NationStates Jolt Archive

Five years ago some of us may have lost family, friends or acquaintances. Others know people who survived. What can you tell us about them?

I knew someone who worked at Cantor Fitzgerald. He survived because he wasn't in the office that morning. He had to go to so many funerals that he finally couldn't take it any more and moved out of NYC. I've lost track of him since then. I also knew someone who worked in the Pentagon. He wasn't in the section that was hit but had friends who were.

Let's remember them.

Five years ago some of us may have lost family, friends or acquaintances. Others know people who survived. What can you tell us about them?

I knew someone who worked at Cantor Fitzgerald. He survived because he wasn't in the office that morning. He had to go to so many funerals that he finally couldn't take it any more and moved out of NYC. I've lost track of him since then. I also knew someone who worked in the Pentagon. He wasn't in the section that was hit but had friends who were.

Let's remember them.

I know no-one(thankfully for me)but it is not the same for others.The taking of innocent lives can never be justified, whether in america or elsewhere.Wherever the dead have now gone, I hope they rest in peace.

Five years ago some of us may have lost family, friends or acquaintances. Others know people who survived. What can you tell us about them?

I knew someone who worked at Cantor Fitzgerald. He survived because he wasn't in the office that morning. He had to go to so many funerals that he finally couldn't take it any more and moved out of NYC. I've lost track of him since then. I also knew someone who worked in the Pentagon. He wasn't in the section that was hit but had friends who were.

Let's remember them.
My family was a victim of 9/11. That is, one of the many thousands upon thousands of indirect victims, affected by the change in the economy. Had 9/11 not occurred, my dad could be making over 1 million a year now at his old job in California. Instead, we went from broke to worse to being forced to live in my Aunt Linda's house for a year--a house meant for three that held seven, plus three dogs and a cat. A horrible time in my life, all things considered.

Truth is, we were all affected in one way or another. And yet, I don't hate. Hatred is an emotion I never allow myself to feel. My emotions are too damned hard for me to control as it is. If I allowed myself to hate, who knows WHAT could happen?

So, I remember. I remember my own personal tragedies, the tragedies of the attack, the affect it had on the world, the way Bush went and fucked it up as he always does. But then, I remeber everything.

(Yes, I was attempting to be somewhat profound with this post. I failed miserably, probably because I've got a headache equivalent to a tifini drum stick being pounded against my head by Arnold Swarzeneggar as hard as he can every two damned seconds.)

I was a partial victim of what occured in the United States on 11 September 2001 : my investment portfolio lost 27% of its cash projected value in the ensuring week.

He doesn't qualify as a survivor because he wasn't there but he was supposed to be, or could have been, I don't exactly know. He was doing some freelance work for some company in the buildings while he was recovering from an injury (he's a professional piano player who had strained his hands) and just wasn't there that day. He came back to California saying, "New York is trying to kill me."

I was a partial victim of what occured in the United States on 11 September 2001 : my investment portfolio lost 27% of its cash projected value in the ensuring week.
*shudder*

I’m not sure what effect 9-11 had on you. I was on the roof of the parking garage near Qwest in Arlington, when I heard a boom, and saw a pall of black smoke rising from the area of the Pentagon. Here’s something from a bit later (the following spring):


I spent some time at my daughter’s elementary school, which despite its presence in a fairly good neighborhood is probably as old as I am. I met her music teacher. She had gathered two classes of vocal students, separated by age, and gave private lessons in piano and a few other instruments. Things wore out, things atrophied; and yet so much of what I remember from my own experience in elementary school remained, essentially intact.

“Come see my primary chorus, John. You know, the little ones really have better voices than the older kids; it's always that way. Your can eat lunch with us, and then you can stay and listen till you get bored.” And so I lunched with them, and stayed and listened. The children arrived promptly, in clusters, obviously experienced pupils—feral out of doors, noisy but tractable as soon as they crossed the threshold. It was true that their voices had not yet lost the sweet clarity that their souls, being human, had never had; and she had schooled them into a lusty approximation of accuracy and order. They sang “John Peel” and “Auld Lang Syne” and “I've Been Workin’ on the Railroad.” They sang, pristinely as an inspiration:

Oats, peas, beans, and barley grow,
Oats, peas, beans, and barley grow.
Do you, or I, or anyone know
How oats, peas, beans, and barley grow?

I stayed longer than I had expected. They sang “America the Beautiful.”

