nmah2876.xml

nmah2876.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-10

I'm a native New Yorker who now lives in Charlotte, NC. On September 11, I was teaching a water exercise class at the YMCA. I stopped in the office and said Hi to a colleague. She looked white in the face. I asked"Are You alright".
"I was till a minute ago, she replied then went on to say a plane hit the WTT."
We both went out to the Giant TV to watch the second plane go into the South Tower. Now I too was in shock. My cousin, Richard Appenzeller, is a NYFirefighter and he was there. Fortunately, he didn't enter the towers but saw them fall and helped people escape.
Other friends, worked in the buildings but on lower floors and they were safe as well. The scares of that day still haunt us all.
This summer I went to Ground Zero and really couldn't believe the towers that I worked near, that I enjoyed lunch in, that I gave speaches from Windows on the World were gone forever. The people, some of the brightest and bravest were gone forever.

I thank God for every day I'm alive. Taking time to enjoy my neises and nephews and my great nieces. I cherish the time I spend with friends and meditate each day. I pray that our nation will be more even handed in the treatment of the Palestinians and Isrealies so perhaps we could be an agent of Peace instead of an object of Hate.

That if we use our power to to encourage the mistreatment of other human beings, they will be angry. Anger, once started often can not be controlled. Justice not bombs is what America could stand for in the world.

Yes my flag flew above the White House when I was Forty, almost 20 years ago. Another flag covered my Dad's coffin as he was laid to rest in a National Cemetery after WW11.
I hope the flags waving will mean that we are listening to the despirate cry of the poor, abandoned Arabs, Afgans, and others who seem to have no voice in the halls of our government.