9/11....8 years later.

[VetSkinsFan]

In your daily routine, please take time to remember and honor our fallen in the horrific tragedy of 9/11 and the war that followed. I don't condone the war or a lot of other things that transpired, but to not honor our selfless troops and civilian (firefighter, police, ect) counterparts is the ultimate disrespect to our countrymen.

Dave

[Bob 0119]

I got a chance to visit "Ground Zero" earlier this year.

I posted a blog about it here.

[tcwest10]

At odd moments, I can still smell it. Just doing whatever...driving, stepping outside first thing in the morning, reading out the day's orders to the crew...and for whatever reason, my lungs just fill up with that not-just smoky aroma, and it takes me back to my days and weeks at the pile in NY. It evokes a different emotion every time. Sometimes I'm saddened, sometimes I get irritable. Sometimes, my heart seizes up and all the other senses go on full alert. Most times, I feel useless.
Always, though...I remember not just the fallen, but the falling; those who chose to jump from the towers rather than wait to die. I remember the ones that jumped alone, still clutching briefcases, the men wearing neckties that stood straight up in the descent. I remember the ones who jumped together, some holding hands. I remember the sickening thud of people hitting the ground, already littered with debris. I remember firefighters and police and MTA people leaving makeshift breadcrumb trails by drawing arrows or words into layers of white/gray dust on windshields, letting their brethren know where they'd gone. I remember the first night, where a company of firefighters had handed me a disposable camera and asked me to take their picture. Unable to fit them all into the frame without backing up so far as to not be able to make out discernable faces, I asked them to stand closer together...to fill the gaps in between them. Their captain told me that those spaces, numbering 6, were for those members who were still unaccounted for. I remember crying about that on the way home. I remember the posters and fliers stuck up everywhere. "Have you seen my (daughter/father/son/mother/ sibling) ?" So many people were sure that their particular loved one was stumbling around the city somewhere, perhaps stricken with amnesia, lost and alone...anywhere but in the ruins. I wondered if anybody had been found in that manner, if any family had ultimately found their missing in that way...and my heart sinks as I subconciously calculate the odds.
I remember working three straight days in the early going without a respirator, and wonder if my inability to take a full breath anymore is related to that.
I should have shaved off my beard. My stupid, vain beard. I didn't want to have a big, pale chin after having been sunburned the weekend before.
I never forget, will never forget. Can't.
Even if I wanted to.

[Redskin in Canada]

I remember.

[Countertrey]

It happened again to me last week... it happens only in the fall... you know, the air has this cool, crisp feel to it on a dry fall day. The 9th of September, 2009, in Maine was one of those unusual days... crisp, about 50 degrees in the morning... and a vivid, cloudless blue sky.

And, I again had those feelings... pain, anguish, emense sadness, anger, and a deep, burning fury that was never adequately released.

Just like that morning on September 11, 2009.

And, I thank young men and women, who, like my son and son-in-law, serve endlessly in disrupted lives. Never adequately appreciated by those who can't truly understand because they've never done it... but always running to the sound of the guns or the roar of the fire, none the less.

Thank you!

[Redskin in Canada]

It happened again to me last week... it happens only in the fall... you know, the air has this cool, crisp feel to it on a dry fall day. The 9th of September, 2009, in Maine was one of those unusual days... crisp, about 50 degrees in the morning... and a vivid, cloudless blue sky.

And, I again had those feelings... pain, anguish, emense sadness, anger, and a deep, burning fury that was never adequately released.

Just like that morning on September 11, 2009.

And, I thank young men and women, who, like my son and son-in-law, serve endlessly in disrupted lives. Never adequately appreciated by those who can't truly understand because they've never done it... but always running to the sound of the guns or the roar of the fire, none the less.

Thank you!

Thanks from the bottom of my heart to you all but particularly to CT and TC for sharing so deeply. You all know that I spend two long periods working in NY every year. I just lack the words. They cannot come out of my head yet. I wrote above everything I could even if they are only two words.

RESPECT.