If tempted by something that feels 'altruistic', examine your motives and root out that self-deception. Then, if you still want to do it, wallow in it! -- Robert Heinlein
**Update- I noticed this was a CBS or 60 Minutes production. That’s even worse considering they probably didn’t want to pre-empt CSI. Pathetic.
Ever. Not ever.
When I was in the Navy (lo, these many moons ago), I was involved in the first Gulf War. It was the middle week of July, 1990, and I was going on a six-month deployment to the Persan Gulf. My older sister had just had a baby girl a few days earlier and she and my mother had made a special trip down to San Diego to introduce me to my niece.
A few days after I held her for the very first time (but certainly not for the last, because she is a wonderful young lady, just turned 13, although she’s too big to pick up now), we left port on what we thought was going to be a standard deployment.
Our last stop in the States was Hawaii, and it was supposed to be a three-day-long stopover, allowing everyone a chance to stretch their legs and pick up whatever we might have forgotten (books, tapes, personal stuff). It wasn’t, because the day before we pulled in, Saddam’s forces swarmed into Kuwait, and all of our scheduled stopovers were abruptly cancelled, with two of them shifted into a “gas-n-go” with barely enough time to actually get down to the piers and walk on “dry land”. I did manage to get samples of the local currency in both the Phillipines and Sri Lanka, but then came the entrance to the Gulf.
We had no idea how (or if) the Iranians were involved, but it was a well-known fact that they had anti-ship missile emplacements that could reach all the way across that narrow gap into the Persian (or “Arabian") Gulf. So we were on Condition 3 (wartime) steaming from the moment we got within a hundred miles of the Gulf. That never stopped.
I’ll be skipping all the fun stories and interesting anecdotes (and r-e-a-l-l-y l-o-n-g a-n-d b-o-o-o-o-r-i-n-g watches in the middle of the night) that happened during that period, and I mention all of this because we were on our way out, having been replaced by forces more adequately armed and provisioned. We had transferred almost all of our missiles (and bullets) to another ship that had arrived two months after we did.
That narrow gap was no less dangerous for departing ships, but it was especially nervous for us on that day for one additional reason. That day was December 7th. The 49th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
That anniversary day was in all of our minds that day. Not because we had been there on that “day which will live in infamy”, but because we remembered the significance of the concept of a sneak attack.
The kind of attack that was perpetrated by a group of 19 monsters, who saw us not as fellow human beings, with our own cultures and beliefs, but as sub-human infidels who were deserving of nothing but death because we didn’t worship at the same altar they did.
That significance lives with us again today, and the lives of thousands of victims and hundreds of heroes on every September 11th will be remembered and celebrated.
Because we will not forget. Ever. Not ever.
Timeline of events
8:45 a.m. (all times are EDT): American Airlines Flight 11 out of Boston, MA, crashes into the north tower of the World Trade Center.
9:03 a.m.: United Airlines Flight 175 from Boston, crashes into the south tower of the World Trade Center. Both buildings are burning.
9:17 a.m.: The FAA shuts down all NYC area airports.
9:40 a.m.: The FAA halts all flight operations at U.S. airports.
9:43 a.m.: American Airlines Flight 77 crashes into the Pentagon.
10:05 a.m.: The south tower of the World Trade Center collapses.
10:10 a.m.: A portion of the Pentagon collapses.
10:10 a.m.: United Airlines Flight 93 crashes in Somerset County, PA, southeast of Pittsburgh.
10:24 a.m.: The FAA reports that all inbound transatlantic aircraft flying into the United States are being diverted to Canada.
10:28 a.m.: The World Trade Center’s north tower collapses.
11:18 a.m.: American Airlines reports it has lost two aircraft: American Flight 11, a Boeing 767 flying from Boston to Los Angeles, had 81 passengers and 11 crew aboard, and Flight 77, a Boeing 757 en route from Washington’s Dulles International Airport to Los Angeles, had 58 passengers and six crew members aboard. Flight 11 was steered into the north tower of the World Trade Center, while Flight 77 hit the Pentagon.
11:26 a.m.: United Airlines reports that United Flight 93, en route from Newark, NJ, to San Francisco has crashed in Pennsylvania. The airline also reports that it is “deeply concerned” about Flight 175.
11:59 a.m.: United Airlines confirms that Flight 175, from Boston to Los Angeles, has crashed into the WTC south tower with 56 passengers and nine crew members aboard.
4:06 p.m.: California Gov. Gray Davis dispatches urban search-and-rescue teams to New York. (He deserves appropriate credit for that act.)
4:10 p.m.: Building 7 of the World Trade Center complex is reported on fire.
5:20 p.m.: The 48-story Building 7 of the World Trade Center complex collapses.
7:45 p.m.: The NYPD says that “at least 78 officers are missing”, and that as many as half of the first 400 firefighters on the scene were killed.
God bless them, every one. (Except 19.)
Less...
On the night of Sept 10th, 2001, I could not sleep(I’m sure I wasn’t the only one). Tossed and turned all night. Finally I just got up at 4am and puttered around for an hour. Soon after, I tried getting some sleep before work. As luck would have it, I didn’t have to be in early on that Tuesday morning.
After a few hours of sleep, I just woke up. As if sensing something, my brain just kicked on and I was awake. As I rose from bed, I could hear the anchorman downstairs on the T.V. I can still remember him sounding distinctly different with his tone. The more I listened, the more I felt uneasy. Something bad had happened and the worst part was yet to appear....
