...Thank you Prime Choice!
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.”
Never Forget! We just can't!
Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my ‘miscellaneous’ ping list.
I am going to say it this country has forgotten what happened on 9/11 you see it everyday. I really believe if we were attacked like on 12/7/1941 people would try and give us a reason not to attack Japan. I think GOD that the world wide web was not around.
Am I the only one that feels this way?
Well done, tough to read and miss these freepers, but you did such a great job with this tribute.
Thaks, bro.
Thank you, sir.
Have You Forgotten?
(Performed by Darryl Worley)
I hear people saying we don't need this war.
I say there's some things worth fighting for
What about our freedom and this piece of ground?
We didn't get to keep 'em by backing down.
They say we don't realize the mess we're getting in.
Before you start preaching,
Let me ask you this my friend...
Have you forgotten - how it felt that day?
To see your homeland under fire
And her people blown away.
Have you forgotten when those towers fell?
We had neighbors still inside
Going through a living hell.
And you say we shouldn't worry 'bout Bin Laden.
Have you forgotten?
They took all the footage off my T.V.
Said it's too disturbing for you and me.
It'll just breed anger that's what the experts say.
If it was up to me I'd show it every day.
Some say this country's just out looking for a fight.
After 9/11 - man, I'd have to say that's right.
Have you forgotten - how it felt that day?
To see your homeland under fire
And her people blown away.
Have you forgotten when those towers fell?
We had neighbors still inside
Going through a living hell.
And we vowed to get the ones behind Bin Laden.
Have you forgotten?
I've been there with the soldiers
Who've gone away to war.
And you can bet that they remember
Just what they're fighting for.
Have you forgotten all the people killed?
Yes, some went down like heroes in that Pennsylvania field.
Have you forgotten about our Pentagon?
All the loved ones that we lost.
And those left to carry on.
Don't you tell me not to worry 'bout Bin Laden.
Have you forgotten?
Have you forgotten?
Have you forgotten
Thankyou. I miss her a lot too. We could really use her about now.
You're welcome.
...Thank you Prime Choice!
Thank you!
Beautifully written. Thank you for your words and your heart. God bless us all and may the families who lost loved ones find some peace in this coming week.
BTTT
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
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