Posted on 09/06/2006 8:52:24 PM PDT by Mr. Silverback
In the next few days you’ll hear a lot about the nearly 3,000 people killed on September 11, 2001. I’d like to tell you about just two of them, two people whose names I look for every time I see a list of the casualties. Let me tell you about Ted’s wife and Ryan and Dylan’s dad.
Barbara Olson started out as a ballerina and ended up as a famous lawyer. She danced with the San Francisco Ballet and the Harkness Ballet in New York City, then moved on to Hollywood because working as an assistant producer would allow her to save up for law school. She worked for Stacy Keach’s production company and HBO before going to Yeshiva University. She eventually served as an Assistant U.S. attorney and as chief investigative counsel for the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, where she looked into Travelgate and Filegate. After the publication of her bestseller “Hell to Pay” she became a frequent guest on TV political shows to represent the conservative point of view.
Her husband Ted said she was a popular guest because she was “very direct” but at the same time “very pleasant.” She could disagree without a trace of rancor, a sunny smile on her beautiful face. But she wasn’t just a talking head. “She was always full of energy, sparkling all the time,” her husband told Newsday, adding that “his three small granddaughters would follow her around ‘like little ducks’” and “thought she was the best thing in the world.”
Barbara was on Flight 77 because she had shifted her schedule to spend more time with Ted for his birthday. He talked to her just before she died. Ted Olson was the Solicitor General at the time, and she called to tell him they’d been hijacked, asking him what she should tell the pilot. They had time to discuss personal matters and reassure each other, and then, he said, “the connection was broken.” Not long after that, Flight 77 struck the Pentagon.
John Moran also had an ambition to be a lawyer and held a law degree from Fordham University. But firefighting was the family business and more suited to his personality, so he joined the FDNY. In an irony that must be especially painful for her, John met his wife Kim on September 11, 1990. His fire station was across the street from her apartment. “I just fell in love with him instantly,” she said a few days after his death, while she and their sons, 7 year old Ryan and 4 year old Dylan, were still hoping he’d come home.
John didn’t have to be in the World Trade Center that day. A Battalion Chief with 22 years of service, he was part of the department’s Special Operations Command, which oversees special rescue companies, fireboats, hazmat units and major incidents. He had just finished a shift, but when the call came in, he “jumped in the truck and away they went,” Kim said.
John’s funeral was conducted by his uncle, Father Paul Moran. John was lost he said, on “a mission of love.” Mayor Giuliani asked for the mourners to give John a standing ovation and said he wanted the Moran boys “to understand for their entire life that their father is a great man.” His brother Michael, a firefighter who survived serving at the Trade Center—and later became famous for defiantly telling Osama bin-Laden to come to Rockaway and kiss his “royal Irish ass”—said “I didn't see him there that day, but now I see him all the time.”
But the best eulogy a man could ask for was what his relatives told Newsday just a few days after his death. Kim Moran said, “He's the love of my life…a wonderful father, a great husband. There's nobody more generous than John.” His cousin, Democrat Congressman Joe Crowley described him as “a Viking Irishman who has calves thicker than my thighs, the heart of lion and touch of a teddy bear.”
I picked John and Barbara because they were both members of Free Republic, an internet forum I’ve posted to for years, but I didn’t know either of them. I didn’t even cross paths with them and “know” them in the online sense, as far as I remember. But that’s irrelevant. I could have picked any of those we lost that day and found something glorious or generous or beautiful about them that would have amazed you the way John’s bravery and Barbara’s joy and determination amaze me.
We didn’t lose almost 3,000 people that day. We lost one wonderful person at a time, almost 3,000 times.
In a sense, Giuliani was right on that bright September afternoon when he said that we had lost “more than we can bear.”
PING!
Thank you, I am honored.
I remember that BKO was on C-Span the Sunday before 9-11.
Mr. S, thanks for writing this artical.
FReepers are the best.
I was on the phone with my wife that morning when she screamed in my ear. She had just seen the second plane hit. After a moment I said, "I love you and I'll be right back," put the receiver down and turned to a room full of sales colleagues who were staring at me, haiving seen my reaction. "Another plane hit the Trade Center," I said. "We are at war."
A while later my son (known on FR as Silverback Jr.), 6 at the time, came down from his bedroom and saw the second impact when it was reshown from tape on Fox. He immediately leaped to the phone and dialed 911. My wife tried to hang up before the call went out, but it was too late, the dispatcher called back, and when my wife explained, she said "Oh, bless his heart!"
Later that day, my daughter asked me who Barbara was. I hadn't heard the news about BKO yet, so I had no idea what she was talking about. It turns out that after hearing of Barabara's death, my poor wife, who had seen her sparring with the Left so many times, sat for several minutes, weeping and repeating that name over and over.
I don't know how people forget. I can't. I won't. Not ever.
Can you tell me about David?
You're welcome. John and Barabara wouldn't let go of me these last few years, so it wasn't really optional. :-)
That brings all the emotions rushing back.
Hey Osama, kiss my royal Irish a$$
God Bless you.
Thank you, FRiend.
Thanks for your tribute! I loved Barbara Olsen as a tv pundit, and felt that she was a perfect example of a strong conservative female. Her beauty, intellect, and fearlessness are exactly why the left is so hell bent on re-writing her martyrdom on 9-11.
Everyone should read Hell to Pay.
Jenny Hatch
RIP
Thanks for reminding us our two lost FRiends.
It was my honor.
My daughter’s middle name is Olson, after Barbara.
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