nmah6527.xml
Title
nmah6527.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
story
Date Entered
2004-05-22
NMAH Story: Story
I was on the West Side Highway, driving to work. I had come out of the Battery Tunnel and got caught at the light like I had done countless times before. Just a week to ten days before they had opened up the West Side Highway, removing the final barriers that had been in place since the first attack against the WTC. It was a pleasure to drive. In between the Battery Tunnel and the first pedestrian crossover closest to the WTC, DOT had installed another light. So while waiting for the Battery Tunnel light to change, I held my foot on the clutch without taking my car out of gear.<br>
I took a sip of coffee and I took a pull on my cigarette. The light changed and I gunned it to beat the newly installed light. I got caught on the light neat the parking lot and the pedestrian crossover closest to the WTC.<br>
When the light changed, I started snaking my way through traffic. In between the twins is a hotel where cabs shoot into traffic so cars avoid the far right lane. I take this lane because it moves faster than the others. As I got nearer the hotel, the ground shook and then I heard an explosion. I checked my rearview to see if it was a gas main explosion and I thought the street behind me was getting chewed up. I wanted to be out of the line. Suddenly debris started falling on my car. I knew something above me had blown out. I started to get the hell out of there.<br>
I got a few blocks away North of the towers when all the emergency vehicles were coming at me on my side of the WSH. I knew I would have to ditch the car if I was ever going to get to work, so I started looking for some place to ditch. I saw a small garage about a block east of the WSH but to get there I would have to go up a one way street the wrong way. I figured that it was better to be out of the way, so I turned on the block and coasted into the garage.<br>
The sign said Early Bird Special 12.00 but I know New York. Whenever you have to get your car off the street because of some sort of emergency, nothing cost what it says. I asked the guy how much and he said 50.00. I ripped a 50.00 in half and told him he'd get the other half when I got the car. I removed my ignition key from my ring and left it in the car.<br>
I walked back to the WSH. I looked toward the WTC and saw the smoke billowing from one of the twins. I saw the second plane, but did not give it too much thought other than I thought it was low. I never thought about it going the wrong way up the Hudson. You grow accustom to seeing planes over the Hudson so you tend to pay them no mind. I thought he was flying low to avoid the black smoke that was billowing over the water.<br>
My eyes were drawn back to the other tower. I thought some dimwit had run one of those traffic helicopters into it, or a small prop type of aircraft had struck the building.<br>
Then the second planed turned into the tower. He adjusted his wings, turning from one way to another so he could bury the entire plane into the building. Bury it he did. I couldn't believe how that plane was swallowed whole into the building.<br>
I do not care how slow you might be, as soon as you saw that second plane go into the building, you knew we were under attack!<br>
How can I describe it? Picture some kid running a stick alongside a white picket fence. That's what the wings were doing to the side of that tower from the inside. You could see the outside steel being cut by the wing. Then there was the largest explosion you ever saw and a fireball that looked like it took the entire top of the building off!<br>
I don't know what made me do it, but I walked toward the tower instead of away. People were jumping and it was sickening. Some of them landed within feet of where I was and I was sprayed by what they had turned into. I was mesmerized by it. I didn't want to look but I could not help myself. There was one guy in particular who looked like he was shimmying in between the guide for the window washing aparatus, but something hit him and he went head first down, leg bend slightly, arms at his side, his tie flying haphazardly, like some form of morbid hanging. Another one was coming straight at me and I don't know what I was thinking, but I did not move. I was going to break his fall. Or I was frozen. A cop screamed at me to MOVE and I did at the last second. I could tell by the guys eyes that he knew exactly what was happening. I will never, ever forget those eyes.<br>
People were transfixed, mesmerized by what we were witnessing. A cop asked us if we needed help. When we said no he told us that we couldn't do anything. That we needed to get away from the area. Move North. He had to be there, we didn't. We started moving away, but without any determination. We would walk a few feet and then look at it, walk, look, walk, look.<br>