How long since I had heard that song, or any such song? At least a few years, it must have been. I tried to recall some real or plausible last occasion from my disintegrated memories of the Time Before, and could not. And since that lost last time, my ears had been filled with the sad, wild anthems of the sterile plateaus.

Oh, beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved,
And mercy more than life.

And suddenly a real beauty trembled vainly up from the foolish words, and I was homesick, soul sick, for those alabaster cities that had never been and would never be. There people lived whose right name was patriots, and fed upon the golden wine of pride, the snowy bread of love. But there had never been a past from which that future might have come.

Had there been? I had been a child, too young to do anything real, too young really to understand; and when I began to understand, and to be old enough, it was too late for doing. That was easy to say.

I’m not sure what effect 9-11 had on you. I was on the roof of the parking garage near Qwest in Arlington, when I heard a boom, and saw a pall of black smoke rising from the area of the Pentagon. Here’s something from a bit later (the following spring):


I spent some time at my daughter’s elementary school, which despite its presence in a fairly good neighborhood is probably as old as I am. I met her music teacher. She had gathered two classes of vocal students, separated by age, and gave private lessons in piano and a few other instruments. Things wore out, things atrophied; and yet so much of what I remember from my own experience in elementary school remained, essentially intact.

“Come see my primary chorus, John. You know, the little ones really have better voices than the older kids; it's always that way. Your can eat lunch with us, and then you can stay and listen till you get bored.” And so I lunched with them, and stayed and listened. The children arrived promptly, in clusters, obviously experienced pupils—feral out of doors, noisy but tractable as soon as they crossed the threshold. It was true that their voices had not yet lost the sweet clarity that their souls, being human, had never had; and she had schooled them into a lusty approximation of accuracy and order. They sang “John Peel” and “Auld Lang Syne” and “I've Been Workin’ on the Railroad.” They sang, pristinely as an inspiration:

Oats, peas, beans, and barley grow,
Oats, peas, beans, and barley grow.
Do you, or I, or anyone know
How oats, peas, beans, and barley grow?

I stayed longer than I had expected. They sang “America the Beautiful.”

How long since I had heard that song, or any such song? At least a few years, it must have been. I tried to recall some real or plausible last occasion from my disintegrated memories of the Time Before, and could not. And since that lost last time, my ears had been filled with the sad, wild anthems of the sterile plateaus.

Oh, beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved,
And mercy more than life.

And suddenly a real beauty trembled vainly up from the foolish words, and I was homesick, soul sick, for those alabaster cities that had never been and would never be. There people lived whose right name was patriots, and fed upon the golden wine of pride, the snowy bread of love. But there had never been a past from which that future might have come.

Had there been? I had been a child, too young to do anything real, too young really to understand; and when I began to understand, and to be old enough, it was too late for doing. That was easy to say.

Again, well put.

I didn't know anyone in the towers, at the Pentagon or in the planes, but my father and other members of his team participated in the rescue efforts in the hours and days after the attacks.

I won't claim to be a survivor or a victim, direct or indirect. Yes, my family suffered the same strain placed on the economy as everyone else. Yes, we went from being able for my college in cash like we would have been able to to barely being able to afford to send me at all. But we aren't victims. The economy changes. It always has. But for as badly as we were affected, so many more were affected so much worse. And so we do what we can to ease the suffering of others. We lost a few thousand dollars. Some lost their husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters. To say that I was a victim would to be doing them a disrespect.

My cousin walked his class of school children to each of their homes and was awarded a medal for it by the city. Apparently, when he came home he was covered in dust and pretty much collapsed. He died about a month ago.

I have a second cousin on my dad's side, so my dad's cousin, who was in the Port Authority at the time he and one other guy were the only two from the guys he worked with that weren't killed.

I had a second cousin die in the WTC, which is just one of many reasons I deeply resent people using 'the events of september eleventh' as a justification for hatemongering against Islam, or for jingoistic warmongering.

I know a friend who lost a cousin, I'll have to ask him where he worked...

A friend of ours worked for Cantor Fitzgerald as well. He died that day.
I watched his wife read his name at Ground Zero today. His first and only child was born in December of 2001.

Another friend's cousin was killed that day. I played a round of golf with him once, a few beers afterwards. The impact on my friend is tremendous, this is always a bad day for him.

My brother's office moved out of the WTC in May 2001. Thank God.

One of my best childhood friends that I had lost track of durring college was on the top floor of the trade center when it was hit. he didnt even work there he was just visiting another friend for a week and had gone up there to hang out a while since he was on vacation. I didnt even know till a week later when his older brother stopped me and asked if I was going to the funeral. It totally destroyed his mom. She had a break down and tried to kill her self.

