World Tade Center

“Excellent quote Violin. I have been thinking that same thought quite a lot lately, but how very well Alexander Solzhenitsyn put it.”

“LH -

A Sikh man was shot and killed outside the gas station he operated in Phoenix. Sikhs are from India and are not even Muslim. He wore a turban and was dark-skinned.

The alleged murderer was quoted as saying "I stand for America all the way!" as he was handcuffed.”

“Lyndys, that was a heart wrenching story. It weighs on my mind how day after day, they still can't find anyone alive. We know they are there, but there is just too much rubble.”

“Nigal, I keep waiting for the day they change our money to say
'In God we Trust...or Allah...or Buddha..or the Spirits..'

I know as many people of different religions as Christians”

“Violin, thanks for the info. I can't believe there aren't more deaths occurring. I would hide in my house, but these people have jobs here that they have to go to everyday.”

“Violin- Phoenix is one of the most violent cities in this country.. That guy was probably wacked out on drugs. I live in the suburbs where people are educated and sane (for the most part)”

“If he were whacked out, he seemed to act with premeditation:

"The killer then drove 10 miles to a second gas station and fired several shots through a window at a Lebanese-American clerk and then fired shots into the home of a family of Afghani descent, police said.

Seems to compound the tragedy in my opinion.”

“Last night, in Cleve,OH, some kook drove his vehicle into a Mosque. He's in the hospital, under police custody...the FBI is investigating it as a possible hate crime (imagine that).”

“Okay, as you say Nigal, you're not against how the hate is expressed, just that hate simply exists as an emotion, and it's a bad thing.

Hmmm, powerful stuff! Ya sure ya wanna go out on a limb like that?

I'm just teasing ya dude - I know trying to convey this stuff as you mean it ain't easy, pleasant, or perhaps what you hope to convey on a backpacking site. Catch ya on another thread.

Peace, Love & Granola!”

“oops, I take that back, it happened right in my backyard. I could have been hit in the crossfire...

AZ local news”

“Here's a facinating story.

BOGOTA (Reuters) - A blind Colombian man accompanied by his faithful dog was led to safety by his female boss down 70 flights of a narrow emergency staircase of a tower of the World Trade Center after it was slammed by a hijacked plane.

Seated with his golden Labrador retriever guide dog beside him, Omar Eduardo Rivera told Caracol television and radio on Thursday how two days earlier he fled down the stairs for more than an hour with his hand on the unnamed woman's shoulder.

He unleashed the dog to let it escape, but with glass falling around them, the animal led him to an emergency exit and stayed by his side as a crowd of people descended the stairs to escape the building which collapsed soon afterward.

Computer worker Rivera was in his office on the 71st floor of the one of the trade center's twin towers on Tuesday, his dog underneath his desk, when suicide hijackers crashed a jet into the 110-story building some 25 floors above him.

"I stood up and I could hear how pieces of glass were flying around and falling," Rivera, said in a quiet voice in a peaceful garden somewhere in New York. "The dog was very nervous, and he ran off but came back and kept by my side. He didn't bark."



At the emergency exit, his boss led him down the stairs.

"I took hold of her arm. She went down on my right side and the dog on my left. When it became narrow and people were pushing and shoving more, she went in front and I just held on to her shoulder," said Rivera, who is from Bogota, the capital of Colombia, which is fighting a war on leftist guerrillas.

"At first there was panic, and some people tried to run and go first. But really most people behaved quite prudently and grasped what was happening, so we walked down in an orderly fashion, but it was slow-going."”

“That is a great story, Buddur. Friends have commented to me that now in NYC, commuters are being polite, helpful, and generous, where before there was a lot of rudeness and "me-first" behavior. This tragedy has brought out the "good American" in so many people.”

“New Yorkers aren't really rude, they just aren't friendly to one another, but it's nice to see them being friendlier.”

“It always take a catastrophe to bring the good out of people...unfortunately it also gets the bigots coming out of the woodworks.”

“Thanks for keep us posted Wall-Man. I appreciate it.”

“I just submitted this thread the the September 11th Web Archive, a project to save all the materials on the Web, relating to September 11th. If you know any others that should be submitted, or would like to pay a visit: September11 Web Archive”

“Good thinking Pathman...it would have been a waste if/when this thread got deleted.”