Some cars had their radios on and some of us huddled around the cars, listening to 1010 WINS. There were other aircraft up and unaccounted for. A report came in that the White House may have been a target and another report which was stated as unconfirmed but that the Pentagon had blown up.<br>
Paper was floating all around us. Some of it in really good shape.<br>
I made a few calls from my cell phone. One to my job to tell them what was going on. They were so panicked that I merely said I was OK but was not coming to work. I then called another building that I helped manage, one that could be a target, to tell them to evacuate.<br>
I called home but could not get through because of the circuits. They were too busy. To this day I don't know the name of the street that I got to when I heard this sickening sound. I cannot describe it. It sounded like groaning and twisting of metal. The top of one of the towers looked like it started to slip, so slowly. I thought it was going to tip over. Then it stopped. For some time. Then it disappeared and it looked like someone had turned on a spicket or like a geyser had started. Or a volcano.<br>
I know it only took seconds, but everything was in slow motion. The building imploded. You were in denial. Even though you were seeing it, you were not believing it. It looked like a movie. A bad sci fi movie. Cheap budget. The movie Independence Day when the Empire State Building was blown up, that looked more real than what I was seeing.<br>
This cloud started coming at us. Everyone started running. I ended up on a cobblestoned street and it must have been an alley-way type of thing because only the backs of buildings were facing me on either side.<br>
I tried a few doors but they were locked. This huge cloud was overtaking me. There was a delivery truck, like a FedEx or DHL truck parked half on and half off the sidewalk. There was this woman screaming in the middle of this cobblestoned street/alley. I went to her and grabbed her. I took her to the truck, threw my suit jacket over her head and pushed her down behind the truck, almost under it.<br>
I hunched myself at the back of the delivery truck, getting as close to it as I could to use it to shield me. I took three breaths and held. The cloud hit. It went from a beautiful, crisp clear pre-fall day to complete white, then gray, then black in less time than it took to write that. It was a sickly, clammy, humid, stinging cloud. I did not close my eyes right away; I don't know why. Debris got into my eyes. It felt like the steel wool that you use when working with wood, like the #4 steel wool. It blinded me. My left arm was struck with something and it my wrist went numb. The cloud did not really subside. It cleared to the degree that you could see, but the stuff in my eyes made everything blurry. I never saw the woman after that or my jacket.<br>
I had puked because when I couldn't hold my breath anymore, I inhaled deeply and got a mouthful of crap. I couldn't catch my breath which made me panic and try harder which only got more stuff in my mouth. When I stopped puking and breathed again, I got more in my mouth and puked again. I don't know how long it was, but I was able to breath small breaths at first until I started breathing through my shirt.<br>
I started wandering, trying to get my bearings. There was paper, a tremendous amount of paper everywhere. Soot fell like a heavy snowstorm. The sun was blotted out. Shoes. More shoes than I had ever seen before. I thought that people were blown out of their shoes. I was dreaming. This had not happened.<br>
People started guiding me on where to walk. Some of them wore the vests like DOT uses on jobsites. Irredesent Orange and yellow. They were telling me not to go this way, go that way. Fires were burning all around me. I was in hell.<br>
I cannot tell you that I actually saw the second tower come down. I don't know whether I actually saw it or if it was what I saw on the news later. I can tell you that that sickening sound, like a freight train only a lot louder started all over again. Another cloud, but this time I just walked and closed my eyes altogether. I fell at one point and someone helped me into some store. The window was black. The lights flickered and went out. No one said anything for some time. A lady started saying the Rosary. Some of us prayed with her.<br>
I ended up on Broadway near City Hall Park and Park Row. Medics grabbed me and poured either water or saline on my face. Some guy with a mask started working on my eyes, pulling stuff out with tweezers. Holding a flashlight to my eyes. They burned. I was given water to drink and I didn't realize how parched I was until I started drinking it.<br>
