In Remembrance of this day 9-11-01

I believe each and every one of us remember with finite clarity where we were on this day nine years ago...

September 10, 2001 was the evening I flew out of New York to arrive back in Austin, having spent three weeks in the city working with various clients and visiting many old friends; riding the subways, not speaking to anyone, head down in my private bubble of space; jostling my way through the sidewalks, staring straight ahead; cars honking, people cursing; each in our own little world...

I sat in stunned silence on the back deck of my home that next morning, drinking coffee, the radio telling me that a plane flew into the Tower, and then another plane flew into the other Tower, and then a report of a plane hitting the Pentagon, and then a report of a plane crashing in Pennsylvannia, a progression of horrors one after another.....

I lost eleven friends in the two Towers that day....

I returned to New York three weeks later; this time to attend two funerals; I rode the subway, head up and people nodding, saying hello. I walked the sidewalks nodding hello to people, people holding doors for each other, people sharing cabs uptown, a feeling of everyone embracing each other in a blanket of a shared grief and comraderie...

Today is a day to pause, reflect, and never forget.....

Today is a day to remember where you were nine years ago and were you are today.....

Very well said Runwithscissors!
I remember well where I was that day, and the many feelings running through me at the time. I had been out the military for some time but I knew I had to do something.
A few weeks later I began a journey that would change my life in many ways. I eventually wound up in Iraq, then in Afghanistan where I'm still working today.
It saddens me at times that so many people in the U.S.A. seem to have forgotten just how horrible that day was 9 years ago. I've met many people who've mentioned that it's "time to move on". For the military and civilians that are overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan, we see all too often why we can't simply "move on". Our job's not finished. Sorry to say, it may not be for years to come. My son is 15 now, he was nine when I started my first rotation in Iraq. It's certainly crossed my mind that the possibility exists that he'll be old enough to serve and could be deployed to take part in this fight before I'm done.
Today I try to put that thought aside and simply focus on remembering why I'm here, remembering those we lost not only on 9/11 but in the fight since then. My company has lost 36 men between Iraq and Afghanistan with many more seriously wounded.
I think of them, I think of those lost on 9/11 and I think of the way I would like our country to be in the future, the way it once was in the past. Safe, secure, prosperous and serving as a beacon of hope and light to many others around the world.

to all the people that suffered that day, the workers the emergency teams or any one this day affected, may god bless.and thanks for our troops bless them as well.

MJ, I agree completely, and there is alot of us that don't feel that we need to put this behind us, especially now as our country is being attached from all sides. Outside and from within. My son is now sworn in the the Marines, to be leaving shortly and I feel both a sense of pride and a little trepidation as I know he will be standing in the front of the line to protect what he knows he should. I hope America wakes up soon and realizes this fight will not go away. We cannot turn the other cheek unless it is to pick up a bigger club to put down the rabid dog that has, is and will continue to attach our way of life as they live their hypocritical ones.

Thank you for being where you are and doing what you do everyday.

Justice, I wish your Son a safe tour and of course a safe return home at the end of his tour. There used to be a saying...."I fight so my children won't have to".....As I mentioned earlier, I think we're in for the long haul on this one so I kind of tend to go with another one from a wise lady named Golda Meir....."There can be no peace until they learn to love their children more than they hate us". That saying was very applicable to Israel's situation then and today and I believe it is becoming applicable to our Country as well.
Stay well,

MJ

MJ, I agree completely, and there is alot of us that don't feel that we need to put this behind us, especially now as our country is being attached from all sides. Outside and from within. My son is now sworn in the the Marines, to be leaving shortly and I feel both a sense of pride and a little trepidation as I know he will be standing in the front of the line to protect what he knows he should. I hope America wakes up soon and realizes this fight will not go away. We cannot turn the other cheek unless it is to pick up a bigger club to put down the rabid dog that has, is and will continue to attach our way of life as they live their hypocritical ones.

