Posted on 09/10/2008 6:07:02 PM PDT by truthingod
Remembering Freepers that fell that day
(My apologies if there are any others I missed)
Source:
Free Republic Memorial Wall
http://www.freerepublic.com/memorial/memorial.htm
(VOA: The lady first...)
BKO
Barbara K. Olson
1955 - 2001
Member since 11/5/1999
Tributes
Barbara Olson Tribute - Tell Her Family Why You Loved Her.
9-11-01 | Bob J
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/520807/posts
Homepage
(VOA: And then “Battalion Commander Moran”...his photo appears
with all the other fallen displayed at the end of the 9-11 documentary
done by the French brothers that just happened to be “embedded”
at a NYPD firehouse on 9-11)
BCM
John Moran
1959 - 2001
Member since 9/28/1998
Tributes
NYFD Battalion Chief John Moran (Freeper BCM) Perishes In World Trade Center
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/539734/posts
I was in Rome, doing my college semester abroad. It was about 5 p.m. Italy time when I found out. I had class that afternoon, and when class got out, I went to the school computer lab to check my email. As soon as I entered Yahoo, I saw the headline “World Trade Center Collapses.” At first I thought it was a promo for a bad movie or something. But then I realized it was not. By this point all four planes had crashed, and both towers had collapsed. I got the news in one fell swoop.
My classmates and I were living in an apartment building about two miles away from our school. Usually we walked or took the buses home, but somehow, that evening we found ourselves in a taxicab. As we drove through Rome, it was rush hour. About 2/3 of the vehicles in Rome are Vespas, so I could see tons of people as we drove to the apartment. I’ll always remember the horrible grim look on every person’s face that afternoon.
The next morning I went to St. Peter’s Square and attended Pope John Paul’s morning address, where he prayed about the attacks in English.
I have never been so scared in my life. At first I was so scared I could not think straight, then I was just in shock. About two nights later I finally broke down into sobs in my bedroom.
We experienced the same. Drove home from Chicago in our rental car...flags hanging from overpasses on I-65 thru IN, KY, I-24 thru TN, I-75 thru GA...people standing and waving...listening to the Day of Prayer in DC on the radio...empty skies...it was unforgettable and eery at the same time.
God Bless America, and God Bless FR.
I’d been up all night (as I always am) and had been asleep only a couple of hours before the attacks began. My hubby had been in the garage working on a car when he heard the news on the radio. He came inside to turn on the TV and see if there was anything about it on the news. Then he woke me up with the words, “Wake up! I think we are at war.”
I got up and stared at the TV in disbelief and horror. There was a blank tape in the VCR, so I grabbed the remote, turned it on, and hit “record”. The VCR recorded non-stop for the next month.
After about an hour or so, we decided to fill the cars up with gas and buy extra groceries, since no one knew what else to expect that day.....or the days to follow.
There have already been a few programs on this week about the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon, and Flight 93. As I watched them, I felt the same disbelief and horror, and I cried for the families who lost loved ones that day.
And I got angry about the complacency I see in this country. Anyone who thinks attacks such as that won’t happen again is not living in reality.
I was home, recovering from a work injury. I had got in the habit of doing internet while watching Fox and Friends, though I hadn’t found FR yet.
I was watching when E.D. Hill said that there was news of a small plane hitting the WTC, and the reportage of this “accident” continued until the second plane went in. I knew, then, and I think so did everyone else. I called my mother, who lives elsewhere in the state, after the second plane to get her to turn on the TV, and we called back and forth a couple of times during the morning.
My sister, who lived in Finland at the time, was visiting our mother; they had just been to visit me, and my sister had brought one of her Finnish friends to try to match up with me (it didn’t take, and she and I are happily wed to others today), and they were back at Mom’s, getting ready to fly back to Finland on the 12th (which obviously didn’t happen...they got out 3 or 4 days later).
This friend was a structural engineer by trade. During either the first or second call, before it happened, she said “those buildings will fall; they cannot stand.” We asked “how will they fall?” Fearing for those caught under them falling like trees. “Probably straight down,” she said. So when it happened we were not terribly surprised, and I was immunized against all of the “deliberate demolition” conspiracy theories before they appeared.
i remember,i was getting ready to go to school(my class was bowling) i happened to pass by a tv and saw a what looked like an airplane and huge fireball-i thought it was the preview of some movie-then it dawned on me what happened.i almost didnt go to school.i remember watching the towers fall and remembered thinking “Dear God,how many people were in there,how many people just lost there lives”
i also remember thinking “The UN has to take action,they wont stand for this,they’ll help us,they’ll bring the monsters who did this to justice”
right?—WRONG!!
i made a turn to the Right after that.