He asked me how many fingers he had and I said ten. He worked on my eyes some more and asked me how many fingers did he have and I said ten again. Then he said how many fingers was he holding up and I said three or two, I don't remember. He asked me who the president was. I said Irving Schneider. He asked who the hell was Irving Schneider and I said the president of my company. He asked me who the president of the US was and I said thank God George Bush because Gore would never respond to this. He asked if I needed assistance to get to the hospital and I told him that the hospitals would be busy, I would make it to my doctor.<br>
I joined the zombies that walked in aimless unison. We walked like gravity was pulling us forward step by step. I ended up on the Brooklyn Bridge, walking toward Brooklyn. When I came out of the sickening smelling fog, I looked back at Manhattan, leaned against the cables, lit a cigarette and started to cry. Some photographer tried to snap a photo and I swung at the camera with anger that surprised me. The camera fell to the ground. We both looked at each other and I kind of shrugged. I bent forward to pick up the camera and accidentally kicked it and it fell through the cable, hit the walkway under the bridge and bounced off it. I mumbled a half apology and walked away. The photographer merely stared at the water where the camera must've hit. I wonder what photos he had.<br>
I did not follow the crowd once we got off the bridge. I knew that we would never get on a subway because of the last time we had to walk to get off Manhattan. It was either the transit strike or the 93 bombing of the trade center.<br>
I got down by Atlantic Avenue when the gypsy cabs started honking. The first guy that rolled up on me was wearing a turban and I told him to get the hell away from me. I was angry at all india/pakastanis/islamic fundementalists that day.<br>
Another gypsy came on me and I asked him how much to Sheepshead Bay where I lived. 140 was the price. I gladly accepted. A sick thought had hit me. I was covered in soot and ash and remains of those who perished, including the remains of those whose remains had splashed on me when they jumped and landed within feet of me. Remains from those who had caused this was on me too. I cried some more.<br>
When I got home, my daughter heard the keys in my door and was crying Daddy and running toward me until she saw me and then she ran away in horror. I was a mess and looked a lot worse. My wife looked at me as if for the first time and yet much more intense.<br>
I stripped off my clothes and got into the shower. I spent a long, long time in the shower trying to scrub off all the remains. Somehwere in my head I knew that I was clean again, but I still scrubbed.<br>
I had my wife bring me shorts and my robe and a bag for my clothes, underclothes, shoes and socks. We lived in an Co-Op apartment which had a garbage chute. I dumped the clothes down the chute and then went down to the lobby into the garbage room. I lit a match and tossed it into the incinerator. In NYC buildings no longer burnt their garbage, but I did not care. I wanted those clothes burnt. I watched them burn for a time and then went back upstairs.<br>
I watched the television and held my wife. I put my other arm around my daughter. While I watched TV, they watched me. Like I was going to break. I watched TV throughout the night. The next morning, I got dressed and made my way to work because I refused to allow terrorists to dictate how I was going to conduct myself.<br>
The day after that I did not go to work. The phone had started ringing with family and friends checking in. And then the families of those missing started calling. At first it was 5, then 12, then 17. When all was said and done, there were 41 people that I knew that were missing. We made missing posters and plastered them all over Manhattan. I spent part of the time down on Chelsea Piers feeding the rescuers turned recovery workers. Some time at the Armory with DNA smaples of friends and helping some of my friends folks fill out paperwork.<br>
For the next several months the fire burned at the trade center and no matter where you were in Manhattan, you had this sweet sickly smell that enveloped the city even through rain.<br>
I created a memorial to those that I lost, to those that America had lost and the heroes that responded. I put it on the internet and sent the URL to family and close friends. By word of mouth it turned out to be the most viewed memorial on the internet located at http://attacked911.tripod.com and called America Attacked 911.<br>
For months afterward I had this sensation of shaking on the inside. Sometimes I would be talking to you and I would suddenly lift my arm straight out to see if I was really shaking or not. It was a self concious thing that I cannot say for sure when it subsided, but think it was late January or early February.<br>
