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I am dating this article "9-11-2001", a date that no American can ever forget, because on that date our country was ATTACKED! This was not a political attack on our leaders or on our form of government. This was a physical hijacking of American planes and flying them into the World Trade Center towers in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington DC. This was not retaliation for acts committed against foreign countries. This was an outright aggressive attack against the United States. Thousands of people were killed in the resulting infernos when the airliners, filled with jet fuel, were used as missiles to bring down the most visible symbol of American domination. But let me start at the beginning of this fateful day.
Everything began in the usual way: my husband had taken the dogs out for their "piddle trot"; in order to preserve my ankles, the cats had been fed: coffee in hand I had made my way into the office to check Email; then the telephone rang. It was my older son, the one whose usual conversation with me consists of "is Dad there?", but this time he led with "are you catching this?". Catching what? "The plane crashing into the World Trade Center". He was apparently watching television. I told him to wait while I turned my computer onto CNN. And there it was: a huge passenger jet plowed into one of the World Trade Center towers. The announcer was saying that this was a terrible accident. How did a pilot get the plane turned around so that is was heading right INTO THE TOWER? But before the announcer had a chance to figure this out, a SECOND BIG JET CRASHED DIRECTLY INTO THE OTHER TOWER! It hung there, partly sticking out of the side of the skyscraper, burning intensely. These crashes were no accident. We were under attack! Suddenly the screen was filled with shots of people staring in amazement at the towers being stung by these enormous "bees" and running pointlessly around. Why was this happening? And what about all the people who were in those buildings? Soon the pictures were of emergency crews' and firefighters' vehicles crowding onto the streets, sirens blaring. Would they attempt to rescue those victims? How? Just then the news changed again. A third jet had plowed into the Pentagon! People were racing out screaming and the premises were totally on fire! It was like the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. This was WAR! By this time everyone had focused on the attacks, remembering the flawed attempts on the Towers several years before. Whoever had tried to do this awful thing had found a better (for them) way to do it. The cell phone revolution put everyone in touch with everything, and the conversation of the day was the attack on the Towers. Passengers in planes were now alerted to the danger, and when Flight 93 was hijacked, there was no mistaking the terrorists' intentions. The only thing to consider was HOW TO STOP THEM, and it involved making the ultimate sacrifice. This was done by rushing the hijackers and turning their potential weapon into a heap of burning rubble on a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, far from our nation's important buildings. Whatever the proposed target, it was a moot point now. Now, seven years later, we know what the events were intended to accomplish. We know how they played out in terms of the ultimate collapse of the Towers and deaths of over 3,000 people. We recall the bravery of those who tried to rescue the victims and then became victims themselves. We have had dedications and ceremonies to all who perished. We have become painfully aware as a nation to the threats of radical Islamic terrorists and the methods they use. Our security measures for boarding airliners and entering the country have tightened since then, using the benefits of hind site to prevent another disaster. We are now more suspicious, more critical, and more prudent. We are now the physicians looking over the corpses of victims we could not save. We have attended the national wakes for them. And hopefully we have learned from this extensive tragedy a lesson to apply to the present and the future: NEVER FORGET! Just Mom |
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