Everybody of a certain age has the events of September 11, 2001 imprinted on their memories. It is one of those life events that people remember exactly where they were and what they were doing at the time the passenger jets crashed into the towers and into the American culture, such as it was.
There is nothing remarkable about my own recollections. I was getting ready to leave my home for the short drive to my office at [redacted]in west Houston. The small TV set was on in my bedroom, tuned to the news as it always was while I prepared to go to work. I had just finished putting my contact lenses in and was heading to the bedroom to turn off the television, grab my purse and car keys and leave the house.
As I approached the TV, I heard the newscasters talking about a plane that had just flown into the World Trace Center in New York. I stopped and looked at the TV screen and sure enough, smoke was billowing out of the upper portion of one of the twin towers. The voices from the television were speculating that a private plane had hit the tower. “How idiotic,” I muttered as I watched for another moment before switching the TV off and leaving the house.
One of my closest friends, [redacted] and I had just discovered and quickly fallen in love with Manhattan two months before, in July. Both of us being musical theater geeks, we had talked for years of going to see shows on Broadway and had finally done it that year, resolving to return. We had spent five days staying in midtown Manhattan, seeing shows, doing traditional touristy sightseeing and reveling in the nightlife until the wee hours of the mornings. The weather was kind to us, providing a July cool front that gave us clear skies, low humidity and highs in the low 80s that lasted for our entire stay. This weather afforded me the opportunity to take a clear picture of the World Trade Center and its surroundings from atop the Empire State Building. I did not know at the time how I would come to cherish that typical tourist photo.
My drive to work on September 11, 2001 was short as usual. I was fortunate to live very close to my office building and this was all by pure coincidence. Houston’s first cool front of the autumn had come early and this morning was bright and pleasant. The sky was cloudless and the sun that glinted off of the glass buildings gave promise to more brisk days ahead. I had the radio tuned to a pop music station in the car, and as a song ended, the DJs began discussing the plane that had flown into the World Trade Center. The talk was somewhat light at first, as it still appeared that someone had just made a very stupid mistake.
The radio station went to another song. Just as I was only yards away from pulling up to the gate at [redacted]’s pleasant wooded compound, the song on the radio stopped suddenly. The male DJ said “We have just gotten word that the second tower in the World Trade Center has been hit by an airplane.”
“Terrorism,” I said aloud immediately. That cinched what had been nagging at the back of my mind since I’d left my home. I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge that possibility and I still didn’t. But there was no way to hide from it now. I proceeded to swipe my card at [redacted]’s gate, park my car and head to my office where I worked as the supply traffic and logistics manager for international chemical plant construction. The morning had just begun to feel strange.
Upon arriving in my small office on the third floor, I heard bits and pieces of conversations about the towers. I greeted co-workers and we talked quietly about it in the hallways, at the coffeepot, speculating on what had happened, wondering who had done this, knowing deep down that the answers would be no surprise to any of us.
The radio in my office was tuned to the classical music station that I listened to most of the time at work. I sipped coffee and read through my e-mails, responding to a couple of them. The radio gave initial chaotic reports about the situation in New York, interspersing them with classical music selections. I hadn’t been at the office for an hour yet when things began to sink in. One of my co-workers went down the hall past my open office door stating that the Pentagon had been hit by an airplane. “No, John, it was the World Trade Center,” I said.
“I just heard that the Pentagon’s been hit, too,” John responded. Just then, the song playing on my radio stopped abruptly. An announcer’s voice said, “We have word that an airplane has crashed into Pentagon. All U.S. airspace has been closed.” I was sitting at my desk and felt as if the floor had dropped out from under me. For a moment, it was very quiet and there was a stark clarity to everything around me. The realization began to dawn. Our nation was under attack.
On the television set in the elevator bank, I watched with a large crowd of co-workers as the first tower in New York crumbled and fell. Feeling nauseated, I went down to the little park in the back of the building to have a cigarette. I had never seen the smoking area so crowded before. I looked at the expressions on people’s faces and suspect mine probably had the same dazed, bordering-on-frightened look as I saw on everyone else.