I went to funerals or memorials or both on a weekly basis, sometimes several times a week, between September 2001 through the end of May 2003. Then I went to 2 in June, 3 in July and the final one in August 2003. I couldn't go to any more.<br>
A week or so after the attack, something came on the news and bin Laden was mentioned. My 8 year old daughter said, "I hate bin Laden and if he was here I would kill him dead." She said it with such anger that it broke my heart. I just held her while she cried and told me how she thought I was dead.<br>
My wife had been after us to move out of New York prior to the attack. Within 10 days of the attack, she mentioned moving again and I snapped at her with more vehemence than I thought I still had in me that she should not even think of moving for one year. Not even mention it to me. No one was pushing me out of New York.<br>
I went to the memorial on the anniversary. The next day I was getting ready for work and my wife must've asked me 12 times if I was OK. I finally asked her what was on her mind and she responded that she had not mentioned move for the year that I had told her not to and now she wanted to move. Now. No delays. We moved to New Jersey on 1 November 2002.<br>
I am never that far away from September 11th and every time I close my eyes, I see those people that jumped and particularly that man whose eyes I had seen so clearly as he came ever closer to me, faster and faster, until that cop screamed and made me move. I would've been killed and I often wonder if that cop survived or not.
I took a sip of coffee and I took a pull on my cigarette. The light changed and I gunned it to beat the newly installed light. I got caught on the light neat the parking lot and the pedestrian crossover closest to the WTC.<br>
When the light changed, I started snaking my way through traffic. In between the twins is a hotel where cabs shoot into traffic so cars avoid the far right lane. I take this lane because it moves faster than the others. As I got nearer the hotel, the ground shook and then I heard an explosion. I checked my rearview to see if it was a gas main explosion and I thought the street behind me was getting chewed up. I wanted to be out of the line. Suddenly debris started falling on my car. I knew something above me had blown out. I started to get the hell out of there.<br>
I got a few blocks away North of the towers when all the emergency vehicles were coming at me on my side of the WSH. I knew I would have to ditch the car if I was ever going to get to work, so I started looking for some place to ditch. I saw a small garage about a block east of the WSH but to get there I would have to go up a one way street the wrong way. I figured that it was better to be out of the way, so I turned on the block and coasted into the garage.<br>
The sign said Early Bird Special 12.00 but I know New York. Whenever you have to get your car off the street because of some sort of emergency, nothing cost what it says. I asked the guy how much and he said 50.00. I ripped a 50.00 in half and told him he'd get the other half when I got the car. I removed my ignition key from my ring and left it in the car.<br>
I walked back to the WSH. I looked toward the WTC and saw the smoke billowing from one of the twins. I saw the second plane, but did not give it too much thought other than I thought it was low. I never thought about it going the wrong way up the Hudson. You grow accustom to seeing planes over the Hudson so you tend to pay them no mind. I thought he was flying low to avoid the black smoke that was billowing over the water.<br>
My eyes were drawn back to the other tower. I thought some dimwit had run one of those traffic helicopters into it, or a small prop type of aircraft had struck the building.<br>
Then the second planed turned into the tower. He adjusted his wings, turning from one way to another so he could bury the entire plane into the building. Bury it he did. I couldn't believe how that plane was swallowed whole into the building.<br>
I do not care how slow you might be, as soon as you saw that second plane go into the building, you knew we were under attack!<br>
How can I describe it? Picture some kid running a stick alongside a white picket fence. That's what the wings were doing to the side of that tower from the inside. You could see the outside steel being cut by the wing. Then there was the largest explosion you ever saw and a fireball that looked like it took the entire top of the building off!<br>