“Right! People should never forget the reasons that 9-11 were justified. Americans whined about 2800 supposedly "innocent" lives lost and targeted. They need to remember it was karma. Karma for the 50,000 innocent Japanese women and children targeted and killed by US forces with weapons of mass destruction...A-bombs. Pretty ugly precedent to set. What goes around comes around.”

“George D. Evildoer, I don't recall hearing the Japanese apologizing for the rape of Shanghai and the murder of millions in Nanking.

They used the Chinese, Koreans, Okinawans, Phillipinos etc. for medical testing...injecting them with viruses and germs etc. Cutting the victims up to see how long they would die, and attaching animals parts to their bodies to see how the body rejects foreign objects etc. They were as bad as the Nazis.

I'm sure every country at war has done some very horrific acts....just don't make the Japanese sound so innocent.”

“Two wrongs don't make a right.”

“Taller de Artes Decorativas (TADE) es una empresa fundada en Lima en 1984. Su actividad empresarial es la decoraci�n comercial y del hogar.”

“Burrito. Taco.”

“He cain't be a furreal militia boy speakin' dat furrrrrin language, can he?”

“Why don't you get out more, heh?

No doubt the fresh air would do you some good.
Remember: oxygen is good for the brain.









("G. D. Weevilscrewer" - now THAT's funny... LOL!)”

“In twelve days, it will have been one year.

All our politcal beliefs aside, we have all been changed in one way or another.

I'm resurrecting this thread, with all its ugliness and emotion, in the hopes that some of us will share the personal changes that have come in the last year because of this event.”

“funny you should ask.

Here is what I wrote a year ago in a comment to Fast Company magazine, when they asked how people were dealing with the attacks. Some said they couldn't get out of bed they were so devastated.

Get up, get out of bed! If you didn't feel a need to do your job the minutes, the days, immediately after the attack, your work may not be very important. If people depend on you, and if you don't get to it, you are letting them down, and by letting them down the conspirators have won.

They asked for my feelings a year later and this is what I sent them:


My words of a year ago ring of such bravado and such bluster. My final statement resounds of a joke on a favorite talk radio show-“If (fill in the blank with your favorite cause) fails, the terrorists have won.” “If Viacom stock falls, the terrorists have won.” “If you don't buy my book, the terrorists have won.” “If you stay home from the ball game, the terrorists have won.”

9/11/02-Wednesday. Where will I be, what will I be doing? The same I was doing a year ago, but with a sense of emptiness, a sense of forlornness and a sense of impotence. The following weekend, I plan to follow my passion, and in doing so, to seek to rediscover what I have lost.

In the aftermath of the attacks, people talked of not being able to do their work and I was astounded. What could they be doing, spending their precious life-hours on that was so superficial, that they could just stop? I could conceive of no such thing. People depended on me. The difficulties and needs of daily life didn't stop with the atrocities on my TV screen. My patients wanted answers, solutions and understanding of their afflictions. They wanted to know, and I was the one to tell them, even if it was in my own narrow sphere. For the past year, that is what I have done, day in and day out, doing what I do best, continuing to do it well. So why do I feel so flat, so uninspired? Is it something in me? Is it the events of 9/11? What happened?

In the immediate days after 9/11, I saw what is so common, but I didn't accept it. I saw the horrors bring out the best in us. We were united. We saw our true heroes perform superhero feats. We knew what we stood for, what had been attacked. We were united in horror. The darkest and most hopeless times show us the stuff of which we are really made, but what I had forgotten was our tendency to slip back into old habits. My words of a year ago ring of that bravado, but they ring flat now, a year later, even though I live them day-by-day.

What happened?

Reality. The adrenaline rush of being attacked can't last, yet it is addicting, the lack of the drug leaves a need. Day to day tasks seemed petty with the background of national tragedy, of national loss and peril. Life has to go on, one day at a time, one minute at a time, step by step. The irony is that life was returning to some normalcy, but the tragedy made normality seem trivial.