Thank you for being where you are and doing what you do everyday. Originally Posted by justice04

There are still men and women amongst us who beleive in the truths of honor and country. Justice, Sir, you raised the man who will stand his ground for my safety. "The few the proud" I will thank you first Sir for having the strength, integrity and fortitude to raise such a man, and second your son, by foresaking his own safety on behalf of mine. I pray (yes to God) your son will return home safely.

Justice, I wish your Son a safe tour and of course a safe return home at the end of his tour. There used to be a saying...."I fight so my children won't have to".....As I mentioned earlier, I think we're in for the long haul on this one so I kind of tend to go with another one from a wise lady named Golda Meir....."There can be no peace until they learn to love their children more than they hate us". That saying was very applicable to Israel's situation then and today and I believe it is becoming applicable to our Country as well.
Stay well,

MJ Originally Posted by mj2749

Mj, thank you sir for your contribution to our country, I hope your son never sees war. "I fight so my children won't have to" Wow a powerful statement so true for those who have the courage.
"A long haul" most Americans have no patience for. The right now generation, who have never had to endure or suffer a hardship (other than poor cell phone service) to acheive a goal.
I also sat in silence, stunned by the violent assault on my country. A rude awakening to a cruelty in this world. I salute you, (ladies and gentlemen) who do and will stand, for something other than immediate personal satisfaction.
Thanks RWS for a great thread.

Sorry but the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq had nothing to do with the nineteen or so individuals who flew the planes that day, or the handful of others who led them. By now that should be rather clear.

The government, corporate, and intellectual figures who callously used the horrible deaths of the victims to form pretexts for their own blood-drenched agendas are criminals every bit as much as the terrorists who flew the planes.

Every aspect of this mess was totally preventable.

When I worked in government in the 1980s we had an ironclad policy that the US military presence was to be kept "over the horizon" from the Arabian Gulf. This was the case because we knew that public opinion there would be rabidly opposed to us basing in any country there, much less Saudi Arabia itself where the most sacred sites of Islam are located. Our recent violation of that single principle is what has inflamed public opinion there against us. It is the reason why money and aid from all over the region pours into the coffers of the Taliban to kill Americans in Afghanistan. It forms the single grievance which motivates Osama bin-Ladin.

All the US has to do is withdraw militarily from the region, and end its support of Israel's ethnic cleansing and wars of aggression/expansion, and there would be no muslim terrorists to contend against.

The assertion that terrorists wish to harm Americans because "they hate our freedom" or because "they will kill us because we are not muslims" are claims made by people who have no knowledge whatsoever of the issues [or more accurately are seeking to mislead you].

You will not find one person in any intelligence service of the US who would differ from my statements. Intelligence personnel like Michael Scheurer have written extensively on the topic. You can find this knoweldge in any of the foreign policy community journals like Foreign Affairs, International Security, or Foreign Policy. These are the sources which real participants in foreign policy find their information...not from distorted profit-making sources like The New York Times or CNN or Fox News.

Unfortunately our government operates in such a way that the knowledge of intelligence officers is routinely pushed aside when it interferes with a political or corporate agenda. That's a principle reason why I left government work.

theaustinescorts, you are free to dissent to your heart's content. (Accidental rhyme).
However I can't ignore your attempt to re-write history, your thinly veiled antisemitism or your accusatory statements such as: "The assertion that terrorists wish to harm Americans because "they hate our freedom" or because "they will kill us because we are not muslims" are claims made by people who have no knowledge whatsoever of the issues [or more accurately are seeking to mislead you]."

To start with, it seems as if you are the one trying to mislead and perhaps not only in regards to this issue (but readers are free to check some other threads in that "other" regard" but we'll stick to the current issue at hand.

