Patterico's Pontifications

9/11/2015

Recollections of 9/11

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 10:44 pm



See if you share my reaction reading these excerpts from a Blaze article, containing quotations from some of the staff there about their memories of 9/11:

Jason Howerton, Deputy Managing Editor

Like millions of Americans, I remember exactly where I was when I saw the first images of the 9/11 World Trade Center terror attack. Though I first learned of the attack from my middle school teachers, it wasn’t until I returned home and turned on the TV that I was exposed to the images that, unbeknownst to me at the time, would be forever seared into my mind.

. . . .

Jon Street, Assistant Editor

Fourteen years ago this morning, I sat in sixth grade science class having little idea of what the World Trade Center even was, much less the Pentagon.

. . . .

Erica Ritz, Assistant Editor

9/11 profoundly changed all of our lives. I was just 11 years old and living in Minnesota at the time, and to be honest, I didn’t even know what the twin towers were. But I knew what the coordinated crashes meant — we were under attack.

. . . .

Liz Klimas, Science, Health and Tech Editor

I’ll admit it. I played hooky on Sept. 11, 2001. Instead of sitting at my high school desk awaiting what was most likely a lesson in the difference between mitosis and meiosis (didn’t everyone’s science teacher hammer than one into their brains?), I had decided earlier that morning that I didn’t feel quite 100 percent to head to class and somehow convinced my mother to agree.

I realized something reading these excerpts.

I’m old. Or at least, a lot older than I was in 2001.

Our daughter was around on September 11, 2001. Our son wasn’t born yet. As they replayed the footage of that second plane crashing into the South Tower, our daughter — then 19 months old — pointed at the TV and smiled and said: “AIRpane!!” She had recently learned the word and delighted in pointing one out every time she saw one.

She’s now a sophomore in high school.

For a remembrance from someone more my age, I recommend this post from Dan McLaughlin, the Baseball Crank. I met him in NYC some time back, but I don’t think I realized he had narrowly missed being in the North Tower when that first plane hit. And there is always Allahpundit’s set of Twitter recollections, which I read again today.

Soon enough, we’ll be reading recollections from bloggers and editors who weren’t alive that day, but remember what their mom and dad told them about it.

And so it goes.

79 Responses to “Recollections of 9/11”

  1. Sad ding.

    Patterico (3cc0c1)

  2. I was on a freeway going to work listening to the radio. It was a beautiful day, cool and clear. I divide my life by that day. I already had two children, but it was the day I grew up. For my children.

    Ag80 (eb6ffa)

  3. I was holding my 6 month old SON. My SON with the SAME NAME AS ME. I saw the second plane hit, and I imagined the MANHATTAN that I knew, and that my Grandfather worked in. I KNEW. I KNEW that WE…WE…..WE the U.S.A had been attacked. Today, I realize that the LEFT, has NEVER SHARED MY FEELINGS vis a vis US…..OR …..WE….or the U.S.A..

    Gus (7cc192)

  4. My clock radio woke me up, and normally there would have been music but instead there was continuous news coverage that I couldn’t believe. I thought it was a hoax, like Orson Welles’ War of the World. So I turned on the TV and learned it wasn’t a joke.

    I drove to work and everyone was stunned. One of my coworkers had been on AA flight 77 that crashed into the Pentagon. He had been attending meetings on Monday at the Pentagon, but he was wiped out and asked to stay in D.C. overnight and return Tuesday morning. Everyone else returned to the west coast Monday night. The lady in HR who had helped change his itinerary was wigging out out, convinced that she was responsible for killing him. She was inconsolable.

    One of my former shipmates died at the Pentagon. A good egg.

    Both taken too soon. I had a call that day from the skipper of my reserve unit,
    taking muster. Two months later I was overseas.