Since ~3000 people died, I'm sure that there are plenty of people who know survivors of 9/11 and no victims at all.

Like all my mates. There.

I had an IRC bot running on a computer in the WTC. On Sept 11, he simply wasn't there in the room anymore.

*sniff*

We miss you, GM-Bot.

I’m not sure what effect 9-11 had on you. I was on the roof of the parking garage near Qwest in Arlington, when I heard a boom, and saw a pall of black smoke rising from the area of the Pentagon. Here’s something from a bit later (the following spring):


I spent some time at my daughter’s elementary school, which despite its presence in a fairly good neighborhood is probably as old as I am. I met her music teacher. She had gathered two classes of vocal students, separated by age, and gave private lessons in piano and a few other instruments. Things wore out, things atrophied; and yet so much of what I remember from my own experience in elementary school remained, essentially intact.

“Come see my primary chorus, John. You know, the little ones really have better voices than the older kids; it's always that way. Your can eat lunch with us, and then you can stay and listen till you get bored.” And so I lunched with them, and stayed and listened. The children arrived promptly, in clusters, obviously experienced pupils—feral out of doors, noisy but tractable as soon as they crossed the threshold. It was true that their voices had not yet lost the sweet clarity that their souls, being human, had never had; and she had schooled them into a lusty approximation of accuracy and order. They sang “John Peel” and “Auld Lang Syne” and “I've Been Workin’ on the Railroad.” They sang, pristinely as an inspiration:

Oats, peas, beans, and barley grow,
Oats, peas, beans, and barley grow.
Do you, or I, or anyone know
How oats, peas, beans, and barley grow?

I stayed longer than I had expected. They sang “America the Beautiful.”

How long since I had heard that song, or any such song? At least a few years, it must have been. I tried to recall some real or plausible last occasion from my disintegrated memories of the Time Before, and could not. And since that lost last time, my ears had been filled with the sad, wild anthems of the sterile plateaus.

Oh, beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved,
And mercy more than life.

And suddenly a real beauty trembled vainly up from the foolish words, and I was homesick, soul sick, for those alabaster cities that had never been and would never be. There people lived whose right name was patriots, and fed upon the golden wine of pride, the snowy bread of love. But there had never been a past from which that future might have come.

Had there been? I had been a child, too young to do anything real, too young really to understand; and when I began to understand, and to be old enough, it was too late for doing. That was easy to say.
Very well put. I feel like nearly every American has no sense of patriotism except for a select few.
I hear that after 9/11, some liberals solution to the terrorists was "give them therapy"... OHOHOHOHOHOAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH and once again, AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!! they are driven by their religion, not some mental disorder. Bush did the right thing going to war on Terrorism... now the war in IRAQ was a different story and, therefore, shouldnt have been done.
Oh yeah, and anyone who makes fun of victims of 9/11, or whines about losing a bot or 27% of their stock portfolio or whatever, :upyours: WERE TALKING ABOUT 3000+ HUMAN LIVES HERE, IRREPLACABLE HUMAN LIVES!

My brother is one of the missing. He worked at an insurance company. Wore a suit a tie. Never hurt anyone.

He was real fastidious about his clothes. I'm sure he's really piss off that someone dropped a building on him.:sniper: :upyours:

So long Dave, we all miss you.:(

Very well put. I feel like nearly every American has no sense of patriotism except for a select few.
And that's a bloody good thing.

Patriotism is just blind, stupid faith in your own country, with no logical reason for it.
I hear that after 9/11, some liberals solution to the terrorists was "give them therapy"...OHOHOHOHOHOAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH and once again, AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!
A damn good idea compared to the cretinous "shoot them if they're brown" ideals of most conservatives.
they are driven by their religion, not some mental disorder.
No, they're not.

They're driven by a hatred of the US for what it has done in the past - religion is not a part of the whole issue, it's merely a pretext.

If an Arab blew up your house, you'd want to kill them, but you'd probably want some kind of reason to find solace in that doesn't just suggest you're taking things a little too far.

So you read yourself some Bible extracts to do with war, and you go "you know what, yeah, that'll be my reason for it all".

The religious element was a pretext if it existed in the minds of the attackers, and blatant fearmongering on the part of the US government, which has led to some shocking levels of intolerance.
Bush did the right thing going to war on Terrorism
You cannot go to war on an ideology... how the fucking hell do you expect a tank to somehow defeat a mindset?