Let's take it one step at a time, historically speaking. Not only is it today's Islamic extremists (notice I did not say Muslim, but instead the radical extremists within their ranks) intent to want to spread Islam and kill or convert non-believers, it's been their mission since the beginning of their religion. After all, Mohammed tried his very best since 622 A.D to convert the world to Islam. Of course his first attempt, made among the educated Arabs in Mecca resulted in him being run out with his tail between his legs. Our young Mohammed was no fool however. He soon realized that by concentrating on the less educated tribes people, the disenfranchised, poor and other outcasts, he could find more success in spreading his message. (Sound familiar to today's terrorists brainwashing techniques?).
Do to time and space restraints I won't dwell on the entire history of Islamic conquests, conquests that by the way reached the very heart of Europe, (Vienna Austria) before being turned back. I'm sure though they meant well, as they laid an entire continent under the sword and killed anyone who did NOT either pay them tribute or convert to Islam, right Austin Escorts?
Let's fast forward though to your many other false assertions in our more recent history.
When Israel declared Independence in 1948, they reached out to the Palestinians living among them. They told them that they could remain on their land, that Israel intended to live in peace with them and that they had nothing to fear from the creation of the Jewish State (for the record, I'm not Jewish). The Arabs however had quite a different mssg for the Palestinians at the time. They encouraged them to give up their lands, come to the various Arab states, join their fight against Israel and they would be richly rewarded for doing so. The Arabs assured the Palestinian people that victory over Israel would be swift and sure.
Approximately 80% of the 950,000 Palestinians living in Israel placed their bets on their Arab brothers. When the Arabs were defeated, not only did the Palestinians now have no land (land which they voluntarily surrendered believing in an Arab victory) but they quickly found out that their Arab "brothers" wanted nothing to do with them in most cases and certainly didn't want them remaining in their country.
Fast forward to 1967...the next great Palestinian exodus from Israeli territory after another failed attempt to wipe out the Jewish State. This time King Hussein of Jordan offered the Palestinians a homeland within Jordan. The Palestinians repaid this kindness from the king with an uprising withing Jordan and a plot to assassinate King Hussein. Again, no other Arab country during this time wanted to be "burdened" with the Palestinians. They apparently were useful as cannon fodder for the doomed Arab attempts to wipe out Israel but once the cause was lost, so went the interest in the Palestinians' well being.
The most outrageous point you try to make is that it was our military presence in Saudi Arabia that "caused" 9/11.
My friend, the seeds for that attack were laid as far back as the 1950's. That's when a new and radical form of Islam was spreading throughout the Middle East. The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt were at the time very upset that the Egyptian leaders were trying to modernize their country and become more equal with the West. The Muslim Brotherhood wanted to see a return to Islamic fundamentalism, no different then today's Al-Queda and Taliban offspring of the Brotherhood. They rose up in Egypt and were crushed by the Egyptian government. They did not remain dormant for long.
In the 1970's, as Anwar Sadat tried to find a lasting peace with Israel, when Jordan wanted to normalize relations with Israel, the Muslim Brotherhood knew that peace was on the horizon. They assassinated Anwar Sadat in Egypt. The subsequent round-up of many of the Muslim Brotherhood and their incarceration in Egyptian jails led to many of them making new connections within the terrorist world and hatching new plots to carry out upon their release.
Two of Bin Laden's closest associates and advisers were part of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and it is well documented that Bin Laden himself was heavily influenced by the writings and books of Sayyid Qutb.
So it's documented fact that the Muslim Brotherhood started preaching it's extremism as far back as 1928! It's documented fact that many Arab countries aligned themselves with Nazi Germany and it's extremist views during WW2.
Apparently you missed the whole decade of the 1970's before you entered "government service". You know, this would be the decade when radical Islam was not only alive and well in Egypt as discussed above but also across much of the Middle East. It's when Iranian Islamic fundamentalists took over Iran and seized our Embassy along with 52 American hostages for 444 days. Tell me, Austin Escorts, how many U.S. troops did we have in Mecca in 1979??!!
As the flames of Islamic extremism roared across the Middle East, Egypt, Lebanon, Iran, etc, so did the incidents of attacks against Americans. The bombing of our U.S. Embassy in Beirut, the taking of hostages, the hijacking of any Airplanes that carried large amounts of non-Islamic passengers, the seizing of Cruise Ships and execution of handicapped vacationers, attacks on airports in Europe, attacks on U.S. military bases in Europe...the list goes on and on.
How do you attempt to mislead readers of your post that today's Islamic terrorism suddenly materialized because we stationed U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia after the first Gulf War?
It did NOT suddenly materialize because of U.S. policy in the 1990's. It started with the Prophet Mohammed, once they lost their military might, they bid their time until they could strike again. Since at least 1928 in this modern time period, they have been preaching the overthrow of the West, the necessity to spread Islam across the entire world, by choice were they see it possible, by force when necessary.
You Sir, can quote as many "Foreign Affairs" articles as you like. I'm well aware of who writes them.
I'm also quite capable of researching and studying history on my own, not relying on the "opinion" of someone trying to make a name for themselves in the State Department.
I'm currently in a unique position to see some of our Government Officials at work, up close and personal. I must say, I'm not impressed. Most of them are hard pressed to remember what took place yesterday, much less the history involved in the spread of radical Islamic extremism.
So with all due respect Sir, I dissent with your attempts to re-write history. I dissent with your attempts to somehow convince us that it's "OUR" fault that we were attacked on 9/11.
I'll save my dissent of you using pictures from the internet to represent some of your providers for the other thread.
Enjoy your day today Sir. Enjoy your freedom to dissent. It was brought to you by the fine men and women of the United States Armed Forces who have died for that very freedom for over 200 years.