I don't know what made me do it, but I walked toward the tower instead of away. People were jumping and it was sickening. Some of them landed within feet of where I was and I was sprayed by what they had turned into. I was mesmerized by it. I didn't want to look but I could not help myself. There was one guy in particular who looked like he was shimmying in between the guide for the window washing aparatus, but something hit him and he went head first down, leg bend slightly, arms at his side, his tie flying haphazardly, like some form of morbid hanging. Another one was coming straight at me and I don't know what I was thinking, but I did not move. I was going to break his fall. Or I was frozen. A cop screamed at me to MOVE and I did at the last second. I could tell by the guys eyes that he knew exactly what was happening. I will never, ever forget those eyes.<br>
People were transfixed, mesmerized by what we were witnessing. A cop asked us if we needed help. When we said no he told us that we couldn't do anything. That we needed to get away from the area. Move North. He had to be there, we didn't. We started moving away, but without any determination. We would walk a few feet and then look at it, walk, look, walk, look.<br>
Some cars had their radios on and some of us huddled around the cars, listening to 1010 WINS. There were other aircraft up and unaccounted for. A report came in that the White House may have been a target and another report which was stated as unconfirmed but that the Pentagon had blown up.<br>
Paper was floating all around us. Some of it in really good shape.<br>
I made a few calls from my cell phone. One to my job to tell them what was going on. They were so panicked that I merely said I was OK but was not coming to work. I then called another building that I helped manage, one that could be a target, to tell them to evacuate.<br>
I called home but could not get through because of the circuits. They were too busy. To this day I don't know the name of the street that I got to when I heard this sickening sound. I cannot describe it. It sounded like groaning and twisting of metal. The top of one of the towers looked like it started to slip, so slowly. I thought it was going to tip over. Then it stopped. For some time. Then it disappeared and it looked like someone had turned on a spicket or like a geyser had started. Or a volcano.<br>
I know it only took seconds, but everything was in slow motion. The building imploded. You were in denial. Even though you were seeing it, you were not believing it. It looked like a movie. A bad sci fi movie. Cheap budget. The movie Independence Day when the Empire State Building was blown up, that looked more real than what I was seeing.<br>
This cloud started coming at us. Everyone started running. I ended up on a cobblestoned street and it must have been an alley-way type of thing because only the backs of buildings were facing me on either side.<br>
I tried a few doors but they were locked. This huge cloud was overtaking me. There was a delivery truck, like a FedEx or DHL truck parked half on and half off the sidewalk. There was this woman screaming in the middle of this cobblestoned street/alley. I went to her and grabbed her. I took her to the truck, threw my suit jacket over her head and pushed her down behind the truck, almost under it.<br>
I hunched myself at the back of the delivery truck, getting as close to it as I could to use it to shield me. I took three breaths and held. The cloud hit. It went from a beautiful, crisp clear pre-fall day to complete white, then gray, then black in less time than it took to write that. It was a sickly, clammy, humid, stinging cloud. I did not close my eyes right away; I don't know why. Debris got into my eyes. It felt like the steel wool that you use when working with wood, like the #4 steel wool. It blinded me. My left arm was struck with something and it my wrist went numb. The cloud did not really subside. It cleared to the degree that you could see, but the stuff in my eyes made everything blurry. I never saw the woman after that or my jacket.<br>
I had puked because when I couldn't hold my breath anymore, I inhaled deeply and got a mouthful of crap. I couldn't catch my breath which made me panic and try harder which only got more stuff in my mouth. When I stopped puking and breathed again, I got more in my mouth and puked again. I don't know how long it was, but I was able to breath small breaths at first until I started breathing through my shirt.<br>
I started wandering, trying to get my bearings. There was paper, a tremendous amount of paper everywhere. Soot fell like a heavy snowstorm. The sun was blotted out. Shoes. More shoes than I had ever seen before. I thought that people were blown out of their shoes. I was dreaming. This had not happened.<br>
People started guiding me on where to walk. Some of them wore the vests like DOT uses on jobsites. Irredesent Orange and yellow. They were telling me not to go this way, go that way. Fires were burning all around me. I was in hell.<br>