    Steve57 (a36142)

  5. I knew one of my best friends was on the second plane, I watched him die when the plane hit the building.
    I will never forget.
    I will never forgive.

    sickofrinos (31009b)

  6. We love and miss you, Ace Bailey.

    sickofrinos (31009b)

  7. Ace was returning to work as the head of scouting for the L.A. Kings.

    sickofrinos (31009b)

  8. God Bless you, Steve57

    sickofrinos (31009b)

  9. No.

    God bless all those who were murdered that day. And their loved ones.

    And all my shipmates killed in the years since.

    I just played a small part. As Rick Rescorla once said when people would try to praise him for his heroism in Vietnam, all the heroes are dead.

    I’m not in the same league as Rick Rescorla, but I can’t help but recognize the wisdom in his words.

    Steve57 (a36142)

  10. My friend at the Pentagon once wrote this.

    http://pentagonmemorial.org/explore/biographies/cdr-dan-f-shanower-usn

    …Dan was known for his ready smile, terrific sense of humor, love of conversation, ability to tell a story, love of politics, and his intellectual and cultural curiosity about the world. He loved the sea, sailing, scuba diving, water skiing, and above all else, his family, friends and the Navy. He enjoyed writing both fiction and non-fiction, and many of his opinion essays and articles were published in the United States Naval Institute Proceedings, including the poignant May 1997 one entitled, “Freedom Isn’t Free.” His article reflected on the loss of his shipmates in 1987, and he wrote:

    “Those of us in the military are expected to make the ultimate sacrifice when called. The military loses scores of personnel each year. Each one risked and lost his or her life in something they believed in, leaving behind family and shipmates to bear the burden and celebrate their devotion to our country… They knew the risks they were taking and gave their lives for something bigger than themselves.”…

    He was talking about his shipmates on the USS STARK.

    It’s poignant that he was killed in essentially the same way as the sailors killed on the STARK. By a cruise missile. Not an Exocet but a jet liner.

    http://www.casematepublishing.com/dlc/9781935149361/America%27s%20First%20Clash%20with%20Iran-Ch01.pdf

    AMERICA’S FIRST CLASH WITH IRAN
    The Tanker War, 1987–88

    It’s a sobering read. And a necessary one, considering Obama’s latest
    capitulation to Iran. Now we are all targets.

    Steve57 (a36142)

  11. I happened to stumble across a friend’s re-posting of a Kevin Bacon Facebook post from yesterday. Bacon works with a charity called City Harvest which runs a foodbank of NYC’s poor and homeless. Yesterday he posted for a picture with two kids who were volunteering with him, both of whom had been born on September 11, 2001 and were thus also celebrating their 14th birthday. I was taken aback at how grown-up they appeared, and that’s when I had the same moment that Patterico experienced where I realized that I am old and that 14 years was a long time ago. I suppose next year we’ll have another maudlin remembrance for the 15-year anniversary, and Obama and both major party nominees will preen and do their best to upstage each other.

    JVW (ba78f9)

  12. 1. I was in the front row in my fourth grade class when a teacher came in, whispered something into our teacher’s ear. He then got up and wordlessly turned the TV on. There was nothing but the CBS Eye and a voice saying the President had been shot in Dallas.

    2. I was in Redmond, prepping my business partner for a face-to-face with Bill Gates. We had been up until 4AM getting the ducks lined up and had more work to do. No sooner did I get to sleep, but he calls me and says “Turn on the TV. The World Trade Center is gone.” We got our work done, despite the distraction, the meeting was successful, then we drove back home to L.A.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  13. And I expect to live to hear that Tel Aviv had been destroyed by a nuclear explosion, and that 50 H-Bombs were detonating across Iran. Hopefully I will live long enough to see the traitors hang.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  14. Probably the best documentary about 9/11 is the firefighter’s POV film 9/11. A completely accidental masterpiece of reporting.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  15. With the perspective of fourteen years, it’s clear that 9/11 was a defining moment for America. And not in a good way. Like the way Alaric’s sacking of Rome was a defining moment for the Western Roman Empire.

