Posted on 09/11/2007 7:17:18 AM PDT by presidio9
Edited on 09/11/2007 8:22:36 AM PDT by Sidebar Moderator. [history]
Six years ago, I turned on my television and saw the sickening image of an airplane flying directly into the south tower of the World Trade Center. I did not know that at precisely that moment, somewhere in the skies over the Ohio-Kentucky border, my brother was fighting for his life in the cockpit of his commercial airliner. It would be another 35 minutes before his plane crashed into the Pentagon's west side.
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
Six years ago.... I was on a nature walk around small lake on a beautiful sunny day in Massachusetts, as evil was flying above me , heading for the World Trade Towers. I was unaware of the evil. What a beautiful clear blue sky it was that morning. Later to find out we were under attack, and those beautiful clear blue skies in the days that followed would turn into a grayish green eerie silence. Life changed for Americans that day, I will never forget.
The current cadre of Democrats are nothing more than traitors. Plain and simple.
After all they have done to malign our President, our troops, our will to fight this evil (and that's what it is) since 2001, it adds up to treachery and treason.
All the Democrat leadership knows is that 9/11 led to more power for Republicans and for Bush. The firemen and cops who died trying to help people and all the others who died mean nothing to them. As one of my Democrat acquaintances said, “let’s stop these memorials, forget about 9/11, and move on.”
So what’s a little genocide here or there - Rwanda, Cambodia, Vietnamese boat people and re-education camps, 9/11 - survivors made out all right eventually, right? Genocide, schmenocide - happens all the time, man.
JUST HATE BUSH.
Yes, let’s never forget.
But, neither should we naval gaze.....continually. The constant, suffocating sadness needs to stop.
Let’s continue to ACT, if necessary proactively, to rid the world of America’s enemies.
‘There is a disturbing phenomenon creeping into the public debate about all things 9/11. Increasingly, Sept. 11 is compared to hurricanes, bridge collapses and other mechanical disasters or criminal acts that result in loss of life, with “body count” being the primary factor that keeps it in the top spot of “worst in the nation’s history.”’
Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!
Even back then, TOO MUCH this event was being called simply a “tragedy”.
It was not a mere “tragedy” - an accident - it was an OUTRAGE, a deliberate attack perpetrated by thugs.
Katrina was a tragedy. 9/11/01 was an OUTRAGE.
I will never forget, either. It was the end of the school day for us in Germany (at American posts) and all of a sudden our administrator said that her sister had just called from Maryland with the news that the north tower had been struck by a plane, thought to be on purpose. We turned on the few TVs, some of the teachers having left the building or beginning to. It was eerie to see the replay of that over and again and to hear the commentator scream about the second building being hit. It was eerie, watching it replay over and again. We’d not hear about the Pentagon for several more minutes...maybe a half hour. We heard bits and pieces, but it was warned not to spread anything, in case it was a rumor. We immediately went into Delta and were told to get our things ready to leave and exit the building and wait to get messages through our phone tree as to when we’d be able to return to work. Because of where we do work, nearly everybody knew someone personally at the Pentagon who was killed that day.
For those who say it was a random act, why hit the financial center and the Pentagon? They cannot be stupid enough to think that taking out our financial center and the Pentagon would not be a strategic maneuver.
As far as I’m concerned, those who hold to those crazy conspiracy theories are fringe lunatics. Good grief! When will common sense return to America? It had better come before we are struck again and confusion sets in.
Got cold chills reading this...this sums it up in a concise and brilliant manner.
Should be required reading for all Americans.
It was not a mere “tragedy” - an accident - it was an OUTRAGE, a deliberate attack perpetrated by thugs.
This deliberately dishonest use of language has rankled me as well. A hurricane is a tragedy. An earthquake is a tragedy. A tsunami is a tragedy.
9/11 was an OUTRAGE, as you say, but the word I prefer is ATROCITY...
Atrocity is good. I have trouble coming up with words! But it’s not a mere accident, for sure!
