Patsfanin Philly

I posted this about three years ago but I'll do it again. On the second anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, I found myself in New York City looking at the two beams of blue light where the Twin Towers once stood. I put pen to paper on the train ride home. I have kept my promise and my children have since seen all the sights mentioned......



I Refuse to Live in Fear...

I refuse to live in fear.
I am an American.
I will travel whenever I want in this great land of ours
undeterred by the threats of others.
I will take my children to our treasured landmarks
and historical sites.
I will not retreat from an adventuresome journey
because of others with a disdain for our way of life.
It is the legacy of our forefathers who shed their blood
on battlefields throughout the world to protect
our democratic institutions.
I will show my children this country in all its majesty,
from the beauty of a Pacific sunset to the bright lights of Broadway
to the beacon held high by Lady Liberty.
I will show them Ellis Island,
the gateway to a new world with the hopes and dreams of millions.
This nation was forged by an amalgam of spirited people
who believed in self-determination.
I will not bow to those who challenge that notion.
It dishonors the memory of those who have gone before me.
I refuse to let the actions of a few destroy my will.
I will show my children the monuments to our presidents
who persevered in times of crisis and triumphed over evil.
I will show them Arlington National Cemetery
and the graves of those who fell in the defense of freedom.
I will show them a field in the rolling hills of Western Pennsylvania
Where citizen soldiers fought back
and gave their lives in the latest struggle.
I have seen the horrors of that fateful day.
I have watched as flags ruffled in the breeze unbowed
as the smoke rose from the ashes.
Its pungent odor and acrid smell did not destroy our spirit.
I have heard the countless untold stories of heroism
that will stay with me forever.
To live timidly disgraces their honor.
I will keep that dream alive.
I refuse to live in fear.
I am an American.

MKK 9/11/03

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Um, Mr. Brady, can we line up?

PatsFanInVa

Philly, thank you again for doing the grim work. And it is good to see this thread standing alone, just in remembrance. I move that we keep this only a remembrance thread, and I'm going right now to start an "axe to grind" thread -- not because it's appropriate, but so that we can keep this one as it is.

PFnV

Harry Boy

Good Job.

We could have lost our grandaughter that day, she had an appointment in the North Tower but missed it, she went to a party the night befor and over slept she called and told them she would be late, then it happened, she lives in Brooklyn and watched the smoke across the river, she came to Maine three days later and stayed with us for two weeks.


I just e-mailed your writings to her.

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Harry Boy (Genius)

In The Absence Of Law And Order Society Will Surely Destroy Itself

IcyPatriot

On that morning as i was preparing to get my kids to school I pinched a nerve in my lower back putting my boot on. One of the worst ever for me in the pinched nerve department. I could only work at my desk so I sat and watched for 3 or 4 straight days straight. Only getting up to eat, shower etc... I was one of those that ended up with depression over the event.

Two of the tragedies of that day struck me the worst. The police, fire and rescue people that climbed in the building to their future tomb. The people who jumped from the building to their death. Such a horrific day.

May they all rest in peace.

DarrylS

Seems like yesterday, certainly left an indelible impression....

After it happened, my grandson then age 6, reacted to the stress acted up terribly in school and we spent the day in the emergency room.. he is ok now, but it was a bad day for all.

I was painting the barn when I first heard it on NPR...

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"Being the best doesn't mean you always win. It just means you win more than anyone else".. tweet from Kurt Warner to Tom Brady.

Drewski

First Tuesday Freshman year at UMass. Had been back in the states for 3 months or so.

Was in my Political Economics class and some kids were talking about a small airplane crashing into the WTC. Walked across campus back to my dorm and stopped for a snack @ the campus convenience store. Radio was blaring inside, Tom Brokaw on the radio describing what I thought was a war scene....turned out it was lower Manhattan. Girl behind the counter had just come out of a stock room and had been crying. Ran back to my dorm and spent the rest of day being angry about what had happened to us; I had barely adjusted to being back in the US and had to then adjust to a "post 9/11" America. Beyond that was dad was in Indo on business and couldn't get back into the country.


Was a surreal day and week.

