My office has a clear view of Lower Manhattan. So every day we get to look out there and try to adjust ourselves to a view without those two towers.
After two weeks, you begin to adjust. But in talking to some co-workers, they brought up The Smell. There are, after all, 6000 bodies buried underneath that rubble. By now, it’s starting to get really bad. Someone else told me that it can be smelled in the subways that pass near the site. Still another one said that people who work down there go home with that smell on them, and find it impossible to get out of their clothes.
For some reason, this depressed me no end. I can’t even begin to think of a torture worthy of administering to Osama and his allies.
But death is definitely too good for him. Something more is needed.
I must admit that I’ve not thought of this. Really, this is quite disturbing. I cannot begin to imagine what the whole scene must really be like. Even though I’d like to be able to truly sympathize, I do not want the experience of witnessing either this smell or even the sight first hand.
Again, my hearfelt sorrow and sympathy goes out to all victims, their families, and all those impacted by this tragic episode.
May justice be swift and brutally thorough.
I will not forget The Smell. I have not been near downtown since the WTC attack. However, on the second day, the winds shifted and started blowing the still significant smoke towards Queens. I started smelling it around 2:00 AM, ten miles away.
Burning Dead People.
People outside New York will never have any fucking idea what we went through.
:mad: 
Ah shit. This thread is bringing back memories of Africa that I thought were safely hidden away. I had some Bad Things happen to me there and I witnessed stuff that will be with me till the day I die.
New Yorkers, I wasn’t there but believe me, I know what you are talking about. That is a smell that never leaves you.
shit.
Oh, I dunno. There are some families of former Pentagon employees here in NoVa who might be able to sympathize.
I dunno, I have case upon case of combat veteran clients suffering from PTSD who have a pretty good idea what you went through and every single one of them are outside of New York.
I agree with gobear. There were three crash sites on Sept 11, the WTC, PA, and the Pentagon. I am sure the families, witnesses, and public servants at all three sites are all experiencing the same level of pain and horror.
oh, come on you guys! you know what he/she meant. lets not nit-pick at a time like this!
It isn’t a time to nitpick, nor is it a time to forget there were victims outside of NYC.
I just read my words again and would like to apologize for my tone.
Today was an extra rough day at work - worse then normal - specifically with a couple of my more severely disabled PTSD clients. I guess the comment "anyone outside of NYC. . . " just rubbed me the wrong way, especially since one of my guys just left the office. Again, it was not appropriate of me make the comparision.
However, I do stand by my statement that there were other victims of September 11, outside of NYC.
oh-kay. Let’s not get crazy here.
I don’t think it matters to ol’ bin Laden which Americans he’s knocking off. If there’s one thing I’ve learned here, it’s that we are indeed all one country. This is a tough thing for those of us from NYC (I live in the 'burbs now, but I was born & bred there) to learn. We’re so big that we wind up getting this illusion of self-sufficiency, but there’s nothing like living through this kind of hell to snap you out of that real fast.
When OKC had their bombing, they got help from all over, including NYC. Now it was our turn, and we got help from all over, including, of course, OKC. Ditto over at the Pentagon, where I heard one guy say he got help from places he didn’t even know existed.
These scumbags don’t care where we came from. Shoot, the fact that people from more than 60 countries died at the World Trade Center probably doesn’t even register with them. All they care about is causing maximum destruction. It’s the whine of the Ultimate Losers. Let’s not let it get to us.
I got it on Wednesday afternoon here in the Bronx, and it smelled mostly like heated metal. I hope to God that was all it was–there was something I couldn’t identify and didn’t try too hard to.
Last night I went to a play in Greenwich Village (RUDE ENTERTAINMENT by Paul Rudnick, very funny) and wandered over to the West Side Highway. By Christopher Street there were about twenty people, of all ages and types, waving signs and yelling THANK YOU! at each and every rescue vehicle headed south. People had brought food and when they weren’t using the signs, handed them off to the unprepared. Like me. I stood there for half an hour, waving a giant sign at everything I could, and twice rescue workers who were able to stopped and told us how much the people down at the site appreciated it, especially at the end of a twelve-hour shift.