A little over thirty-six years ago, I buckled-in to my seat as pilot of a US Army UH-1H helicopter in Dong Ha, South Vietnam. Today’s mission was a routine resupply of a South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) Infantry Company, pinned-down in a fire fight by 3 North Vietnamese Army (NVA) Infantry Brigades, in Laos. The good guys were taking heavy casualties, and running out of ammo. Our mission was to resupply them with ammo, rations (food) and to try to evacuate their wounded. We came in under heavy fire, dropped off the ammo and picked-up 3 or 4 severely wounded. As we took off again. my co-pilot took a round in his chin, which splattered his brains all over the inside of the cockpit. Almost immediately after that, we took another round in the N1 Compressor and one in the fire chamber of the turbine, and we crashed into an open area right in the middle of the fire fight. On impact, the transmission broke loose from it’s mount and crushed my crew chief; the door gunner and I got out safely. I was immediately shot in my right ankle and leg. I was able to drop 4 of the NVA who were charging me with my .38 revolver, but the others continued. As one started plunging his bayonet into my chest, a 2.75 inch rocket from a Cobra gun ship impacted him in the stomach, and blew-off the top half of his body. As a consequence, the bayonet only penetrated about a quarter of an inch. The ARVN then rescued me and several hours later I was evacuated. By nightfall, every one of those brave South Vietnamese soldiers was dead.
A few years later, after Al Gore invented the Internet, and email was gaining in popularity, a group of fellow pilots from that era started up an email list. They adopted the expression “Never Forget” as the list’s tagline. Never has a day gone by since my first tour in Vietnam in 1967 that I have not clearly remembered the faces of those comrades who gave it all. Perhaps I am engaged too deeply in private mourning.
I sincerely regret the tragedy that befell your brother, and thousands of Americans, six years ago. I, along with millions of Americans agree with you that we must “Never Forget” in the context that you described so well.
Unfortunately, we, as a nation have solved my phase of the dilemma you raised - neatly, but expensively - we built a Vietnam Memorial. We are now free to, and have, forgotten what we lived and died through in Vietnam as a nation; I prefer to think that I am engaged in ‘private remembering’ - just as you will be after the Ground Zero memorial is completed and we have no more ‘need’ to “Never Forget”.
Then we can all once again forget by just pointing to it . . . And, as you said “the phrase that was as ubiquitous as the American flag six years ago, “Never Forget,” and invoked with tearful or angry rectitude, is rendered hollow” remains valid. Only change the “is” to “has been”.
Cheers!
Bob H
Southern Maryland
Reading Maj. Bob’s post, I can not imagine living thru that incident and then having the ability to tell about it with such clarity. Glad you made it home, and sorry for your comrades who didn’t. I know that is not much, but it is really all I can do, except to remember what you have told me.
Thank you for your service to our Country.
Thanks for your service and remembering those who gave it all to protect what we take for granted.
Debra Burlingame is very Articulate on the issues we face with the IslamOfascist.
Mark Levin has had Debra on his program a number of times and always great to hear her.
No matter how feckless and incompetent George W. Bush and his administration are, I would have said, nobody in his administration would let an Osama bin Laden kill 3000 Americans in an act of terrorism and tolerate OBL's survival until now.
Silly me.
If you had told me six years ago that it was a fact that Jim would be letting you hang around his site through 9/11/07, I could only assume that he was just getting started on a crack habit.
You, I'm pretty sure, have been smoking crack since the day I met you.
Since when must the NY Daily News be sxcerpted, and where do I check on these things?
If anyone had told me six years ago that leftists like MM would still be so incorrigibly vicious and dishonest after 9/11 as to wage domestic political warfare against all “conservatives” (by whatever definition) with far more passion and ruthlessness than leftists can ever muster for actually fighting against terrorists I would not have been surprised, actually.... I expected it and predicted that the brief period of apparent “unity” in Sept. 2001 would not last.... for if the political left has shown anything over the past century it is a blinding, raving moral incompetence coupled with a depraved hatred for freedom and for the qualities that make America and Americans great. The fact that scumbags like MM have to come around here on the anniversary of 9/11 spewing their bile just shows that people like MM have learned nothing.... as was once said of the ancien regime, dinosaur leftists like MM “learn nothing and forget nothing.” There is a reason that people like MM collaborate so easily with the forces of terror and Islamo-fascism, for they are willing partners in their war on civilized humanity.
“We now clearly know that the 1993 World Trade Center bombing was part of the holy war against America. When we previously dismissed this as a random attack by crazy men and declared ourselves lucky that “only six lives were lost,” we effectively disarmed ourselves. “
She’s terrific.
Right War, Right Place, Right Time
By DEBRA BURLINGAME
September 29, 2004
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB109641521155930755.html
Silly you!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.