.
I love these stories. Thank you all.
I was teaching with another professor on 9/11. We didn’t really believe the first plane crash, in our isolated room, and continued with class. Then the second plane hit, the college was shut down, and I went to the nearby school to get my son. They had not said anything to the children, but I told my son as soon as we got into the car. I remember all three kids were worried that our tiny town would get hit. I also remember how my husband was watching the TV repeating the video of the crashing planes until they (thankfully) realized the damage of seeing it again, and again, and again.
What I also remember was a martial arts event that I went to soon thereafter. Our grandmaster could not fly from California, but many others were there. I remember Albany police/martial artists demonstrating how to defend against gun and box cutter attacks. The energy and emotions there were more poignant and intense than I’ve ever seen at subsequent events. It was memorable, to say the least.
And yet, just 7 short years after muslims attacked America, we go and elect one as _resident. Talk about forgiving and forgetting. But not me. I agree with you 100 percent.
My son called and asked me to turn on the TV. We were both stunned, because my daughter was at work in the North Tower. It was almost noon before my husband and I learned she was able to get out. I lived in NJ and I still grieve deeply on 9/11.
Once we boarded the shuttle bus, we were told we would remain on the bus for a while...THE ENTIRE AREA WAS ON A ‘LOCKED DOWN’
Seems the POTUS and his Team were in the air, and we had to wait...that wait lasted One hour and twenty min.. lol
everyone chatted with each other sitting near by...we could hear helicopters coming in...but had cloudy skies...
After the Service ended...we were ‘LOCKED DOWN', at the Memorial Site ’ until the POTUS AND FLOTUS were safely on Marine One, and that beauty flew low over the crowd, and I bet the DJT requested that...people waved, and shook their hats...and there were lots of MAGA Hats...
Our POTUS deserved that show of respect and love...He is treated so unkindly that it has become disgusting...jmo..
I was working in the HQ of a major high tech company in southern NY State. Being tech, TV monitors were hanging everywhere, including across from my desk. I was on FR and saw the beginning of the the first thread and turned on the TV. We watched all the events of the day, as employees gathered in groups around every monitor.
This company was proud of the “diversified workforce”, with employees from all over the world. Funny thing ... the next day many employees of a “certain persuasion” didn’t show up, for the remainder of the week. Guess they figured it was best to keep a low profile under the circumstances.
It was good to have the community of FR to communicate with during the tragedy.
The days following 9-11 had a special poignancy for me. I was “the kid at the airport fence” who still looks up (to this day!) at the sound of an aircraft.
After the attack, the skies went dead. There was nothing in the air, for the first time in my life. All flights were grounded ... everywhere ... except for top-cover F-15s.
All my life, there was always SOMEBODY in the sky. I was never truly alone. Off in the distance I would see a blinking anti-collision light low on the horizon, or a set of red and green points high in the night sky bound for who-knows-where. It’s doubtful I could signal them if I needed help, but at least there was a chance. Somebody was always up there.
As a reporter for my weekly newspaper, I covered the funeral of Captain John Ogonowski, the pilot of Flight 11. But the sky was dead. Not one of his beloved jetliners was aloft. I was deeply saddened.
I can see in my mind how different the civilians in my workplace reacted versus the veterans. The civilians were in shock. The veterans had gone right past the shock factor and were already in the ‘Raise Hell,’ mode upon hearing/seeing what was happening. While there’s always one or two people in a large work center who like to bash the U.S., that day and for almost a year, no one was stupid enough to bad mouth the U.S. After a year, the stupid ones thought they were safe bad mouthing the U.S. and they couldn’t understand why no one wanted to be around them. Pure stupidity.
I was in the USAF at the time. I was in Maintenace Control at the time. There was TV on in the office, and the feed cut to images of the WTC after the first impact. While my Chief and I were watching, the second plane hit. The the phones started ringing. We immediately went into a contigency posture, which meant I went to the Command Post, with the battle staff, as the maintenance liason. I don’t know how much more I can say, but I experinced things that day that I never expereinced before or since.
The FW I was assigned to sent the aircraft which escorted AF1 from Florida to Barksdale and on to Offut
I was working in the USPS in Sept 2001. I had been in Huntingdon PA to help them with something, and was almost back to the plant when the first plane hit. I was carrying things in to the dock, and the dock guy called out ‘Hey, did you hear what happened, the tower?”. I said no, and he said a plane flew into one of the World Trade towers, it was just on the radio, it just happened.
I walked up to my office, and asked the clerk down the hall if she heard (no). We went into the conference room and turned on the TV there. We heard a plane just hit the towers again, but they switched images back and forth so we were trying to figure out if it was one or both. When they finally were clear, we just looked at each other in shock, because of course it had to be intentional.