    The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. By September 2, 1945, when it surrendered unconditionally, it had been reduced to rubble, some of it radioactive. Concurrently, we had done the same thing to Nazi Germany (without the radioactivity).

    Now? Where are we, now?

    nk (dbc370)

  16. Now? Where are we, now?

    We’re making deals with the enemy and bringing in thousands (by the time the left is done millions) of moslem “refugees” 75% of which happen to be males between 17 and 35.

    Hopefully I will live long enough to see the traitors hang.

    We’re gonna need a lot more rope, Kevin M.

    Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie (f4eb27)

  17. Once again the paper of record, the mouthpiece for the radical left demonstrates which side it’s on. They were more interested in promoting Obama’s “victory” with the Iran deal to even note how that supposed deal is with the moslems who 14 years earlier bombed their city. What a bunch of creepy traitors.

    “Never forget”? Sometimes one wonders if they even remember — or want to.

    Both the New York and National versions of the New York Times print edition contain no mention of the anniversary of the terrorist attacks 14 years ago in New York and Washington which brought down the World Trade Center buildings, seriously damaged the Pentagon, and killed almost 3,000 people in four different locations: the two WTC buildings, the Pentagon, and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

    Jan Crawford of CBS News noted the astonishing absence in a tweet earlier today. The two editions’ front pages as seen at the Times’s web site are identical (HT Ed Driscoll at Instapundit; a more detailed graphic is here):
    – See more at: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tom-blumer/2015/09/11/ny-times-9112015-front-page-no-mention-terrorist-attacks-anniversary#sthash.uEP2Ohlq.dpuf

    Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie (f4eb27)

  18. All my in-laws were stunned. My first thought was “I’ve been expecting this for twenty years”.

    One day soon, the Islamic fanatics will pull off an even larger attack. A nuke somewhere on the coast, brought in by container ship. A fuel-air bomb in Detroit, were they could work for months without getting caught because of societal breakdown. The attack won’t cripple us. It may not even inconvenience us much. But when we are through reacting Mecca and Medina will be large sheets of faintly glowing glass, and large segments of the middle east will look like Tokyo after the firebombing.

    They will make us the Imperial Nation they think we are now, and they will not like the contrast.

    We could have avoided that. If the Left had had the sense to back Bush, and the object lesson he was trying to create. Diplomacy is credit. War is cash. Bush was, among other things, trying to show the world how unpleasant life was likely to get if people demanded that we pay cash. Bush’d wars were, on the whole, the vegetarian option. When the Imperial change comes about, the Liberal Intellectual Radical Progressive protesters are going to find out the difference between George Bush and a real Fascist.

    C. S. P. Schofield (ab2cdc)

  19. I walked into work and saw the first tower already hit. I was mentoring a junior Romanian masters level engineer on work visa in the next cube. She had her photo of the NY skyline behind her from atop the WTC on her desk.

    The day from her perspective was more tangible and frightening than mine and I’m glad to have been affected by her sentience.

    DNF (c70dac)

  20. 13, 15. While I expect Israel to suffer greatly “the bodies of the world’s armies will be stacked as cordwood on the plain of Meggido. And the fuel left behind will supply its occupants for decades.”

    No one will escape consequences of this conflagration.

    DNF (c70dac)

  21. I was off work that day and watched it all unfold on TV. Later I would learn that the aircraft taken down into the Pentagon was the one piloted by the older brother of one of my high-school classmates/ basketball teammates. I later talked to another classmate/teammate who after retiring, had gotten bored and began job-hunting. He was back in the Boston-area, had interviewed for an executive position at a plastics manufacturer on Monday the 10th, was ticketed to return to the LA-area on the 11th on Flight 175. His interview had gone well, and so he was called later Monday afternoon and asked if he could come back in the following morning for a follow-up… the only reason he wasn’t on that flight. I still think about the odds around all of that.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  22. I was and am, a half a world away and was up late, I changed channels and there was both towers smoking. I was watching as both towers fell. I woke my fiancée with the news and my fear that it might go nuclear.