Nikolai

I was in university in Canada, on the first day of my senior year. I was in class and it wasn't until 11am eastern time that I heard something strange over the talk radio in the university bookstore. I heard talk of the WTC, and I thought they were talking about 1993. Then I heard these words,

"There is smoke rising from Washington DC and New York. America is under attack."

As I listened to the early reports on CBC Radio, there was talk of a car bomb at the State Department, a hijacked plane over Ohio and another over Colorado. It was almost too much.

I ran from the bookstore to my apartment and was glued all day to the TV. What transpired on that day on the university campus was truly surreal with an anti-US rally of about 30 people trudging through the campus, cheering the attacks. They were roughed up by about 50-60 people and more were streaming out of the dorms to show support for the US as the RCMP arrived.

I remember feeling like I regretted not being in the US to be with my fellow Americans, so all of us Yanks banded together over the next few days.

I'll never forget it, and to make sure my kids understand, I have all of the news footage as it happened on DVDs for them to watch one day. That way, they'll have an idea of how people felt that day, the raw emotion of it, rather than the politicized view of it that most of us have now.

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We get what we deserve.

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“On a day when they could have had impact players David Terrell or Koren Robinson..they took Georgia defensive tackle Richard Seymour, who had 1 sacks last season in the pass-happy SEC and is too tall to play tackle at 6-6 and too slow to play defensive end. This genius move was followed by trading out of a spot where they could have gotten the last decent receiver in Robert Ferguson and settled for tackle Matt Light, who will not help any time soon.”

Drewski

Well said sir.

patsfan13

I live in NJ about 50 miles as the crow flies from Manhattan. The morning was perfect low humidity, mild temps, I had done some emails and worked on a proposal took the dogs for a walk. I usually went into the office ~9:30 to miss the traffic. As I was having breakfast I turned on the TV and saw the North Tower burning on a local NY Station, they were saying that a small plane had apparently crashed into the WTC, this was hard to imagine since the weather was so clear that day.

As I watched with my wife I saw the plane fly into the 2nd Tower, it was clearly NOT an accident. We watched as the Towers burned I wondered if the structural damage was enough to bring down the towers as the exo skeleton of the towers had been badly damaged in the crashes.

I decided to go into the office, wasn't real motivated to work that day.

When I got to the office my boss had set up a TV in the conference room. Everyone was watching the news feed. I found out that a number of co workers from the NYC office were supposed to be attending a Seminar being held at Windows on the World a Restaurant on the 107th floor of the North Tower. At the time we didn't know exactly how many people and whether they had escaped or not.



My boss sent us home at noon and closed the office. I later found that 8 co workers were in the North Tower and 6 escaped the other 2 were never found.

One of my neighbors was a Port Authority Cop, I saw him a couple of days later. I was at the Port Authority when word of the North Tower being hit cam in. He was going to go downtown with his boss to help out, his boss told him to stay there and that he was call him down later. He never heard from his boss again. He felt guilty about not going down to the Towers, and after attending many funerals of PA cops, NYPD and NYFD member he became very depressed for well over a year.

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"Some guys play in all-star games, some guys don't. I don't know who picks all those all-star teams. In all honesty, I don't know who picks the combine, for that matter," Belichick said. "How does (Miami-Ohio offensive lineman Brandon) Brooks not get invited to the combine? How did Vollmer not get invited to the combine? I don't know. We can't really worry about that. We just have to try to evaluate them the best we can."

DarrylS

Amidst our confusion with our grandson, my sister and bro in law were both working in DC, he in the Pentagon as an Air Force Photographer and she in some capacity doing with computers with a defense contractor.

The space that was hit in the Pentagon, was largely uninhabited, however that is where my brother in law used to have his office. My sister was in a meeting and she could see the Pentagon from a window, she saw the smoke arising and remarkably they did not adjourn the meeting. My brother in law got out and took the train back to Maryland, but it took hours..

There was so much confusion between my sisters, nephews and I over the course of the day.. but, there was a sigh of relief in the evening when we finally found out everyone was safe..

Shortly thereafter by sister and bro in law, quit their DC jobs, sold their house and went to Minnesota.. after thise event they had had enough.

Whenever I get to the "city" always make a stop at St. Andrews Church, for some reason that makes it very real.

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"Being the best doesn't mean you always win. It just means you win more than anyone else".. tweet from Kurt Warner to Tom Brady.