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The Smell of September 11
Townhall.com ^ | September 11, 2018 | Marina Medvin

Posted on 09/11/2018 3:02:04 AM PDT by Kaslin

I woke up on September 12, 2001, to rays of sunshine beaming on my face. It looked beautiful outside. It was a brand new day, and the terrible dream about the day prior seemed to be over. I walked over to my bedroom window and I opened it.

I inhaled the air, expecting the crisp, fresh smell of a New York September morning, a scent that I loved so much. But my heart quickly sank. I smelled something different. I smelled something that will never leave my memory for as long as I shall live. I smelled burnt flesh.

The reality sent shivers down my spine. The gray ashes that covered my friends and neighbors, who spent six hours walking the bridge from Manhattan back home to Staten Island on the day prior, the ashes that coated their bodies head-to-toe, were not just ashes from the fallen buildings. They were also the ashes of the people inside of the buildings.

“It smells like Auschwitz,” I whispered to myself, as I looked back at the stack of Holocaust books next to my bed. My eyes filled with tears. I closed that window and just stared out at the world for a while. I realized that yesterday wasn’t a dream. September 11 did happen.

I will never forget that moment.

It was 17 years ago. But that moment is as clear in my mind as a moment from 17 minutes ago. It was the moment when I, a 17-year-old at the time, grew up. It was the moment that I realized that the atrocities of the past that I have been reading about are not confined to the past. It was the moment that I realized that the present and the future could be as cruel as the past. It was the moment that I understood that on the day prior, New York had met evil.

The evil that turned thousands of people into ashes was radical Islam.

That evil permeates our world still. We continue to battle ominous Islamic fundamentalism to this day. We have been unable to defeat the ideology of destruction. But we cannot rest until we do.

We must never forget. We must never ameliorate the evil. We must persist. The ideology of life and freedom, the philosophy of American values, must win over the ideology of death, the doctrine of radical Islam.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
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To: PigRigger

I will never forget the skies that night. I lived in the country where the skies at night were usually filled with stars and uncountable blinking lights of planes heading in every direction. That night there were no blinking lights. You wouldn’t think it would be noticeable, but it was. The skies were motionless and I knew that America had been changed forever.


21 posted on 09/11/2018 5:02:49 AM PDT by LoveUSA (God employs Man's strength; Satan exploits Man's weakness.)
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To: The FIGHTIN Illini; Kaslin

The quote from this haunting documentary that sticks with me the most .... from the husband of a woman found in the street:

“To be out of the smoke and heat, to be out in the air .... it must have been like flying.”


22 posted on 09/11/2018 5:05:11 AM PDT by Qiviut (McCain & Obama's Legacy in two words: DONALD TRUMP!)
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To: Kaslin

We went from: “I can hear you, the rest of the world can hear you and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.” to where just about every one of our rights and freedoms all but taken away one by one, every single year since then.

Not to mention the trillions down the drain and the multitudes of American men who have been killed or maimed in the Middle East, and continues to this day.

Meanwhile, “radical” Islam, as the author calls it, is still alive and well.


23 posted on 09/11/2018 5:05:38 AM PDT by MichaelCorleone (Jesus Christ is not a religion. He's the Truth.)
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To: All

24 posted on 09/11/2018 5:38:38 AM PDT by deoetdoctrinae (Donate monthly and end FReepathons.)
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To: Kaslin

Many ‘tributes’ this week will omit that it is also the anniversary of tge Benghazi terrorist attack on our embassy.

Democrats and the media lied about it for months to see tgat Barack Obama was safely re-elected.

What difference does it make at this time, anyhow? - sec. of hate Hillary Rotten Clinton

Recall that Barack Obama boasted of the lossless regime change on Libya. His third way.


25 posted on 09/11/2018 5:39:38 AM PDT by a fool in paradise
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To: Kaslin

In the days following we cam together as AMERICANS. Ever since the Left has attacked our unity.


26 posted on 09/11/2018 5:43:55 AM PDT by 1Old Pro
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To: Kaslin

We forgot a long time ago.

On 911 Day we are supposed to remember to do one good deed.

http://youtu.be/gHc901z_w4o

Really now.


27 posted on 09/11/2018 5:44:55 AM PDT by ifinnegan (Democrats kill babies and harvest their organs to sell)
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To: a fool in paradise; All

Everyone needs to see this post.


28 posted on 09/11/2018 5:47:52 AM PDT by SirLurkedalot (10/10/51-7/7/16 RIP Dad, I'll be missing you until I cross over to Eternity)
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To: Bonemaker

Article said “ The gray ashes that covered my friends and neighbors, who spent six hours walking the bridge from Manhattan back home to Staten Island on the day prior”.