    The USA is not the realm of the Gods but nonetheless since the fall of the British Empire you are the standard bearer of western civilisation. The barbarians are once again at the gates. What, my American cousins will you do?

    JABL (90734d)

  23. I also remembered reading the ’90s-era stories of Islamist nutters’ plots to commandeer airliners and blow them up mid-air or fly them into landmark building targets.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  24. Today I think how I want nothing to do with Muslims and of how we as American citizens need to push back hard against our elites plans to accommodate this Muslim invasion that is infecting the Western world.

    If that makes me a bigot, I can live with it.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  25. What, my American cousins will you do?

    Haven’t you noticed, JABL? We’ll elect a leftist to make deals with moslems who want to annihilate Western Civilization and invite them into America as “refugees” along with 20 million Mexicans and South Americans. We’re doing the same thing to America and our culture that the UK an Europe has and continues to do to theirs. I think “white guilt” is an epidemic. The other day someone called Trump a nationalist. The media was aghast. After all, we can’t be called racists or xenophobes now can we? I would take it as a complement.

    Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie (f4eb27)

  26. “Today”? Colonel Haiku? I’ve ben saying this about moslems for over 20 years but nobody listens. And yes, they call me racist, bigot and more. So what? I’ve had contact with moslems and know exactly what they are and it ain’t pretty. And there is absolutely no reason for any moslem to live in the United States. There is nothing here for a moslem, nothing they believe in and nothing they can contribute. The very idea of a Republic is the antithesis of islam. The left in America are paralyzed because islam is a religion and we can’t discriminate. Islam is a form of government under the cloak of a religion and it is pure trash as either.

    Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie (f4eb27)

  27. 25- Col.
    I resemble that remark.

    sickofrinos (31009b)

  28. 9/11 had a huge impact on my daughter. It made her decide to join the military. It took several more years before she became Army eligible, but now she’s an Iraq vet and a mother of a kindergartener. And she has no respect for the disaster in the White House.

    John Hitchcock (166640)

  29. They (Muslims) are comrades-in-arms to our Left-wingers, Hoagie. The Muslims who hate America have much in common with most of the Left, who don’t think of themselves as Americans.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  30. Make no mistake, much of the current situation in the Middle East can be laid right at the feet of Barack Obama and Hillary! Clinton.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  31. “Today”? Colonel Haiku? I’ve ben saying this about moslems for over 20 years but nobody listens. And yes, they call me racist, bigot and more.

    Tell them to zip it and inform them that the founder of Islam, Mohammed, was a ruthless, conniving, vengeful, bloodthirsty, resistance-is-futile leader. In effect, the terrorists on 9-11 weren’t really straying all that far from the playbook of the creator of their religion.

    Most people aren’t aware of that particular detail, which was true of me until this blog prodded me into looking more closely at the background of Islam. For example, I recall Patterico several years ago sort of buying into George W Bush’s “religion of peace” notion of Islam, which I too originally didn’t realize was a very naive, goody-goody assumption.

    Mark (dc566c)

  32. They (Muslims) are comrades-in-arms to our Left-wingers, Hoagie.

    The left was idiotic about (and apologists for) the true nature of Communism during the era of the Cold War and the left, decades later, is no less idiotic about Islamism.

    Foolish coming and going, ass-backwards to the 10th degree, and the epitome of odd bedfellows (ie, Obama-era liberalism being enablers to reactionary Islamism, and, if only for strategic reasons, visa versa).

    Mark (dc566c)

  33. Slightly off-topic: “Iran says finds unexpectedly high uranium reserve”

    DUBAI (Reuters) – Iran has discovered an unexpectedly high reserve of uranium and will soon begin extracting the radioactive element at a new mine, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation said on Saturday.

    The comments cast doubt on previous assessments from some Western analysts who said the country had a low supply and would sooner or later would need to import uranium, the raw material needed for its nuclear program.