Come on, let's have a "War on dèja vu" fought in a similar fashion... it's just as sensible after all.

Oh yeah, and anyone who makes fun of victims of 9/11, or whines about losing a bot or 27% of their stock portfolio or whatever, :upyours: WERE TALKING ABOUT 3000+ HUMAN LIVES HERE, IRREPLACABLE HUMAN LIVES!
More people die of Malaria every day, many thousands of a lack of clean drinking water, or a lack of food ever single day and are those deaths reported in such a similar matter?

No. Not at all.

The only time you hear about it is in charity appeals.

And I'd much rather the US spent $700 billion on sorting that kind of thing out, rather than killing people who have nothing to do with the 20-or-so responsible for the attacks in the Middle East.

More people die of Malaria every day, many thousands of a lack of clean drinking water, or a lack of food ever single day and are those deaths reported in such a similar matter?

No. Not at all.

The only time you hear about it is in charity appeals.

And I'd much rather the US spent $700 billion on sorting that kind of thing out, rather than killing people who have nothing to do with the 20-or-so responsible for the attacks in the Middle East.

No one cares what you think in this thread. This one is about remembering victims and survivors.

Go peddle your biased spittle somewhere else- make your own thread up, if you like.

Patriotism is just blind, stupid faith in your own country, with no logical reason for it.

Actually, no it isn't just blind stupid faith.

The religious element was a pretext if it existed in the minds of the attackers, and blatant fearmongering on the part of the US government, which has led to some shocking levels of intolerance.
It's not a pretext to al-Qaeda.

You cannot go to war on an ideology... how the fucking hell do you expect a tank to somehow defeat a mindset?
We did a number on Communism, which is an ideology.

They're driven by a hatred of the US for what it has done in the past - religion is not a part of the whole issue, it's merely a pretext.

Of course. That also explains all the German homicide bombers, driven by a hatred of the US for what it did during WWII. And let's not forget all those Japanese terrorists--hey, they're the original kamikazes--who are driven by a hatred of the US for Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

On second thought, that is another absurd argument by Islamo-Nazi apologists that doesn't withstand scrutiny.

We were very lucky.

My sister frequently passes the towers taking her kids places. She over slept that day.

Two friends of ours did temp work in the towers all the time. Both had finished a job the week before.

I helped a friend in Malaysia track down his fiance. She was here visiting one of the companies in the towers. He was frantic because he could not fly over and he could not find her. Turns out she got caught up in a crowd that ran. Brused but ok.

A friend of mine was in the second tower. When the first tower was hit they were told to evacuate. She was on the 33rd floor. They were told to use the stairs. She had made it to the 17th floor when they were told it was all ok. A plane had hit the first tower and they could go back to work. She decided that that just wasn't safe enough for her and she continued on down. The tower she was in was hit as she reached the 3rd floor. Luckily she managed to make it out ok. She had to walk home (about 3 hrs walk) and she was only wearing high heels. Was close... I'm just thankful she is so stubborn. She said a lot of people were heading back to their desks and didn't make it out as a consequence.
It was a terrible tragedy.. just as the ensuing "War" it is supposed to have justified is a tragedy.
People die all the time for all sorts of reasons, neglect, foolishness, ignorance, poverty, disease but the worst of all are hatred and its partner vengeance.

My point by laughing at the "therapy" solution is that people who are driven by the idea that, by killing 3000+ people who had nothing to do with whatever they were pissed at the U.S. about, they are going to get 72 virgins in heaven arent going to be like "oh my god, killing people is wrong! I must <insert something that you do after therapy works here>"
And those malaria deaths you were talking about... MALARIA IS A DISEASE NOT SOMETHING INTENTIONAL LIKE CRASHING TWO PLANES INTO BUILDINGS FULL OF PEOPLE WHO DID ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO PROVOKE YOU!!!!
I dont believe in the "shoot them if they're brown" thing. Most people i know dont... most people i know are uber-conservatives too.
IMHO, diplomacy is good, and it keeps away a lot of conflict, but no matter what, there will be groups that dont listen to diplomacy or are fed up with it, and will just fight fight fight, so the only way to deal with them is to PHYSICALLY stop them.
Also, one of my friends (one of the few liberals i know) has a cousin who was fighting in Iraq, came back and told him something... I promised not to give exact details but it has something to do with uranium, nuclear weapon specs, and Sadaam