Bini Posted September 11, 2013 Report Share Posted September 11, 2013 I get caught up in my own daily grind that losing count of the date isn't unheard of for me. I woke up this morning and it dawned on me that today is September 11. I just want to express how humbling it is to have the many freedoms and opportunities that I have as an American. I will never truly know how blessed my family is. Today I am proudly remembering the heroic acts of our Service men and women that selflessly put their lives on the line that terrifying day. I also won't forget the many American lives that were lost that same day, and the many Americans that were lost since then in other horrific terrorist acts. Whatever injustices might slip through our fingers this round - the Lord will be the Judge in the next. Feel free to share your thoughts. And I hope you all have a wonderful day! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smudge Posted September 11, 2013 Report Share Posted September 11, 2013 This day of the year I always count my blessings! That was my first summer working at summer camp. I had initially planned to fly home the end of the sept to give me the best chance of getting a placement. When my placement finished mid August I called Camp America to ask for a date a few weeks earlier, so mid Sept. I was offered Sept 5 and every time I tried to ask for a week later I stuttered to the point of being incomprehensible (at that point in time I had no cause to stutter (when I am tired or stressed I do but it was the end of the academic year and all my deadlines had been met!) so I just accepted the date offered. Before flying home I spent a few days in NYC and exactly a week before 9/11 I was on a subway train running under the world trade center! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted September 11, 2013 Report Share Posted September 11, 2013 I like the idea of commemorating the day by doing something kind for someone. Maybe the kids and I will take a treat to the fire house up the road. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smudge Posted September 11, 2013 Report Share Posted September 11, 2013 Sounds like an awesome idea Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NeuroTypical Posted September 11, 2013 Report Share Posted September 11, 2013 Every year I break out this email and read it. My boss forwarded it to me. His brother worked in the WTC, although was not there on that day. One of his co-workers was, and this is his account:Dear All,Now that I can begin to think clearly again, I would like to take the timeto thank each and every one of you for your concern of my well-being. Itwas a very close call, and I am grateful to be alive.As you probably all know by now, I narrowly escaped from the World TradeCenter attack this past Tuesday, unlike the thousands who are still trappedbeneath the rubble. At 8:48am on Tuesday morning, I was reading my emaillike I do every morning. I had just gotten off the phone with a trafficengineer at the Port Authority regarding a file that I had transmitted tohim on the previous day. As I was finishing off my usual peanut butter andjelly sandwich, I heard a loud explosion, which was immediately followed bytremendous building sways and vibrations. As I was thrown out of my chair,I immediately thought that this was an earthquake, but still thinkingrationally, I thought that it was abnormal since there are no earthquakesinNYC, especially of this magnitude. I remember thinking that the buildingfelt like it was going to collapse from this initial explosion.As I picked myself up and ran to the emergency staircase located in thecore of the huge building, I saw through the east facing windows debris andfireballs falling from the top of the building. The building hadstabilized by the time I reached the stairwell, and evacuation had commenced quicklybut calmly. Not knowing the gravity of what was happening above us, peoplehad started pouring into the stairwell from the hallways of the differentfloors. I saw a coworker from my floor (72nd), and we held and consoledeach other.There were no public announcements in the stairwell, but the evacuationseemed to be going smoothly, there were no more explosions as far as wecould tell, no smoke coming up the stairwell, and the building had stoppedswaying. We all felt like we were out of imminent danger. As we started tomake it down the stairwell, people started chatting and gathering theircomposures. I heard some people who had been there in '93 telling othersthat this was a piece of cake since the stairwell was dark and full ofsmoke in '93. Others were joking about how Mr. Silverstein, who had justrecently taken control of the complex, must be fuming at what washappening. A few moments passed and people began to receive messages overtheir pagers that a 767 had accidentally hit our building. There was nomention of a terrorist attack, and at no time was there any panic. Mobilephones were completely out in the core of the building due to itsimmenseness and the large distance from the core of the building to theexterior where signals were usually stronger. There was no smoke at all inthe stairwell, but there was a strange peculiar smell, which I laterremembered it smelling like how it does when one boards an aircraft. Ilater found out that this was jet fuel.Soon we heard shouts from the people above us to keep to the right. Istarted seeing blind people, those with difficulty moving, asthmatics andinjured people filing down to our left. People were burned so badly that Iwon't go into describing it. People kept filing down orderly and calmly,but stunned.Sometime around the 30th or 40th floor, we passed the first firefighterscoming up the stairs. They reassured people that we were safe and that wewould all get out fine. By this point, they were already absolutelybreathless, but still pushing upward, slowly and unyieldingly, one step ata time. I could only imagine how tired they were, carrying their axes, hosesand heavy outfits and climbing up all those stairs. Young men startedoffering the firemen to carry up their gear for a few flights, but they allrefused. EACH and EVERY ONE of them. As I relive this moment over andover in my mind, I can't help but think that these courageous firemen alreadyknew in their minds that they would not make it out of the building aliveand that they didn't not want to endanger any more civilians and preventone less person from making it to safety on the ground.We continued down the stairwell, slowly and at times completely stalled.The smell of jet fuel had gotten so unbearable that people began coveringtheir mouths and noses with anything that they could find - ties, shirts,handkerchiefs. Every few floors, emergency crew were passing out water andsodas from the vending machines that they had split open from the hallways.I had no idea how much time had passed by as I didn't have my mobile phonewith me. Around the 20th or 15th floor, the emergency crew began divertingthe