For my thoughts, see my post in 2012, 9/11/01 and Memory.
This audio still is what I remember the most.
It was Melissa Harrington Hughes:
The message was for her husband:
Melissa Harrington Hughes, Floor 101
Melissa, 31, was only in New York for one day to oversee her software firm’s merger.
She made a tearful call home to husband Sean Hughes in San Francisco – but missed him as he was still in bed.
The message she left said: “I just wanted to let you know I love you and I’m stuck in this building in New York.
“There’s lots of smoke and I just wanted you to know I love you always.”
Minutes after the impact she called her dad Bob, who had to get her to calm down so he could understand her.
He hadn’t seen the news yet but when he turned on a bulletin while on the phone, the true extent of his daughter’s terrifying ordeal became clear.
She did manage to speak with her father that morning.
The sound of the PASS (Personal Alert Safety System) alarms worn by firemen, which continued chirping after the buildings collapsed, each one representing a life lost. I never have been able to erase that sound from my memory:
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I thought today about how the images and video of 9/11 have been hermetically sealed away.
I wondered how anybody had the condescension to do that.
And I wondered how and why we let them. Those belong to us.
Thank you for your post – so moving, and brings back so much.
How many today don’t remember, or were too young to understand……who mock, who deride, and who deny the evil that led to this tragic terrorist nightmare? We must remind them, inform them, educate them.
We remember.
Barry stated: “Now let’s make two things clear: ISIL is not “Islamic.”
Assumption is, neither was 9/11/01, in the mind of the Islam friendly, Barry.
Me, I’m a Never Forgive, Never Forget person. This not “Islamic”, must be obliterated, period, fini, the end, done!
On 9/11/01, I sat glued to my tube, with tears and RAGE! And as of today, the RAGE is still there.
I remember where I was on 9/11/01.
I also remember where I was on election day, 2008. I was sitting in my home watching the election returns, astonished that a mere 7 years after the 9/11 attacks, the nation was electing as president and commander-in-chief a man who had no military or executive experience, who had claimed in the days immediately after 9/11 that the attacks had only occurred because the terrorists were uneducated and poor, and who had touted his Muslim father and step-father and a few years spent living in Muslim Indonesia as reasons why the Muslim world would love America again.
Never forget 9/11? Most Americans couldn’t wait to forget it. That’s how we got to where we are today.
Anyone who lived through that day will never forget and we must make sure others don’t forget.
This morning my grandson (7 yo) asked me about 9/11 and I told him. I was surprised how much he already knew and understood. I watched him check out his tee shirt in the mirror and nod his head, then he said, “yeah, it’s got red, white and blue; I’m good to go” and off to school he went. His big sister was wearing a tee shirt with the American eagle and it too was red, white and blue.
Even if we just focus on our own families… it can have a multiplying effect.
May those who died this day, rest in peace.
Can someone help me – I want to post the PASS Alarm video to FB but the “copy url” function doesn’t translate.
Tried to find a similiar audio on youtube but couldnt find one.
The “copy URL for a webpage” option returns this:
As tragic as 9/11 is, we only mourn people’s lost lives. To me, this doesn’t even begin to compare to the many, many isms that are corrupting our people, destroying their souls. Even just the smallest parts of materialism, atheism, relativism, racism, hedonism, etc. are far, far worse for our country, making 9/11 seem a walk in the park in comparison. We wipe the tears from our eyes this day, not realizing our self-righteous blindness on the 364 other days of the year. Lord have mercy.
I was late to work that day; I had been watching the news about the tragic accident where a plane had hit one of the WTC buildings in New York. By the time I got to the office it had become clear that it had been no accident as it had happened again. A lot of us were gathered by the TV in the conference room when the third plane hit; anger and nausea were the most common reactions, with curses and prayers mixed in.
That day can never be forgotten by anyone in this country who was alive to witness it. And many of us will not rest easy until the ideology behind that attack is totally eliminated.
Islam’s works over the last 30 days:
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/index.html#Attacks
One of those PASS alarms belonged to my brother, Brian Christopher Hickey, then Battalion Chief of Rescue 4. He never came home and to this day we have not recovered his body. We buried his helmet, the only thing that could be identified as belonging to him. Thank you all for remembering this day, so many have forgotten.