I knew this would turn into a loaded thread....

Sincere condolences to all the families who still mourn the victims of that sad day in American history. Political agendas aside.

Bless those who lost their lives on 9-11 and/or who lost someone they knew or loved on that fateful day.

Much gratitude and admiration to those who are and have served our great country. You truly are the real heroes....

sixx

O.k., so I'll be the first to admit that I get a little emotional when it comes to today's anniversary. I did not mean to digress or take away from the intention of this thread which is to commemorate those we lost on that day......

I do however refuse to buy into the "Everything is America's fault" rhetoric. I've seen it used too many times to excuse and minimize the harm others inflict on our Country.

I believe the video referenced in my 9/11 Tribute link communicates quite clearly our purpose in prosecuting the War On Terror.

Here is information on an excellent documentary about the 9/11 attack and the history leading up to it that aired on the National Geographic Channel...

Inside 9/11

GOOGLE BUILDING 7 Explains a lot

Before any more conspiracy theorists come out about how 9/11 was our fault or that it was our own government that blew up the World Trade Center and surrounding buildings (the infamous building 7 according to LJ) I just thought I would share some "good news".
It was just announced that the first Medal of Honor to a living Afghanistan vet will be presented soon.
Army Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta from Company B 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade will be receiving the Medal of Honor for his actions in the Korengal Valley Afghanistan.

Congratulations to Staff Sergeant Giunta on receiving our Nation's highest military award for courage and bravery.

Here's a excerpt from Sebastian Junger's (author of "The Perfect Storm") excellent book: "WAR". For those who haven't read it, it's well worth your time. Junger embedded with Battle Company in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan and followed them over the period of a year.
This guy reports first hand what he sees, the good, the bad with no sugarcoating or glorification.
There's no conspiracy theories here, only the reporting on what some of our brave men in the military face here in Afghanistan.
EXCERPT from "WAR":

The soldiers walk single file along the crest of the spur spaced ten or fifteen yards apart. The terrain falls off steeply on both sides into holly forests and shale scree. The moon is so bright that they’re not even using night vision gear. Unknown to Winn and his men, three enemy fighters are arrayed across the crest of the ridge below them, waiting with AK-47s. Parallel to the trail are ten more fighters with belt-fed machine guns and RPGs. In the U.S. military, this is known as an “L-shaped ambush.” Correctly done, a handful of men can wipe out an entire platoon. Walking point is Sergeant Josh Brennan, an alpha team leader. He’s followed by a SAW gunner named Eckrode and then Staff Sergeant Erick Gallardo and then Specialist Sal Giunta, bravo team leader. Giunta is from Iowa and joined the Army after hearing a radio commercial while working at a Subway sandwich shop in his hometown.