people in our stairwell to a different stairwell. They led us out of ourstairwell, across the hallway where I saw exhausted firemen andemergency crew sitting on the floor trying to catch their breaths. I beganto think why? What's going on? This whole operation looked very confusing.Nobody was giving us any indication as to what was going on. The wait inthe hallway to get to the other staircase was excruciatingly long as we hadto wait and merge with the people who were coming down the staircase intowhich we were filing. Why had they diverted us? As we started to get downto the lower floors, water started to pour down from behind us. I figuredthat a water pipe had burst or that it was water coming down from therescue on the higher floors.At this moment for the first time since the initial explosion, a sense ofpanic began to grip me. Only floor 7, then 6. A few more to go, and Iwould be free. I couldn't wait. It didn't matter that the water was ankle deep.I was a few floors from the ground. Floor ,,,,4,,,,then all of a sudden, aloud boom, and the building began to shake unbearably again. Peoplestarted falling down the stairwell as smoke started to rise from the bottom. Theemergency lights flickered and then went out. The building was stillshaking, and I could hear the steel buckling. Rescuers below us shoutedfor us to go back up the stairs. At this moment, I was choking and shakingtremendously. I managed to climb back up to the 6th or 7th floor andopened the door to that floor. The water had already risen to my ankles, and thefloor was completely dark. A fireman led us with his flashlights toanother staircase by the voices of another fireman who was guiding him through thedarkness. We finally made it across that floor to the other stairwellwhere we were greeted by the other fireman and told to hold. The look on thatfireman's face said it all. He said something under his lips to ourfireman indicating the severity of the situation.With the image of the firemen communicating to each other and hindsight, Ibelieve that the fireman had whispered to the other one that Building Twohad collapsed.After a few minutes of huddling by the stairwell on the 6th floor, we weregiven the green light to run for our lives. I made it down six flightswith a few other people and came out onto the mezzanine level of our building.I don't know what I was expecting to see when I got out of the stairwell, butI was not ready for this apocalyptic scene. It was completely covered inwhite dust and smoke. My initial reaction was that I couldn't believe thatone plane, albeit a 767, 80 floors above our head caused all this damage onthe ground floor - inside. I covered my head and ran towards the hugeopening in the north side of the building through which we were beingevacuated. As I approached this threshold, the firemen yelled to us to getover to the wall of the building quickly. Debris was still raining fromall sides of the building. We could see the other firefighters who wereoutside standing underneath the cantilevered parts of the black immigrationbuilding (4 and/or 5 WTC). At their cue, we ran from our building to theoutside world and back underneath the immigrationbuilding. I was completely disoriented, coughing, and looking at thestrange new landscape at the WTC plaza - burning trees, wreckage, fireballsand dust, nothing short of a nuclear winter. I climbed over huge pieces ofsteel wreckage and made my way through to the skybridge leading to 7 WTC(building 3 to collapse). From there, I descended the escalators down tothe street level onto Vesey Street and trotted to safety onto Church Street. Iimmediately looked back and saw the charred remains of the upper floors ofmy building. Smoke filled the sky, and I began to have this eerie feelingthat WTC 2 was not there. I couldn't be sure because of all thesmoke that was billowing from my building blowing eastward. As I wastrying to find WTC 2, I saw the unthinkable happen in front of my eyes. WTC 1began to disintegrate from where it was burning. I turned around and ran.I later learned that another 767 had hit WTC 2 around the floors where sitin my building. I later learned that WTC 2 had collapsed when we werestill inside my building on the fourth floor when it began to shake for a secondtime. I later learned that I had been spared from the sight of peoplefalling from the higher floors. I am grateful to be alive and uninjuredand to be able to share this life-changing experience with you. And, I am sograteful for the courage of the firemen and policemen who gave up theirlives to help us down the burning tower.Sincerely,[LM's old Boss's brother's friend] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pam Posted September 11, 2013 Report Share Posted September 11, 2013 Just remember that 9-11 not only represents what happened in 2001 but also what happened on that same day in 2012. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mahone Posted September 11, 2013 Report Share Posted September 11, 2013 Perhaps a better phrase to use is "innocent lives", as opposed to "American lives". Indeed, over 12 percent of lives lost that day were not American. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bini Posted September 11, 2013 Author Report Share Posted September 11, 2013 Perhaps a better phrase to use is "innocent lives", as opposed to "American lives". Indeed, over 12 percent of lives lost that day were not American.My thought process, since I currently reside in America and have dual-citizenship as an American citizen, was focused on Americans but you are right. Of course, it is a tragedy when any life is lost. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bini Posted September 11, 2013 Author Report Share Posted September 11, 2013 I like the idea of commemorating the day by doing something kind for someone. Maybe the kids and I will take a treat to the fire house up the road.I should do this. A couple of my friends already have. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
classylady Posted September 11, 2013 Report Share Posted September 11, 2013 (edited) I worked for Continental Airlines on 9/11. I was home that morning and was watching television. My heart sank as I saw the planes crash into the Twin Towers. As I learned that the airlines were American and United, my heart went out to my "Sister" airline employees. We were competitors, but in an instant, there was no longer any division, we were family. God bless them and all who lost their lives. Edited September 11, 2013 by classylady Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pam Posted September 11, 2013 Report Share Posted September 11, 2013 Perhaps a better phrase to use is "innocent lives", as opposed to "American lives". Indeed, over 12 percent of lives lost that day were not American.I agree Mahone. I was talking about this same thing today at work with a coworker. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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