    Any indication Iran could become more self-sufficient will be closely watched by world powers, which reached a landmark deal with Tehran in July over its program. They had feared the nuclear activit

    ies were aimed at acquiring the capability to produce atomic weapons – something denied by Tehran.

    https://ca.news.yahoo.com/iran-says-finds-unexpectedly-high-uranium-104622948.html

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  34. I was eating breakfast here:

    steveg (fed1c9)

  35. I was watching a stock market show on cable, either CNN or MSNBC, when the first tower was struck. The coverage was switched, either by me or by the networks, to the network news channels and I don’t recall even thinking about what happened to the market broadcast. No one could comprehend what was happening, but the prominent line of thought was that this was a terrible accident. Then the second plane was captured on video as it approached from across the harbor and struck the other tower. At that point a few of the talking heads began to realize that this wasn’t an accident. Some persisted in their delusion and continued to speak of an accident. Next word of the Pentagon attack was broadcast, and reports came in about an airliner crash in Pennsylvania. By this time everyone realized that we were under attack, but nobody knew whether this the just the beginning, with more to unfold as the day progressed. The story developed slowly, and I watched for several hours. There was some concern about President Bush and Vice President Cheney who had quickly “disappeared”. I don’t recall when the media arm of the Democratic Party began making an issue of this, but they were quite delighted to be able to show a video of Bush reading to a Kindergarten class in Florida when an aid interrupted to tell him of the attack. The talking heads insinuated that Bush was a coward and in hiding somewhere, but I can’t remember their exact words. The public schools were in session at the time, and they stayed with their normal schedule. My team had a home match that night, and I recall talking to the parents and players before the match. We had a very somber and serious minute of silence and prayer while we all thought about the events of the day. I recall that we had no idea how many had been killed in the twin towers at that time, it could have be tens of thousands. Then we said the Pledge of Allegiance and played ball.

    When Kennedy was assassinated, I was in a freshman chemistry laboratory at HMC performing some sort of experiment. It might have had something to do with precipitating silver chloride. I recall that our freshman chemistry text was used by the UCB for a senior level P-Chem. class. I think our Professor came in around 2 pm and announced the terrible news, but then it was back to business. We had 2 lab classes every every week, chemistry and physics, and they were 4 credit classes. We also had a tough (incomprehensible) 4 unit math class, a light (2 unit) engineering class, and two humanity classes at about 3 units each. I laugh at today’s students who struggle with 16 units.

    On Sunday, Dec. 7th, 1941, my Dad was home, probably listening to his Hallicrafters, perhaps hoping to catch a baseball broadcast from the East or Midwest. As I was growing up, a large dipole antenna was a routine fixture in our yard, and I imagine he had one rigged up in 1941. Once he learned of the attack on Pearl Harbor, he began scanning the shortwave bands, and he remembers hearing an Army base somewhere in Alaska vainly trying to make contact with its chain of command in the lower 48. This went on for hours. Things were very different then. And I wasn’t even a gleam in my parents’ eyes.

    bobathome (279337)

  36. I heard talk instead of music on my alarm too, talk about Israeli embassies being closed. I went to the TV and saw the towers on fire. I called my cousin. She said “they’re gone.”

    Gone…?

    When the anthrax started I thought, I’m not brave enough for this. A friend yelled at me and said, Yes, you are! To this day, I thank him for that. If he believed, I could too.

    The reaction of the kids is different but no less powerful. Bin Laden was a shadow over their entire lives, like the Cold War was, and you could see it in their faces as they celebrated outside the White House when we finally got Bin Laden.

    My only comforting thought about 14 years on is that the citizens realize the danger if the ruling class doesn’t. We always fight back, and I pray we always will. We are brave enough.

