Cartoonuniverse, that was astounding. As someone with no direct connection (fortunately) to the events, that was probably the most gripping and personally moving things I’ve seen and read. It helped bring the reality of the situation home. I know you were just doing what you felt you had to - but the fact that you felt you had to speaks to your credit, as does your continued efforts to be helpful despite the difficult circumstances and bad turns coming your way.
Also, you made an observation about how everyone seems to want to do something to help. I can only affirm that observation - both personally and from talking to others around me. There is a strong need to be involved in helping. Part of me wanted to wade right in and help dig people out with my bare hands. I had just given blood the week before during a regular blood drive, and will give again. I did give a sizable donation to the Red Cross.
Kudos to you for your contribution. Also, glad you’re safe. And don’t you feel guilty for leaving when you did, either.
Just want to say,I hope your government treads carefully in seeking retribution.
War is bad… it will kill people i love, friends, relatives, subordinates, superiors, brothers and sisters in the professsion of arms. But it is our job, and as such, we’re ready to back your armed forces up wherever possible, however required. May the leaders be wise and right!]
damn, it’s just one of those those things…
After avoiding the area for 10 years or more, I’ve gone down to the external Memorial twice in the last 2 years. The “waterfall” part, not the actual Museum.
The first visit was wretched. My In-Laws wanted badly to go. They’re from the Midwest. It meant a lot to them to see it. Quite disturbing to walk around, look around, think about what was and now what is. The second visit was a bit easier. Wasn’t in a hurry to go back again.
And yet… I may go down tomorrow. Or to St. Paul’s. To sit. And be around others who are thinking about the loss and the recovery.
Peaceful thoughts to those all over the planet touched by the terrorism that is more and more front and center.
And, though my Narrative has been reposted every year since 2001, I had not read THIS thread since perhaps 2003. A deeply heartfelt thanks to those who praised my efforts. Like hundreds of other people, I only did what I was supposed to do.
Oddly, as was the case 13 years ago, our nation teeters on the brink of a significant whole blood crisis. Want to do something to honor those innocents who were murdered that day? Go give a pint of life.
It’s what I am going to do in the morning, before anything else, including maybe the visit down near Ground Zero.
I may have posted this when it happened, but clearly not into this thread.
I encouraged people to share the piece I wrote. If it illuminated anything for anyone, then it was worth sending along. There was and is zero interest in making a buck off of it, so I didn’t care who saw it.
A few months after the event, I got an email out of the blue from a stranger. She said she was an English teacher in the Houston School District. She taught Narrative Writing. Wanted to know if she could use the piece in her classes. She asked if I could edit out a few bits, since this was a middle school class. ( I cannot remember what bits, but I agreed to trim it a tiny bit. ) A few months after that, she emailed me telling me it was being used district-wide in English classes as an example of Narrative form. For all I know, it still is. All well and good.
Very much on purpose since the day I wrote it, I’ve never gone back and “cleaned it up” in any way. What good would it do? The emotion and stresses would have been scrubbed out and the language tightened up. It would have lost all engagement.
My Dad, alive at the time and a career newspaperman, agreed with the choice.
I’ve been mindful, for the last few days, of those young people who are just finishing High School. For them this is ancient history. Unless they have grown up near an area directly impacted by the attacks, today is an abstract day of sadness for their parents’ generation.
As it should be. Nobody should grow up being told that this event holds our nation in a suspended state of mortal terror. 17 years hence, I rarely think about 9/11 unless I find myself crossing certain streets in lower Manhattan. I’ll glance up and see sky down an avenue where there wasn’t sky for decades. Oddly that still catches me short and I think about the buildings and the tremendous losses.
There are many memorials around NYC today, but I’ll be working. And remembering in my own way- by rereading the narrative that starts this thread, and praying for a kind of peace that we still do enjoy while so much of our world does not.
17 years?? The War of 1812 and the American Civil War, plus American involvements in WWII, WWI, didn’t last that long, combined! In a few more years (and there seems to be no indication of it stopping before then) we can add the American Revolutionary War into that total and still be shorter.
Thanks for this bump… especially since there are now Dopers who are too young to remember. This is something that cannot be fully appreciated from history books.
Hi. I appreciate the bump- didn’t see it when I reposted the original thread. I’ve reposted it every year, I think.
If the Mods need to lock up one of these so it’s not floating around in duplicate, I totally get that.
Interesting remarks here at work from the Millennials. “ Yeah, never forget- but what does it really MEAN now? “ and so on.
Makes me think about my Grandparents, WWII, etc etc.
Does it take a stunning even lived in realtime for the younger generation to be able to relate?
I suspect so, and that it’s just human nature.
^^It’s so amazing, to me, you were able to write your narrative so succinctly. While, I assume you were still reeling. It gives a real sense of how it really was on the ground that day. I’ve watched alot of the docs on the 9-11 tragedy. I come away from your story with a completely different feeling. Thanks so much.
I couldn’t sleep the night I got home on September 12th . In the middle of the night I decided to go down and turn the computer on and write out the bullet points in chronological order.
I did not want to forget anything, and did not want any false memories.
Man, oh, man. I’m so glad you did.
My youngests birthday is on Sept.11th. I was with her today and was telling her about the narrative. She wanted to see it. She’s a 21yo (today) and had no memory of course. She heard cursory lessons on it in highschool history classes. She was full on crying as she read it. She said one thing “Mama, I just didn’t know this, why didn’t I know this?” I had no answer for her. She will look into it more. That’s how she is.
I wish I"d known about the STMB and read this thread 18 years ago. I would have asked your permission to share it with my classes. It’s a powerful personal account.I don’t think 9/11 gets adequate coverage in most classrooms. I know my social studies colleagues “touched on it” (their words). As the years went by, students were anxious to know more about 9/11. They said their parents and teachers didn’t like to talk about it.