So I trudge on, because that is what I do, even in the face of any adversity, yet it still feels empty. We are strong, but are we inspired? Where is the flame? The flame of adversity steeled us, but now the flame dims with time and with the confusion of reality. It is not nearly as simple as it seemed in the immediacy of three planes plowing into those powerful symbols of who we are, what we do, and for what we stand, into the concrete and steel that housed flesh, blood and bone of our loved ones. Can the flame be rekindled?


In the past year, some things that seemed so clear are now muddied by time and events. Our political leaders have returned to their partisan squabbling. The corporate superheroes of the new economy, the economy of shared governance, life balance, new paradigms, of inspiring work, have turned out to be exactly what so many feared-all to human, corruptible and greedy. My resolve of a year ago threatens to become a blip on the screen, and I wallow in growing complacency and cynicism. Most frustrating, is a sense of powerlessness. My resolve seemed greater than my abilities, over ripe for frustration. I feel a rot setting in, and I feel that I am even losing what inspiration I had preceding the attacks.

So what will I do? Hump day, Wednesday 9/11, I'll be doing what I always do, but my sights will be set on the weekend. How ironic that sounds, but it will be with a purpose. Inspired by others, I'll be seeking the wilderness and the highest vantage place in my reach. I'll be seeking to rekindle the flame, but seeking a flame that burns more steady and purposeful, one less likely to flame out. I'll be seeking the place where my mind is most clear, where my mind most easily sorts the pieces that make up my reality. I'll be seeking out a physical high place, looking for a spiritual and emotional high place. I'll fly a flag on that place, not in support of a specific political agenda, but in memory of those who went before and continue to inspire, in memory of those who created what I have today, and enabled my dreams. The colors inspire me-red for the sacrifice, blue for loyalty and white for purity of purpose. Sure, even the heroes of our past were human and fallible, as is our country, but they were inspired by a clarity that I seek, a clarity that is in danger in this time of confusion. I know the feeling of inspiration and clarity will be temporary, that dark times will return, but pushing for the peaks helps keep me out of the valleys, keeping me in the bright sun and out of the shadows. In that way, maybe I can fulfill some of the promise and regain the purpose I seek.

I'll sleep in the wilderness that weekend, and ascend a peak on 9/14. More than a thousand miles from New York City, Pennsylvania and Washington D.C., and 13,000 feet above sea level, I'll do my best to put the past year in perspective. Then I'll come down, sleep in my bed, get up and go to work, with a new resolve and cold hard determination lit by the fire of purpose and inspiration.


”

“The way I view my country has changed so much in the last year, I don't even know where to begin. Some things are terrible in my opinion, such as the American citizens held as hostile combatants without civil rights. Other things have inspired me more than anything in a very long time. I will never forget that in Weisbaden, Germany in October of 2001, in the city square, there was a candle and flower memorial for "our fallen American friends".

I stood next to a Canadian man in line at the Toronto aiport a little over a week after it happened, and we talked about anything except terrorism. The line was enourmously long, but not a single complaint was heard.

Today, people are fogetting again. The possibility of a baseball strike takes precedence in the news over an airstrike on an Iraqi air-radar site. Oceans don't protect us anymore, but we act like they do.

I miss the time before this happened. The arrogance we all felt when terrorists tried to blow up the WTC the first time. "Silly terrorists," we all thought, "It'll take more than that to bring us down".

Today, we might all be a little more cavalier about a terrorist threat, but deep down, we know that the threat is ever-present. It's too hard to deal with for most of us, so we put it aside.

Baseball is a pretty good distraction.”

“Well said Phaedrus”

“On 9/11/02, we'll look back and think of the lost of innocence. It was a learning experience to say the least....no nation is completely safe.”

“"Innocence can't be lost...it just needs to be mantained." Jewel/Hands”

“In Remembrance”

“May they stand tall again, complete with memorials that will give the families some peace of mind...”

“this thread is too difficult to read....

May all the families and friends of those lost be strong and find peace....

May the world strive toward compassion...”

“[gasp, sob]

I never read this thread before. I didn�t know it even happened until two days after because I was in the BWCA 9/11. I went back and started reading this thread and it is just heart wrenching to read your posts as it unfolded. I didn�t even reach 11AM on this thread and had to quit.

