911

Damn DC. That was some story. My sister was a NYC fire fighter at the time but she was in Japan at the time of this but she came back for clean up along with her husband who was also a fire fighter. They lost a ton of friends and were going to funerals for at least a year after. During clean up her husband also pulled his ex EMS partner from under the debris. I can't imagine what that must have felt like.
 
I was working for a global financial institution in Florida on that day and I distinctly remember a co-worker yelling out "OH MY GOD! A plane hit the tower!" I worked in corporate headquarters and so also had tv monitors on most of the floors and in the lobby areas. As you can imagine, I had several friends and co-workers in the financial district there in NY. When the second plane hit, I had gotten an email from a friend in Scotland, inquiring about how things were. I sent him a message saying "I am numb with shock and can't believe this is happening."

I will never, as long as I live, forget his reply: "It's about time."

"It's about time" that America experienced what the rest of the world had, at one time or another. In the very moment that I read that, even while the increasing horrors were still playing out on tv, I understood with crystalline clarity, what it really means to me to love my country. I can't recall ever feeling more "American" than simply "human" than the moment I read that one line in that one email. The entire day changed me personally, forever.

Some of you here may know that I am still overseas away from home. This was a hard 9/11 for me. Back home, I remember this day alongside an entire nation of people who know and remember and give respectful pause to its significance, as only people who were there can. Here, where I am, its a sea of people so far removed from it. The most I could do was turn on Fox News, which does air here. But when I turned on the tv, unbelievably, there was no audio at all on the Fox station. It had worked fine just a few hours earlier. I could see it, but could not hear it. I wanted to hear it. I needed to commiserate with people who understood and I needed to feel like I was home, just for that day. People always say how balanced BBC news is, so in frustration, I turned to that channel. There was the anchor, saying "....in America's so-called war on terror". I simply turned the station back to Fox, preferring to watch the memorials in silence, than listen to another world view who might again tell me that it was "about time". I read the ticker at the bottom of the screen of name after name after name, while I presumed the successive pairs of people at the podiums read off names of those who lost their lives, each pair having a member of our armed services or other public service, standing behind them.

And then I sent one email to one friend. He is a retired US Marine who I went to high school with many years ago. He volunteered to go back to the middle east driving fuel trucks along heavily shelled supply lines for a year. He then volunteered to go to another area of the region to train security personnel. He would occasionally call me from his station out there in it all and I could actually hear shelling and explosions in the background, and when I asked what was happening, he would only say "don't worry, its just fireworks." And he is now a police officer in the same neighborhood I call home. I had to tell him thank you for being living proof of the kind of American spirit who would run into a bombed and burning building, without thought of his own welfare, to save the life of someone he doesn't know.

Amazingly enough, the audio returned to the Fox news station the very next day here. It was silent only for the entirety of 9/11. I can't wait to come home.
 
Even if I am not american (I'm spanish) I Still remember that day, I was 12 at that time and I was playing outside when my mum told us to go in to watch television, the 1st tower had just been hit. we all feel something strange inside us. I'll always remember that day, cause by atacking you they attacked all us, the entiere world changed, after that more attacks came, in Madrid and later in London (The previous day to that i was visiting London in a english learning trip). I think all these attacks should be the reason for a union between the worlds people and we all should fell sorry for those people that died and helped. At least here where I live local news still remember that day every 911 and they should.
 
RE: Thartley

Sorry to hear about the 'about time' comment. That is not the general consensus of the majority and I've never personaly heard that said before.

Bear in mind that's one persons opinion. To balance that, I'd say hogwash.
 
Raptor365 said:
RE: Thartley

Sorry to hear about the 'about time' comment. That is not the general consensus of the majority and I've never personaly heard that said before.

Bear in mind that's one persons opinion. To balance that, I'd say hogwash.
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Yeah, I know, and you are right. But in that very moment, when I couldn't even feel if I was breathing or not, I just felt I got slapped in the face. If I could have "un-read" that email, I certainly would have. For some reason, it stands out to me as much as anything else that happened that day.

I know I'm still human, as I ever was. I just know what flavor I am now. :beer:
 
It's sad, to me, that some would feel that way. When London was attacked, I was vacationing in Niagara Falls with my wife and little daughters. That morning, in the hotel room, she woke me and through her near hysterical sobbing she managed the words "We were attacked again."
That has always stuck with me because, as proud and patriotic she is as an American, her sense of love and compassion for the rest of humanity is just as strong. The same goes for me, especially when speaking of the many nations we call friends.
 
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