I cannot tell you that I actually saw the second tower come down. I don't know whether I actually saw it or if it was what I saw on the news later. I can tell you that that sickening sound, like a freight train only a lot louder started all over again. Another cloud, but this time I just walked and closed my eyes altogether. I fell at one point and someone helped me into some store. The window was black. The lights flickered and went out. No one said anything for some time. A lady started saying the Rosary. Some of us prayed with her.<br>
I ended up on Broadway near City Hall Park and Park Row. Medics grabbed me and poured either water or saline on my face. Some guy with a mask started working on my eyes, pulling stuff out with tweezers. Holding a flashlight to my eyes. They burned. I was given water to drink and I didn't realize how parched I was until I started drinking it.<br>
He asked me how many fingers he had and I said ten. He worked on my eyes some more and asked me how many fingers did he have and I said ten again. Then he said how many fingers was he holding up and I said three or two, I don't remember. He asked me who the president was. I said Irving Schneider. He asked who the hell was Irving Schneider and I said the president of my company. He asked me who the president of the US was and I said thank God George Bush because Gore would never respond to this. He asked if I needed assistance to get to the hospital and I told him that the hospitals would be busy, I would make it to my doctor.<br>
I joined the zombies that walked in aimless unison. We walked like gravity was pulling us forward step by step. I ended up on the Brooklyn Bridge, walking toward Brooklyn. When I came out of the sickening smelling fog, I looked back at Manhattan, leaned against the cables, lit a cigarette and started to cry. Some photographer tried to snap a photo and I swung at the camera with anger that surprised me. The camera fell to the ground. We both looked at each other and I kind of shrugged. I bent forward to pick up the camera and accidentally kicked it and it fell through the cable, hit the walkway under the bridge and bounced off it. I mumbled a half apology and walked away. The photographer merely stared at the water where the camera must've hit. I wonder what photos he had.<br>
I did not follow the crowd once we got off the bridge. I knew that we would never get on a subway because of the last time we had to walk to get off Manhattan. It was either the transit strike or the 93 bombing of the trade center.<br>
I got down by Atlantic Avenue when the gypsy cabs started honking. The first guy that rolled up on me was wearing a turban and I told him to get the hell away from me. I was angry at all india/pakastanis/islamic fundementalists that day.<br>
Another gypsy came on me and I asked him how much to Sheepshead Bay where I lived. 140 was the price. I gladly accepted. A sick thought had hit me. I was covered in soot and ash and remains of those who perished, including the remains of those whose remains had splashed on me when they jumped and landed within feet of me. Remains from those who had caused this was on me too. I cried some more.<br>
When I got home, my daughter heard the keys in my door and was crying Daddy and running toward me until she saw me and then she ran away in horror. I was a mess and looked a lot worse. My wife looked at me as if for the first time and yet much more intense.<br>
I stripped off my clothes and got into the shower. I spent a long, long time in the shower trying to scrub off all the remains. Somehwere in my head I knew that I was clean again, but I still scrubbed.<br>
I had my wife bring me shorts and my robe and a bag for my clothes, underclothes, shoes and socks. We lived in an Co-Op apartment which had a garbage chute. I dumped the clothes down the chute and then went down to the lobby into the garbage room. I lit a match and tossed it into the incinerator. In NYC buildings no longer burnt their garbage, but I did not care. I wanted those clothes burnt. I watched them burn for a time and then went back upstairs.<br>
I watched the television and held my wife. I put my other arm around my daughter. While I watched TV, they watched me. Like I was going to break. I watched TV throughout the night. The next morning, I got dressed and made my way to work because I refused to allow terrorists to dictate how I was going to conduct myself.<br>
The day after that I did not go to work. The phone had started ringing with family and friends checking in. And then the families of those missing started calling. At first it was 5, then 12, then 17. When all was said and done, there were 41 people that I knew that were missing. We made missing posters and plastered them all over Manhattan. I spent part of the time down on Chelsea Piers feeding the rescuers turned recovery workers. Some time at the Armory with DNA smaples of friends and helping some of my friends folks fill out paperwork.<br>