“Out of nothing  —  out of taking your next step  —  just rows of tracers, RPGs, everything happening out of nowhere with no real idea of how it [expletive] happened --  but it happened,” Giunta told me. “Everything kind of slowed down and I did everything I thought I could do, nothing more and nothing less.”

The Apache pilots watch this unfold below them but are powerless to help because the combatants are too close together. At the bottom of the hill, Second Platoon hears an enormous firefight erupt, but they too just hold their fire and hope it turns out well. At first, the sheer volume of firepower directed at Brennan’s squad negates any conceivable tactical response. A dozen Taliban fighters with rockets and belt-fed machine guns are shooting from behind cover at a distance of fifteen or twenty feet; First Platoon is essentially inside a shooting gallery. Within seconds, every man in the lead squad takes a bullet. Brennan goes down immediately, wounded in eight places. Eckrode takes rounds through his thigh and calf and falls back to lay down suppressive fire with his SAW. Gallardo takes a round in his helmet and falls down but gets back up. Doc Mendoza, farther down the line, takes a round through the femur and immediately starts bleeding out.

After months of fighting an enemy that stayed hundreds of yards away, the shock of facing them at a distance of twenty feet cannot be overstated. Giunta gets hit in his front plate and in his assault pack and he barely notices except that the rounds came from a strange direction. Sheets of tracers are coming from his left, but the rounds that hit him seemed to come from dead ahead. He’s down in a small washout along the trail where the lip of packed earth should have protected him, but it didn’t. “That’s when I kind of noticed something was wrong,” Giunta said. “The rounds came right down the draw and there are three people  —  all friends  —  in the same vicinity. It happened so fast, you don’t think too hard about it, but it’s something to keep in mind.”

Much later, a military investigation will determine that the enemy was trying to throw up a “wall of lead” between the first few men and the rest of the unit so that they could be overrun and captured. Gallardo understands this instinctively and tries to push through the gunfire to link up with his alpha team, Brennan and Eckrode. Twenty or thirty RPGs come sailing into their position and explode among the trees. When Gallardo goes down with a bullet to the helmet, Giunta runs over to him to drag him behind cover, but Gallardo gets back on his feet immediately. They’re quickly joined by Giunta’s SAW gunner, PFC Casey, and the three men start pushing forward by throwing hand grenades and sprinting between the blasts. Even enemy who are not hit are so disoriented by the concussion that they have trouble functioning for a second or two. The group quickly makes it to Eckrode, who’s wounded and desperately trying to fix an ammo jam in his SAW, and Gallardo and Casey stay with him while Giunta continues on his own. He throws his last grenade and then sprints the remaining ground to where Brennan should be. The Gatigal spur is awash in moonlight, and in the silvery shadows of the holly forests he sees two enemy fighters dragging Josh Brennan down the hillside. He empties his M4 magazine at them and starts running toward his friend.

The Army has a certain interest in understanding what was going through Giunta’s mind during all of this, because whatever was going through his mind helped save the entire unit from getting killed. A year or so later, several squads of American soldiers conducted an identical L-shaped ambush at night on the Abas Ghar and wiped out a column of Taliban fighters — nearly twenty men. The reason First Platoon did not get wiped out had nothing to do with the Apaches flying overhead or the 155s at Blessing; it was because the men reacted not as individuals but as a unit. Stripped to its essence, combat is a series of quick decisions and rather precise actions carried out in concert with ten or twelve other men. In that sense it’s much more like football than, say, like a gang fight. The unit that choreographs their actions best usually wins. They might take casualties, but they win.