    Patricia (5fc097)

  37. Patricia, the ruling class, and more specifically the Democrats, have no skin in the game. They are spending our money, the troops and veterans they neglect are our kids and nephews, and they believe there will always be a place for them at the table, even if it is only to administer a fallen nation. And they have willing helpers in the RNC.

    bobathome (279337)

  38. Make that “nephews and nieces” … My thanks to John’s daughter for her service. What a contrast she is to the reptiles who control our urban political fiefdoms. We need a few million more like her.

    bobathome (279337)

  39. I lost 8 friends that day and countless acquaintances as I used to be a foreign exchange broker and many had offices there. My good friend Stuart resigned on the Friday before and was let go. My good friend Tim also resigned but was asked to stay on a week. Tim.s brother Andrew also died on that day. Later in the week, Stuart offered to pick up Andy’s car from the station and drive it to his widow’s home. When he got there, the kids came rushing out and said, “Daddy’s home…”

    Gazzer (a2251b)

  40. bobathome–

    J Arthur Campbell?

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  41. http://www.nationalreview.com/article/212163/never-forget-jack-dunphy?IKHFAfrUclbsUYuv.01

    Will never forget Patrick(nor his cousin, Peter). . Nor will any of his friends, nor his family. He is still missed and always will be. We were all at a bachelor party that started at Belmont Racetrack the Saturday before, went to a restaurant until late,and then some more …fun. A great time with a bunch of guys who had no idea this was the last time we would be blessed with hanging out with our wonderful friend.

    When it was clear a few days later that he and Peter (and too many other neighbors and friends) were gone it was so f___ing awful.

    Bugg (1e4a3b)

  42. Gazzer
    Sounds painful still…
    As long as I live, I promise to add my voice, cash, and muscle to help those of us who refuse to let terrorists win

    steveg (fed1c9)

  43. steveg, he says it was the worst day of his life and he fought, and beat, esophageal cancer.

    Gazzer (a2251b)

  44. Kevin, J Arthur didn’t teach our laboratory session, but he may have been the main Freshman Chemistry lecturer. I can’t remember. I remember Wicker gave some of the more interesting physics lectures including a demonstration of silver plating a mirror in a vacuum bottle. J Arthur was a fun guy, told lots of interesting stories over the dinner table at our campus-wide gatherings. Taught us how to make crystal goblets ring, for example. The math text was by White, who was head of the math department. I barely managed to get low Bs and Cs in my two or three years of math and was somewhat surprised when my grad rec math scores two years later were in the low 900s. But those tests had nothing to do with the math curriculum at HMC. I probably would have scored about the same as a freshman.

    bobathome (279337)

  45. Kim Davis fanboi Mr. Ted Cruz didn’t like how rock music responded to 9/11 so he stopped listening to it

    he finds this intellectually curious, actually, the way he didn’t like how the rock music responded to 9/11

    me i agree it’s just absolutely fascinating on any number of levels

    😐

    happyfeet (831175)

  46. Colonel Haiku @22, my dad was a Coastie Radioman stationed in the Philippines at the end of WWII. One of the communist anti-Japanese guerrilla groups commonly known as the Huks stayed in the field and became an anti-US, anti-Philippine government insurgency. Actually, there was bad blood between the Huks and the other forces fighting the Japanese dating from during the war when the Huks would actively work against the other forces, which was why the US occupation and later the Philippine government refused to recognize them as freedom fighters and provide them with benefits.

    My dad was going to go to Manilla on a weekend pass. Just before he got on the bus his seniors stopped him and told him his liberty was cancelled. The duty Radioman was sick or UA or something, so they needed my dad to stay and stand his watch.

    The Huks stopped the bus on the way to Manilla and dished out what was known as “Huk justice.” They killed everyone on the bus.

    Like you I’ve always wondered about the odds of that. I tell you what, he never complained about having to take that extra duty and I never complained if I ever had to take someone else’s watch, either.