We went back to get on with our work, because of course, we were being paid and needed to work.
After I heard on the radio that the first, then second, building collapsed, I called a friend in the Johnstown plant. He’s a former marine, and we both loved our country. He told me that they were on lockdown, but it wasn’t clear exactly what was going on.! The carriers, he said, had been told to park their trucks, wherever they were. and get home.
My friend said the Air National Guard, at the local airport, had aircraft in the air, and the USPS was told there was reason to believe that there was another plane heading towards the Johnstown airspace, and maybe DC and EVERYONE needed to stay inside.
He got off the phone to ask around what anyone else heard. Meanwhile I finished my workday and drove home, where I found my husband watching the coverage. He asked if I knew where Shanksville was... That’s when I heard about Hero flight 93.
What a day. I will never forget. For years I watched the video Never Forget with Enye, the 11 minute version. I wish I could find that again.
I will Never Forget, and no matter what the media has tried to do (shutting down all the coverage so we wouldn’t be angry), I am still angry, and I don’t believe we did everything we could to shut down Al Qaeda and kill Bin Laden and all his followers that were involved. I don’t trust what Obama told us.
I was on one of those ships (a DDG) you heard checking in - we were mid-way between Pearl Harbor and San Diego, returning from deployment with the Constellation Battle Group.
Had the week off so I went to the gym. Just as I got on the stairmaster to loosen up the news was showing the first tower burning. I asked the woman next to me what's going on? She said they think some suicidal nutjob decided to kill himself by flying his plane into one of the twin towers. As she finished that sentence the second tower was hit as we watched......I looked at her and said this is Osama bin Laden who did this. The woman gave me a quizzical look them I explained you know the guy behind the first attack with the blind Sheik and the bomb in the basement?
I went straight home to watch the TV like everybody else with one special exception. While I was taking the dog out to do her business I remembering looking up in the sky and thinking why is that plane exhaust shaped in a hairpin turn in the sky? I'd never seen anything like it in all my years living in northeast Ohio....to this day I still wonder if that was the exhaust trail of flight 93 that went down in Shanksville.
That night at dinner we prayed for all those lost and their loved ones with tears in our eyes.
This is a long one, sorry, and I’ve posted it before.
I was actually behind in hearing about the attacks.
It was a gorgeous day. Apparently gorgeous everywhere up and down the East Coast.
I worked in a defense plant literally right next to a major airport (500 ft from an airstrip), not too far from the DC area. At the time, my group had been displaced to an outbuilding for office space as our normal area was being renovated. Tuesdays my program had weekly status meetings at 9:00 in the main building. 2 other of my co-workers strolled back from our temp area to the main building, not far from the airstrip on a gorgeous, idyllic day. We went in the main building and had our regular meeting, which threatened to be (as usual) longer than the allotted official hour. It may have been had it not been for our test man who had to go to the bathroom. And even he only found out thanks to his wife e-mailing him on his Blackberry device while he was out. Rich came back around 10:00 and mentioned rather matter-of-factly, that a plane had hit a WTC (note he didn’t say 2) and the Pentagon. The fact he mentioned 2 different places with 2 planes stunned us all, and we all adjourned then.
My 2 co-workers and I strolled down the hall and found a woman in our dept. who had a small radio TV. People were gathered outside her cubicle watching and wondering. The woman herself was crying, as were a couple others. I was stunned at what I was seeing, as I think most people were – just dumbfounded. Around 10:30 we saw 1 of those WTC starting crumbling. By then, mostly what I was feeling was just anger. Seething anger.
The word was out that all aircraft were being grounded.
Soon I walked back to my temp building (BTW, it’s a permanent 4-storey structure, just often used as an extra space for rotations), and planes of all sizes were landing 1 after another not 500 ft from me as I walked by. The noise was deafening. It was odd, and knowing why, it was tension-building.
I don’t recall the details of what news came through, but when I went back to my temp building, there was a man listening on his radio and we were all quite sure it was Moslem-related. I was just angry and the hatred seethed out. I told my co-worker and another woman with us (who is 1 of those loving Christians filled with equanimity) that it was Moslems and that they’re hateful, evil people; I don’t care how PinC it was to say so. And they looked shocked I could sound so hateful myself and vengeful. You’re damn right. I hate them and I wanted us to bomb the hell out of every such place on earth. (How could a woman have such hostility? You know, because we’re so above it all! Hah!)
Our company did not yet call off for the day. I was thinking surely a defense plant 500 ft from a major airstrip would shut down in no time. But no call. So we all stood around speculating, philosophizing and staring into space.
