9/11, eight years later

Looking back, I'm am an absolute idiot for bringing up such shit. To all of those who I offended with my incredible lapse in judgment, I'm very sorry.

 

Takes courage to admit a mistake, especially on a board where many spend numerous days pointing out how right their wrong really is.

 

As someone who struggled all day with the usual feelings and admittedly was bothered by the initial post, that was a fantastic apology.
Thank you.

Maybe a certain West Coast columnist could take note of it ...

 

I found a clip, and lost the link, of Rather breaking down on CBS News reporting the reaction of the firemen to one of the recoveries they made from the rubble...and the USA! USA! chant that broke out....sobbed like a baby. And so did I, again. The desperation and weariness of the rescuers...it just pierces my soul.

 

Reading these remembrances, I struggle yearly with how to feel about 9/11. I often first react by thinking, "We're so damn lucky. In some countries, real fear of a terrorist attack is a daily part of life." And then I realize how damn lucky we are as a country that 9/11 still resonates, eight years later.

Because there hasn't been another such attack.

I hope 9/11 resonates for my children the way December 7, 1941 stayed with my parents as something that shaped their reality. Because that will mean it hasn't been supplanted in recent memory by a similar tragedy.

 

Interesting to see someone remembering Capt. Hatton considering my direct link to 9/11 was one of his men, FF Gerard Nevins.

 

I always feel weird that I was in the city the night before for a Yankees game that never happened (it got rained out). I wasn't ever close to any danger, but waking up the next morning to my dad urgently telling me to turn on the TV, I couldn't help but think about how I was just a few miles away just a few hours earlier.

I've got a lot of other feelings about that day that I'll save for another thread, but the total helplessness I felt that day was overwhelming. My dad and I went to the local firestation, which was sending guys down there and asked if we could go and help, too. Basically we were told that at that point, with so many people GOING TO THE CITY to help (something I've always been proud of our fellow New Englanders about), we'd likely just be in the way unless we were trained in rescue procedures. I only wish that had been true.

 

I'll never forget the stream of emergency vehicles racing down I-95 toward NYC from CT, RI and MA.

 

I worked the night before at Harborside Financial Center, which is located across the Hudson River in Jersey City. I was working a 6 PM to 2 AM shift and in the concourse going from the PATH train to the E train at about 245-3 AM. If it had been reversed, I might have been on one of the last PATH trains to leave World Trade Center or worse been in the PATH station while it was happening.

 

One of the most god-awful things I've ever heard happened last night. Local high school football radio guys doing play by play, and a team recovers a fumble...

Jackass Announcer: "Coming up with that one in the pile was like picking through the rubble on Sept. 11!"

You stay classy, Mr. Jackass.

 

AARRGGHH!!!!!

 

Feel free to out that douchebag on here.