Just as I arrived back at the elevator bank on the third floor of our building, I saw the second tower fall on TV. The crowd watching was silent. We looked at each other. We shook our heads. We walked away.
Reports kept coming, some false, some true. There had been an explosion at the State Department in Washington. (False.) Another plane crash-landed in a field in Pennsylvania. (Heartbreakingly true.) Gas stations were jammed as people went to fill their tanks out of fear of further disasters. (I did not find this to be the case when I went to the nearby gas station.)
Some of Houston’s skyscrapers were evacuated. People went and collected their children from daycare centers all over the city. At lunchtime, [redacted] finally announced over the PA system that they were sending employees home. “This is not an evacuation,” the disembodied voice assured. “We are closing the building due to today’s events making it difficult to focus on business. Please drive carefully; people are distracted.”
At home, all I could do is stare at the big TV in my living room as they showed the morning’s terrible events over and over again. In mid-afternoon, I finally got my father in Virginia on the phone and was reassured that my sister, brother-in-law and niece in the DC area were safe. I had tried to call several times before, but had gotten a repeated message that all phone circuits were busy.
For a brief time, our nation united as one in its grief. Political differences were put aside and American flags sprouted everywhere. They flew from the fronts of people’s homes, they fluttered from the antennas of cars, they appeared as lapel pins on clothing and airports, shops and restaurants put large flags on their walls. Houston and the rest of the country was a sea of red, white and blue. There was an underlying defiance in this surge of patriotism and in nearly one voice, the nation demanded retribution on Afghanistan’s ruling party, the Taliban and on their co-conspirators, the terrorist group al Qaeda who had been swiftly identified as the perpetrators.
There's more, but this is wordy enough. ;-)
Very thankful your son and his friend were spared!!
Let us know when the book is finished...
I think we all cry. We all cry because of what happened and because of the loss. Yet, even in our pain, we are not defeated! There is a resolve that is born out of pain that cannot be shaken. That is why we read, why we remember and why we must continue to desire a strong America.
Very similar experiences.
We had found a wonderful church for the few short months we were there...driving over to Santa Monica for Sunday services...
..a PCA Presbyterian mission church that was well attended, including mostly young adults including a good number of entertainment folk (mostly behind the scenes)...
...the Sunday after 9/11 the church was packed to the rafters and the sermon was awesome....you truly could have heard a pin drop, everyone leaning in to hear every word of comfort and hope.
Let us remember now: My prayer for America
Heavenly Father, oh, how we truly need Your divine comfort today! For some of us the pain is very real. I ask that You comfort each one as You intimately know that moment of pain for them. Let us never forget. Let us be one. We pray for our nation, we need Your help, Your comfort, Your wisdom and Your mercy. Thank you for loving us like You do-help us today.
Amen
Amen...
A few minutes, a few of is were watching the television reports in the Director's office, when we saw the second plane hit. There was a moment of shock, then somebody (it may have been me, we were all so shocked) must have channeled the movie JAWS because he commented "That wasn't a boating accident". That's when we all realized we were under attack.
We immediately secured the building, canceled all meetings, cleared the phone lines, and started tracking down our people on TDY. About an hour into the reaction, my mom called in a panic to verify my location. That's when I learned about the Pentagon attack.
After reassuring my mom, I went to the common room to watch the latest reports. That's when I watched the first building collapse. I remember feeling angry and frustrated, muttering "sonuvabitchs will pay" again and again...
By the time the second building collapsed, I was emotionally numb.
I heard about the Pennsylvania crash later that afternoon. When I went home that night, I pulled my kids together (both 8 years old at the time) and tried to explain what happened that day. Later, when I was alone, I finally allowed myself to grieve for the innocent victims.
I especially remember the next morning because I had to stop to get gas by the airport on the way to work. It was amazingly quiet that morning, just the sound of the wind and a few cars on the word. I remember looking toward the breaking dawn and watching oval contrails towards the east, of the guys from Langley AFB running East Coast combat air patrols. There were no other signs of air traffic. It was quiet...eerily quiet...like the whole world was in shock.
Thanks so much for sharing your 9/11. It is such a real thing for those of us who lived it, no matter where we were. What is written here by all of you is THE reality.
I’m crying buckets right now as I watch, and record, History Channel’s excellent documentary. I hope the idiots who have settled into complacency are also watching. Maybe it will re-awaken their resolve.
Complacency allowed 9/11 to happen. Anyone thinking it can’t happen again is a fool.
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