For the next several months the fire burned at the trade center and no matter where you were in Manhattan, you had this sweet sickly smell that enveloped the city even through rain.<br>
I created a memorial to those that I lost, to those that America had lost and the heroes that responded. I put it on the internet and sent the URL to family and close friends. By word of mouth it turned out to be the most viewed memorial on the internet located at http://attacked911.tripod.com and called America Attacked 911.<br>
For months afterward I had this sensation of shaking on the inside. Sometimes I would be talking to you and I would suddenly lift my arm straight out to see if I was really shaking or not. It was a self concious thing that I cannot say for sure when it subsided, but think it was late January or early February.<br>
I went to funerals or memorials or both on a weekly basis, sometimes several times a week, between September 2001 through the end of May 2003. Then I went to 2 in June, 3 in July and the final one in August 2003. I couldn't go to any more.<br>
A week or so after the attack, something came on the news and bin Laden was mentioned. My 8 year old daughter said, "I hate bin Laden and if he was here I would kill him dead." She said it with such anger that it broke my heart. I just held her while she cried and told me how she thought I was dead.<br>
My wife had been after us to move out of New York prior to the attack. Within 10 days of the attack, she mentioned moving again and I snapped at her with more vehemence than I thought I still had in me that she should not even think of moving for one year. Not even mention it to me. No one was pushing me out of New York.<br>
I went to the memorial on the anniversary. The next day I was getting ready for work and my wife must've asked me 12 times if I was OK. I finally asked her what was on her mind and she responded that she had not mentioned move for the year that I had told her not to and now she wanted to move. Now. No delays. We moved to New Jersey on 1 November 2002.<br>
I am never that far away from September 11th and every time I close my eyes, I see those people that jumped and particularly that man whose eyes I had seen so clearly as he came ever closer to me, faster and faster, until that cop screamed and made me move. I would've been killed and I often wonder if that cop survived or not.
NMAH Story: Life Changed
I do not sleep right anymore and I want revenge. I am also very proud of how my city responded to the attack. I think it set the stage for how the US dealt with it. I still seeth over the animals that did this and agree that we must annhilate terrorists altogether. I agree with preemption. I don't wait for my breathing to become labored before I go to the doctor and I don't wait until root canal becomes necessary before going to the dentist. I don't think we should wait for another debris cloud or a mushroom cloud or a biological agent cloud or any other terrorist cloud to appear over another American city, perhaps mine again, before we act. If any nation has the smallest propensity in giving any type of aid to these animals, including Hammas, Hezbollah and the other terrorist organizations that have attacked Israel over and over and over again, then we should demand that these nations cease. Failing that, we should engage them militarily. We do not need permission slips to defend ourselves from the UN. The UN should follow its predecessor into the irrelevance that it has become.
NMAH Story: Remembered
I think we should remember all those whose lives were taken, the heroes who sacrificed their lives as well as the heroes who responded and survived. We met the worst of humanity with the best of humanity and we have shown the world that you can smash our mightiest buildings but you will not put a dent on the American spirit.
NMAH Story: Flag
I flew the flag long before 11 September and I was extremely proud that Patriotism became something tangible instead of something to be ashamed of, or something that required an explanation. Too bad Congress forgot that America was attacked and partisan politics rule the day once again. They forgot real quickly their singing God Bless America and now they are back to damning America by trying to divide America over the war. On 7 December 1941 Japan attacked us and on 8 December a state of War existed between the United States and the Empire of Japan. We have become so politically correct that we have damn near forgotten how to defend ourselves.
Citation
“nmah6527.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed November 25, 2024, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/43952.