    Steve57 (a36142)

  47. Dan Shanower was not writing about the USS Stark in his essay “Freedom Isn’t Free”. Dan never served on the Stark. He was writing about Skipper Justin Greene, John “JC” Carter, Doug “Dough” Hora, and Dave “Hoot” Gibson. They didn’t die by missile or bomb or plane,and their death could only be tangentially related to Iran. They just never came back.

    prowlerguy (3af7ff)

  48. I knew he never served in the STARK. He was intel; intel officers don’t serve in frigates. Intel on small boys is a collateral duty.

    But that wouldn’t mean he wouldn’t have served with people earlier in other commands who were killed in the STARK.

    I always thought he was writing about the STARK. Thanks for the correction.

    Steve57 (a36142)

  49. If you had ever read the essay, you could never have had that impression.

    prowlerguy (3af7ff)

  50. When he got there, the kids came rushing out and said, “Daddy’s home…”
    Gazzer (a2251b) — 9/12/2015 @ 11:08 am

    Well there came some tears.

    SarahW (67599f)

  51. My ten year old was starting a new year of home-school. It was a fine day. I convinced my husband to take us on an impromptu trip to DC, (which is about 100 miles away) We’ll tour the Capitol, I said. I’ve never toured the Capitol building.

    He went to run a short errand (kitty food, IIRC) while I got everything and everybody ready.

    I’ve never toured the Capitol.

    SarahW (67599f)

  52. Got a call, the one many people got. “Turn on the television. We’re under attack”

    SarahW (67599f)

  53. Thank You for having this post.

    sickofrinos (31009b)

  54. My ten year old was starting a new year of home-school.

    Not to belabor the point, but your 10-year-old is now a 24-year-old adult. Wow, time flies by. I guess I probably feel about it the same way that my grandfather felt when he reflected on Pearl Harbor back in 1955, except he had the satisfaction of knowing that we had defeated the enemy.

    JVW (ba78f9)

  55. 51. If you had ever read the essay, you could never have had that impression.

    prowlerguy (3af7ff) — 9/12/2015 @ 2:09 pm

    I left active duty in 1997 about when he wrote it. I never saw the essay in Proceedings. Just the quotation after he was killed.

    Steve57 (a36142)

  56. I had more than a few colleagues who were out of state on business that day and quite a few ended up snagging rental cars to get back home to California. The lucky ones had someone to share the driving/trip with.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  57. bobathome, I agree, the ruling class has been horrible. I can only hope that secretly they are taking steps to protect us, as we have not been attacked like that since, and that their feckless public face is but a mask.

    And Gazzer…heartbreaking. O’Reilly talks about how for so many days he saw cars abandoned at the train station in Long Island, their owners never to return.

    Patricia (5fc097)

  58. When I was a Junior in high school, there was a Senior named Michelle Cohen who sat beside me in Chemistry class. As students are situationally cliquish in nature, she, I, and two others sitting by us formed a group of Chemistry friends. We had fun conversing about this, that, and the other thing while in class.

    Years later, 9/11 hit.

    President Bush went to the Pentagon to see the damage first-hand, and while there, shook several soldiers’ hands. Michelle Cohen, who was then a soldier stationed at the Pentagon shook his hand. And then said “I will never wash this hand again!” There was great respect for Bush in the military; none for Obama. Members of the military excitedly went to events where Bush would be there, but were voluntold to go to the Obama events.

    John Hitchcock (166640)

  59. John H, then you will like this pic.
    http://www.snopes.com/photos/military/crossed.asp

    Gazzer (a2251b)

  60. I was at home, sleeping late, still in college. My roommate woke me up, shouting “We’re at war!”. I immediately assumed “China” and I tried to figure out what I could do to help my Chinese lab mates who were certain, in a sensible society, to be interned for the duration. Within a couple of hours it got more clear and when it turned out to be terrorists I knew I didn’t have to worry about anyone I worked with being interned.

    Geopolitically speaking I don’t think anyone learned the right things from 9/11. Americans didn’t learn anything about balancing security and civil liberties; we have less of both now than we did.

