Remembering September 11th, 2001
Tuesday morning, 11 September 2001, I’d just returned to work from a previous week out in the field with the US Air Force Reserves, training and evaluating people.
I was sitting at my desk drinking a cup of coffee, catching up on the previous week’s emails that I’d not yet answered. Our Security Administrator came through the Security Door in my area, and looked agitated. In fact, he looked down right sick.
“Rick, we need you in Security. A plane just hit a building in New York,” he said.
I looked up from the computer and said, “BullShit…”.
“No, really. It just happened, we all need to meet in the Security Conference room.”
Shocked, and confused, I got up and followed him across the hall to our security and stood there observing our only, at the time, access to the news sources outside. CNN was showing the Twin Towers and smoke was coming out of it. A few seconds later, live, we watched as another plane slammed into the second tower. I was confused.
“Was that a replay?” I asked.
No one answered. Then someone said, “No, there is smoke coming out of one of the buildings already…” and his voice trailed off.
It was the sudden realization that this was not an accident, and those planes had been directed, somehow, into the two buildings that was leaving our entire Security team stunned. A few moments later, the Director of Security appeared, shaken as the rest of us were. He glanced around the room and said…
“What is going to happen next?”
I normally do not interject my opinion at a time like this since I’m not really a “terrorism expert”, but I have been right about many things. This was certainly one of them. For years before 9-11 I’d talked about this very sort of attack, something spectacular, devastating and evil happening. No one listened, or if they did listen, it was only with “half an ear”.
I reached deep and said, “White House, Capitol Building and the Pentagon next…”.
Silence met my words, then the Director of Security said, “What? Why do you think that?”
“Easy… simple. This is a terrorist attack. They’ve hit America’s finacial center. If it were me, I’d hit the head of government, and the head of the military. The Pentagon, the White House and the Capitol Buildings are at risk. I hope someone else is thinking like me.”
About fourty minutes later reports of “an explosion at the Pentagon” started coming through. The rest is history. Three thousand people died that day, including those who just happened to have gotten on those airplanes that day. One plane was forced to the ground by American heros who figured out what was happening and stopped it before even worse things could happen. It is a reasonable guess that the plane that was forced to the ground in Pennslyvia was destined to hit the White House. Or perhaps the Capitol Building. The latter is a very large target from the sky, as Google Earth can show you, whereas the White House is a bit less dramatic.
Even so, some things I talked about with friends and other site posters in the past actually came true and it’s horrible. People will forget what happened that day, children, those of ours who will someday be “in charge” of the future will not have lived through it and will not understand. Some Americans today want us to “get out of Iraq” and claim Iraq had no connection with terrorism.
Shame on those Americans, and if we let our children forget what happened on September 11th, 2001, or who killed them, then shame on us.
Never forget. Never Surrender.
It is not very difficult or very expensive to do what was done on 9/11. It is nearly impossible to stop if these people
really want to do these things. So throwing our military around and killing innocent people will only make more people
angry enough to strike out at us in these ways.
We must win the hearts and minds by acting responsibly and helping those who need it.
Get our military out of Iraq, let the Iraqis control there own destiny, and win their hearts by pouring all of that money
into humanitarian aid and rebuilding the country that we destroyed.
We have done ourselves great harm by acting like children. Let’s start caring for them instead of blaming them. It’s the
only way to truly stop terrorism.
What it took to bring down the towers: A few thousand dollars and a few people with the WILL to do it. We can’t stop them
from getting the little money they need, so all we can do is CHANGE THEIR MINDS.
You can’t do that at gunpoint.
What we are doing in Iraq right now is creating more enemies.
Comment by Reality Checker — Sat, 29 September 2007 / 2032 @ Sat, 29 Sep 2007 20:32:24 +0100
Well, “Reality Checker”… you’re wrong. It IS expensive to train folks to do such things.
America has done NOTHING wrong. We were attacked on 9-11-01 by TERRORISTS. We took ACTION by going into first, Afghanistan, and later into Iraq. This was the right action. Fight them on their own grounds, in their own lands, and not have to fight them here in America.
Most people seem to keep saying this lie about “America did this to herself”. That’s a lie, and you’re a liar. In fact, you are a complete idiot.
Why are you an idiot? Because you somehow believe we should just sit back and LET them destroy other buildings and kill other Americans? HELL NO. You, are an idiot.
We don’t have to change their minds by being NICE to them and NEGOTIATING. We need to change their minds by KILLING them. Destroy them, before they can do more damage to us.
Plain, and simple.
And you’re still an idiot for making these stupid statements
Comment by RickD — Wed, 3 October 2007 / 1607 @ Wed, 03 Oct 2007 16:07:50 +0100