Something seriously wrong here, there is no bridge from Manhattan to Staten Island.


29 posted on 09/11/2018 6:01:38 AM PDT by slorunner
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To: slorunner

“Something seriously wrong here, there is no bridge from Manhattan to Staten Island.”

They probably sold it to the people who believe Governor Cuomo’s nonsense that America was never great.


30 posted on 09/11/2018 6:26:12 AM PDT by MichaelCorleone (Jesus Christ is not a religion. He's the Truth.)
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To: Kaslin
GO FIGURE.....

9/11/2001 -

American hating, rage filled young male muslims attack the USA, destroy iconic skyscrapers and kill 3,000 people.

11/04/2008 -

Americans elect an American hating, rage filled young male muslim as president.


31 posted on 09/11/2018 6:30:00 AM PDT by Vlad The Inhaler (Liberalism is the philosophy of sniveling brats. - P.J. ORourke)
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To: Kaslin

Thank you for posting.

There won’t be any mainstream memories shared. The leftist oligarchy controlling our media and desperate to control our hearts and minds do not want us remembering. We were all Americans, no one was kneeling to diss the flag because some young thuggish kids got slapped around by cops.

But we need to share this. We need to think about it. We need to remember. It’s the only way to prevent it.


32 posted on 09/11/2018 6:30:48 AM PDT by Yaelle
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To: Qiviut

Thanks for posting that. Plan to watch it later....


33 posted on 09/11/2018 6:43:08 AM PDT by Envisioning (Carry safe, always carry, everyday, everywhere.)
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To: Kaslin

I smelled it, and watched the site continue to burn for three weeks straight too. It was just as she described... smelled like vaporized human flesh with a taste of aluminum to it.


34 posted on 09/11/2018 8:34:22 AM PDT by thoughtomator (Number of arrested coup conspirators to date: 1)
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To: slorunner

The path would be from Lower Manhattan, over the Brooklyn Bridge or Manhattan Bridge, down the Brooklyn waterline to the Verezano Bridge, and into Staten Island. It’s walkable and not all that far.


35 posted on 09/11/2018 8:37:49 AM PDT by thoughtomator (Number of arrested coup conspirators to date: 1)
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To: Kaslin
All the time when I read something about 11th September, it makes my skin crawl. Recently, I've read an essay on https://gradesfixer.com/free-essay-examples/life/ and now this post. Guys don't be unconcerned. We can make this life better!
36 posted on 09/11/2018 9:33:13 AM PDT by EmilyBlunt
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To: PigRigger; miss marmelstein; EDINVA; Mrs. Don-o; SisterK; stars & stripes forever; weston; ...
I will never forget the silence a crowd of thousands can make when seeing fellow New Yorker’s die

Words cannot express. I went to the site two years later, when by that time it was a large hole in the ground with wire fencing around it, to pay my respects, and the silence still hung over it.

I live in Maryland, in an air traffic region that sees a lot of military craft fly over between DC and strategic points north, as well as lots of ordinary air traffic. We are out at the exurban woods line, but there are a dozen highways a few miles away, and at night you can hear lots of proximity-stressed animals in the woods and cargo trains passing in the far distance. But for a couple of days after 9/11, air traffic had been halted and even the roads were voluntarily devehiculated. People who ordinarily lifted voices back and forth with neighbors and children on arriving home after work were quietened. I remember standing in my back yard near the forest, reflecting that I had not "heard" that much silence since the 1950s, in childhood, before superhighways, ubiquitous SUV engines, massive long-haul trucking, a perpetual electrical buzzing from power and communications grids, televisions and media everywhere, Musak, a car for every person instead of one per family, giant freezer motors in every grocery and convenience store, widespread air conditioning, stereo thumpers, or the heaviest air travel of any nation. The silence: it was nearly shocking in its nothingness. Primordially worshipful. No wonder, before all this technology, people witnessed hearing God. How many can today?

37 posted on 09/11/2018 1:34:46 PM PDT by Albion Wilde (Ain't no reaching across the aisle in Hell.)
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To: Albion Wilde
I had not "heard" that much silence since the 1950s

The quiet and the politeness and the unity were all palpable.

38 posted on 09/11/2018 1:38:19 PM PDT by 1Old Pro
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To: Albion Wilde

Move out of urban areas. There is a lot of quiet in the boonies. Most space on the planet is boonies


39 posted on 09/11/2018 1:44:59 PM PDT by hal ogen (First Amendment or Reeducation Camp?)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Bttt


40 posted on 09/12/2018 2:53:00 AM PDT by Guenevere
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