Thanks! Now I�m a big fat blithering crybaby Nancy Boy.”

“to many memories are flooding back to me. i wont read anymore.”

“One of our business units cleaned the smoke and water damage at the Pentagon .

Today it is quiet around here.”

“May we each find our peace, keep the good, and move on.”

“So in response to 9/11, Bush bombed and killed innocent people in Afghanistan, but left Osama & Omar still standing and capable of more attacks.

In response to 9/11, Bush bombed and killed innocent Iraqis who had NOTHING to do with 9/11, but left Saddam still standing.”

“Lighten up, Alaska. You are stretching to bounds that I don't think matches the intentions of the posters on this particular thread, ok?”

“What does this thread have to do with that? Nothing.

YOU might try showing some compassion to the others affected by this day.”

“I suppose we can only ever really be responsible for our own actions. So I modify my wish to that may we all find peace and compassion within ourselves as we strive towards a better world.”

“I didn't think rereading any of this would affect me that much. I'm just sitting here crying now. I keep thinking how glad I am that Newergirl was too little to fathom what she saw on TV that day. Let's say some prayers today peeps, for the families and for peace.”

“i know that twignut will not talk about it. she just gets so angry.
they are having the children that lost someone read the names. that must be hard to do. I feel your sadness NG.”

“I will never forget that day...

I had come back from partying and sleping out in the dunes under the stars. I remember feeling how magical that night had felt, how walking on the wet black sand reflecting all the brilliant stars made me feel like I was walking in the heavens, that nothing in the world could ever disturb that peace. We had danced around a bon fire to the beat of drums and the sounds of banjos and other instruments. I even remember thinking how far away the rest of the worlds problems seemed, that I couldnt be touched by them. I had been happy that night, I felt like I was finially in a place I could call home.
I rode home that morning in the back of somebodys pick up with a bunch of drums and guitars feeling the most peace i have ever felt. When I got home to my appartment my roomates and neighbors told me (my appartment didnt have a tv but the neighboor guys did.) I didnt believe it at first. I thought it was some kind of sick joke "We've been attacked" they dragged me next door to see the news, I was shocked. I mean I couldnt speak or think or do anything. The town held cnadle light serveces- One of the professors, a man very influential with the preservation of marshlands and wildlife habitat around there, had been on one of the planes, the one that crashed into the ground. I hadnt known him but still it was very sad. I knew a lot of people who dropped out to join the military.
The next weekend I was out volenteering to clean the beaches and there wernt supposed to be any planes flying around. I remember being freaked out as this little plane flew low along the beach over us, to stay beneith the radar. I've never felt afraid like that before. I hope to never feel that way again.”

“I guess it would have helped if today had been rainy. The sky is nearly as clear and bright in the northeast today as it was on my way in to work two years ago. I was listening to the list of the names of victims being read at the memorial service and nearly had to pull off the highway in my grief.

There are several spots along my drive in where I can see into Manhattan. I kept glancing over hoping to see those tall buildings that defined the skyline for so much of my life � that it has all just been a bad dream. No - they�re really gone and the lives of so many people in our region and around the world have been dramatically changed as a result.

My wife has finally gotten over her panic attacks and can go to Newark Airport or near tall buildings without losing her mind. My friend who witnessed the second plane hitting the South Tower from his office 150 yards away and thought the fireball was going to engulf him has moved his family out of the city and seems to have healed pretty well. I pray for all those who are not doing as well.”

“I relate to that a bit, V. One of my buddies worked on Dey St. right across and facing the buildings. He was watching people jumping from the top floors. Poor bastard had trouble sleeping for six months, but doing much better now...”

“I wasn't even a TT member back then, strange to read this thread. I wasn't able to read the whole thread. It's hard to even think back.
Hard to belive it's been 2 years.
I remember, my husband came for his 6 month break from Korea. He was on a plane that day, 9/11. Had no idea in what plane the military sit him, had no idea how many stops... until I got a call. He was stuck in seattle, wasn't able to come home for 3 more days.

I called the schools to make sure that my kids won't hear of the news because they knew dad was on a plane.I did not want them to worry.

My thoughts will be with all of the families today! I pray this will never happen again!”

“Give twignut a hug from Pathman.”