OK, they weren’t quitting so I had to go to lunch. I had to go out because I had no lunch at work. So I walked all the way out to my car – by now, it is perfectly QUIET! Absolutely NO noise. The planes are mostly finished. Quite eerie. Not used to hearing absolutely nothing from the airport.
But I got in my car and went to the nearest fast-food place, McDonald’s, which is also about the closest to the airport. Talk about eerie. A normally busy lunchtme at McD’s was completely empty. They had given up so completely that 1 could see they had stacked chairs on the tables, and everyone was gone.
So, so much for that. I did get lunch a bit further away, and drove back to work expecting to eat it in my car (as usual), definitely listening to what was transpiring. When I come back – the parking spots are virtually empty but there is a huge line of cars criss-crossing the lot trying to get out.
There was another car in front of me also slowly driving back in, along with me unsure what to do. I saw a man I know in the car line and he said we now had voluntary leave (i.e., leave if you want; obviously everyone wanted). Well, the other man and I parked next to each other and we went in together figuring there’s no point getting in line now when it’s so crowded, and we both had lunches to eat and didn’t have to leave. So we walked back in and decided to basically eat our lunches then come out again, when surely the crowd would all be gone.
As we walked to the tunnel guys were loading the trash cans and newspaper dispensers on pick-up trucks. (6 years later, we still weren’t allowed dispensers or trash cans at the entrance portals.)
I went all the way back to the temp building – again, and even moreso now with no workers – NO NOISE from outside, just the birds and bugs. Extremely eerie. It was like a ghost town next to another ghost town.
I got to my 4th-floor office area; everything was empty except an open office door with light coming out. So I yelled out, “Any stalwarts still here?” Then almost immediately 1 of our supervisors storms out of the lighted doorway and starts going hysterical; Brian starts yelling at me like a madman,
“What the hell are you doing here, get the hell out! You don’t know what could be going on here there could be biochemical s#$@ in the air!” Taken aback I stuttered that I was told we had optional leave; Brian insisted it was mandatory! Then he stormed out of the office area altogether (without me!).
Well, I ate my lunch and began calling, primarily worried about where everyone was (especially children in school). My dad also worked for this plant but close to the McD’s. I tried to call him but he didn’t answer. I called home and my sister’s, because not only was she having to worry about her own 3 children, but she usually went to get my other nephew (he came from CA to live with us for a year) from his school. Didn’t know where my dad was, but I called my sister’s house and 1 of her friends answered, saying they already got Justin (my CA nephew) from school. My sister was getting her own son. Just then my dad walked into her house, and the friend relayed that I was on the phone.
To which he yelled, “What the hell is she doing there? Get back home!”
So I finally trekked out. Driving home I noticed a few parallel contrails in the sky, heading to DC. Fighters patrolling the region.
Soon we were almost all in the right places and things were OK, but tense. My dad and my cousin (who also lived with us) and I sat outside on a beautiful day listening to the total silence (we’re not far from that airport), and speculating, and waiting for my mom to make it home (she was a teacher on the other side of the city, getting around the beltway is always a challenge). I was fearful soon the West Coast would be hit, fearful for my brother in L.A. (father of Justin). But it was just so eerie, that weird beautiful idyllic day with such horror – and OUTRAGE.
It wasn’t a “tragedy”, it was an ATROCITY.
I live in upstate NY. I was on my way to work at Xerox in Webster NY. I was listening to Howard Stern (ducking) and Baba Bouie came running in saying the first tower was on fire and had been hit by an airplane.
I was working helpdesk in a call center and the jumbo trons that counted calls in queue showed zero for the next few hours as the world watched in horror. I took my kids to NYC a couple years earlier...just before Princess Di was killed and we went to the observation tower. They were beautiful buildings. I looked over to the 2nd tower and saw a brave soul working on the cell equipment!
Exactly! Shocking to think less than 7 yrs later the country elected the illegitimate Terrorist In Chief to capitulate to this evil and open the doors to more of this.
When my husband got home from work, (central Ohio ) and after flights had been grounded, we went to the gas station to fill our cars. Many, many cars were waiting and it was so quiet, no one was talking, just waiting. Suddenly someone yelled, look up! We did and way, way up there was a plane and a jet stream and fighters escorting. It was AF1 and I will never forget that ever, I still get goosebumps.
Hue City, Antietam, etc...
Hope I got the names right on those CGs. I’m working from 17 year old memories. I just remember that the CGs were named after famous battles.
They couldn’t keep up with AF1 and the fighters, though. The poor old E-3 is quite speed limited due to that big, rotating radome.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.