I’ve given blood and a little money to the Sept. 11 fund, but I’m currently unemployed and feel sort of helpless about it all (the play was a Drama Department subscription that had been paid for in April). Nobody wants to put down any other site but the fact is that the grave of perhaps six thousand people is smouldering still, less each day but always noticeable, within our sight. Our skyline is broken; those towers were just so damn big as well as tall. Our subways glide silently through a few closed, perfectly cleaned-up stops as though avoiding ghosts. And there are hundreds of posters labelled MISSING plastered all over town, with the faces of the smiling, unwitting dead looking at us.
Are there posters in Washington, too?
My heart goes out to everyone who has had to experience the results of the terrible attacks of September 11. I felt overwhelmed by watching for a few minutes on television at work. I haven’t watched a minute of television since. I doubt if I could take having to experince all the horror first-hand. I admire people with the strength to endure such horror and keep plugging away, doing what has to be done.
There is something really sick and twisted about trying to play oneupmanship with this tragedy. My hearrt goes out to the people of New York City. The loss of 6000 people and the destruction of part of the NYC skyline has to be painful.
Close to 200 people died in the Pentagon; another 44 died in Pennsylvania. Their loss must not go unremarked just because they are outweighed by sheer numbers in NYC. All the deaths on September 11 should be mourned.
No, we in Arlington/Alexandria don’t have to contend with The Smell, but some of us drive by the wound in the Pentagon to get to work. I can see it from my office. National Airport has been closed since that day, and hundreds of people have lost their jobs, with no chance of finding work soon enough to feed their kids or pay their rent. The VA Employment Commission has had to open a separate office just to process the claims from the National Airport jobless and the attendant losses of jobs from hotels, restaurants, and shops that depended on tourists coming through.
We have daily patrols of military aircraft in our sky, and we are terrified of further attacks. The Capital, the White House, the monuments all make tempting targets for terror.
While I would happily volunteer to torture bin Laden to extreme levels for several years and cheerfully send the video tapes back to his comrades I know that this is far from likely.
What’s needed is the same punishment as Rudolph Hess received. Solitary confinement. Shave him and strip him naked so he has nothing to kill himself with and allow him to ponder his misdeeds in utter and completely unbroken silence for the rest of his remaining days.
One could only hope that he would very slowly go mad from the isolation. Execution would be far too kind for this scumbag. I have heard that some countries may refuse to extradite any hijackers arrested there due to our policy of capital punishment. People I know have mentioned a very simple solution. Do not execute them, merely place them in the general prison population. I think they would wish they were dead relatively soon thereafter.
Here is a splendid link to an Onion article about the hijackers and their afterlife.
To those of you in New York, Washington or Pennsylvania who have been directly affected by this, you have my deepest sympathies.
I apologize for seeming to be performing “one-upmanship” about all this. I was just trying to convey what it was like up here. At least the people in PA died as heroes and the Pentagon was arguably a more military target than the WTC. There was some sense, in a twisted way, to those disasters.
But never mind. It’s not important.
Bravo! I like that one. It was always my vision of what Hell was, anyway. Complete realization of the effects of one’s misdeeds. And eternity to ponder them. Unlike some preachers I’ve heard, I can’t imagine many people qualifying for Hell. These guys are an exception.
And I started imagining the smell very early on. (shudder)
Like that link, Zenster. The isolation idea is a good one. Nothing like being alone for the rest of your days to drive a person mad.
Thanks, the link was one of the few smiles I’ve had about this since it all began.
One could only hope that bin Laden was left alone with only the thoughts of all the suffering that he has caused occupying his mind for his remaining days.
That said, I’d still rather torture him, but I’m sure there’s some niggling amendment in the constitution prohibiting it.
I would wish for an extreme form of solitary where even a visit with a doctor involves writing down a description of your ailments because no-fucking-one will even speak a word around you. Not the nurses talking to the doctor, not a phone ringing, not even a burp or a fart. I’d go so far as to blindfold the bastard so that there was zero interaction during any contact. Pure silence. A complete sensory vacuum would still be too merciful for this son-of-a-whore (and that gives whores a bad name).