    We didn’t learn how to give up political correctness; the man who first prominently said Islam is a “religion of peace” was one George W. Bush. We didn’t learn how to punish our enemies and protect our friends; we didn’t learn how not to make threats we didn’t intend to carry out. (33% of the Axis of Evil has nuclear weapons already and another 33% is going to build them while we give them money and we pretend not to know what they are up to.)

    We didn’t learn that “nation building” has only ever worked on nations that were first reduced to bone-flecked ash. We didn’t learn that nations have no friends, only interests. We didn’t learn to listen to what our enemies are saying to us about their motives or intentions; we insist on either treating them as children or animals who don’t understand the reasons for what they are doing, or as people who are really not so different from us under the skin and are just posing as totalitarians.

    About the only positive things that came out were that Saddam Hussein is not in power in anymore, and that we got some kind of influence over Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. In every other way I think the world is a little worse place than it was, at least as far as things like peace and terrorism are concerned.

    Gabriel Hanna (e2539b)

  61. Patricia, the Thursday after 9/11 I was with two guys going to a restaurant show in north Jersey. We went to the train station in NE Philly and when we pulled in the show guy (who was driving) barked out “These bastards have been in the same spots all week they think they own them”. We looked at each other and some loudmouth (ahem) said: “Hey idiot, these are cars left behind by people in the WTC”. We parked, the guy got out, leaned on a newspaper machine and burst into tears. He hadn’t thought.

    Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie (f4eb27)

  62. On the nose Gabriel Hanna, on the nose!

    Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie (f4eb27)

  63. the Brits spent a hundred years in the NorthWest frontier, three major wars, and three dozen minor expeditions,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  64. at least we got the TSA out of the deal

    best make-work program for fat-ass sexually deviant union thugs since at least the post office

    happyfeet (831175)

  65. Added TSA bonus. A supervisor was able to sneak a fake bomb through with a 95% success rate. Almost 70 employees were on the terrorist no-fly list themselves. One gay employee would get a colleague to flag any cute guys so he could grab their junk.
    So we got that going for us.

    Gazzer (a2251b)

  66. most of that is just a bonus we don’t even have to pay extra for it Mr. Gazzer

    happyfeet (831175)

  67. And Jeh Johnson. Let’s not forget Jeh Johnson.

    nk (dbc370)

  68. like one of those brainslugs from Ceti alpha 6 we can’t, how about Janet Napolitano

    narciso (ee1f88)

  69. Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie (f4eb27) — 9/12/2015 @ 5:53 pm

    Oh my. 🙁

    I don’t mean to aggrandize our suffering here in the US. Compared to life in most of the world–where life is nasty, brutish and short–we are blessed. But 9/11 and all the attacks that came before.. . we must learn from it. I disagree slightly with Gabriel: we have learned, the citizens have, but our ruling class hasn’t. Look at the way civilians spring into action on airplanes and on land–we know what we are up against, and our feckless government is part of that.

    Patricia (5fc097)

  70. Greeting fellow geezers.

    If you didn’t want to be singled out for sexual fondling by an incompetent unfireable deviant, you should have stayed out of the airport.

    papertiger (c2d6da)

  71. NOTHING bespeaks security like a otherwise unemployable teethsucker telling you to take off your shoes and belt. How dare we, you know, profile Arab males.

    Jeh Johnson and his minions couldn’t stop a nosebleed nor find an Irishman in Dublin. Jeh Johnson- is that some kind of joke name, like Biggus Dickus?

    Bugg (1e4a3b)

  72. He has a friend you know? Incontinentia. Incontinentia Buttocks…

    Gazzer (a2251b)

  73. Democracy folded like a cheap Hong Kong suit.

    It spun into PA farmland before its government could shoot it down.

    DNF (7c0dd2)

  74. Yeah, most of my students (college freshmen) don’t remember 9/11, and for those that do it constitutes one of their earliest memories. It kind of freaks me out.

    Jim S. (a95060)


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