That choreography  —  you lay down fire while I run forward, then I cover you while you move your team up  —  is so powerful that it can overcome enormous tactical deficits. There is choreography for storming Omaha Beach, for taking out a pillbox bunker, and for surviving an L-shaped ambush at night on the Gatigal. The choreography always requires that each man make decisions based not on what’s best for him, but on what’s best for the group. If everyone does that, most of the group survives. If no one does, most of the group dies. That, in essence, is combat.

Most firefights go by so fast that acts of bravery or cowardice are more or less spontaneous. Soldiers might live the rest of their lives regretting a decision that they don’t even remember making; they might receive a medal for doing something that was over before they even knew they were doing it. When Congressional Medal of Honor recipient Audie Murphy was asked why he took on an entire company of German infantry by himself, he replied famously, “They were killing my friends.” Wars are won or lost because of the aggregate effect of thousands of decisions like that during firefights that often last only minutes or seconds. Giunta estimates that not more than ten or fifteen seconds elapsed between the initial attack and his own counterattack. An untrained civilian would have experienced those ten or fifteen seconds as a disorienting barrage of light and noise and probably have spent most of it curled up on the ground. An entire platoon of men who react that way would undoubtedly die to the last man.

Giunta, on the other hand, used those fifteen seconds to assign rates and sectors of fire to his team, run to Gallardo’s assistance, assess the direction of a round that hit him in the chest, and then throw three hand grenades while assaulting an enemy position. Every man in the platoon  —  even the ones who were wounded  —  acted as purposefully and efficiently as Giunta did. For obvious reasons, the Army has tried very hard to understand why some men respond effectively in combat and others just freeze. “I did what I did because that’s what I was trained to do,” Giunta told me. “There was a task that had to be done, and the part that I was gonna do was to link alpha and bravo teams. I didn’t run through fire to save a buddy  —  I ran through fire to see what was going on with him and maybe we could hide behind the same rock and shoot together. I didn’t run through fire to do anything heroic or brave. I did what I believe anyone would have done.”


One of the Taliban fighters falls to the ground, dead, and the other releases Brennan and escapes downhill through the trees. Giunta jams a new magazine into his gun and yells for a medic. Brennan is lying badly wounded in the open and Giunta grabs him by the vest and drags him behind a little bit of cover. He cuts the ammo rack off his chest and pulls the rip cord on his ballistic vest to extricate him from that and then cuts his clothing off to look for wounds. Brennan’s been hit multiple times in the legs and has a huge shrapnel wound in his side and has been shot in the lower half of his face. He’s still conscious and keeps complaining that there’s something in his mouth. It’s his teeth, though Giunta doesn’t tell him that.

The B-1 flying overhead drops two bombs on Hill 1705, and that stuns the enemy enough that the Americans are able to consolidate their position. The Third Platoon medic arrives and gives Brennan a tracheotomy so he can breathe better, and then they get him ready for the MEDEVAC. A Spectre gunship and a couple of Apaches are finally able to distinguish Americans from the enemy and start lighting up the hillsides with cannon and gunfire, and half an hour later the MEDEVAC comes in and they start hoisting casualties off the ridge. When they’re done, the rest of First Platoon shoulder their gear and resume walking home.

“We waited for First Platoon for hours,” Hijar told me about that night, “and once we linked up with them it was still two and a half hours’ walk back to the KOP. You could just tell on the guys’ faces, it wasn’t the right time to ask. You already knew what the answer was going to be. Some of them were walking around with bullet holes in their helmets.”

Brennan doesn’t survive surgery. Mendoza is dead before he even leaves the ridge. Five more men are wounded. Then there’s Rougle from the day before, as well as Rice and Vandenberge. It’s been a costly week. It’s been the kind of week that makes people back home think that maybe we’re losing the war.