OT: 9-11 Memorial Thread

[WildCard]

Figured this should have it's own thread

[Marions Piazza]

played a huge part in why i ended up joining the Air Force.  Completely changed our country and it ended up completely changing my life.

[Neo]

Thank you, Wild ... What a thoughtful and pleasant surprise.  You see, there is no political divide or level of cynicism that prevents me from giving pause and remembering the innocents killed.  Kids lost moms and dads to lunatics.  I'm happy to see pause and reverence in others.

September 11 was the evil act of cowardly fanatics.

A country found its soul, if only briefly.  The stern stuff of resolve and moral clarity has atrophied or gone limp, a consequence of prosperous generations.  As I look around today, I am afraid more than innocent people died that day.

I do think and pray, unashamedly, because that's my choice.  My apologies to the offended, to sneering cynics and to others similarly hollowed.  Well, sans sincerity, I acknowledge.

You'll have to look to someone else for equivocation.

And yet, Mr. Wild, you posted!  Hope, eternal and eternally grateful.  I'll add that I also regularly remember and honor the tens, the hundreds, of thousands of equally innocent who've died and suffered since that day.

Mr. Marions ... thank you for your service.

"Let's roll ..."

We need more Todd Beamers.

 

 

[nfreeman]

FFS.

Please do not derail this thread with political conversation.  Take it to the politics club.

[Hank]

1 minute ago, nfreeman said:

FFS.

Please do not derail this thread with political conversation.  Take it to the politics club.

It seemed related. Fine, I'll delete it. 

[GASabresIUFAN]

I’ll remember that day forever.  I used to work in the WTC and was on a morning video call with our analysts in the WTC when the first plane hit.  We heard the impact and then switched to another video and watched the 2nd plane hit our offices.  To make matters worse, my brother worked next door was coming out of the train station under the WTC as the  planes hit.  

My boss came by my office and saw my crying at my desk.  I didn’t know if my brother or my friends in he buildings were alive.  He pulled me out of my chair, put my suit jacket on my shoulders and sent me home.  As he pushed me in the elevator he said go home, hug your kids and I’ll call you when to come back to work.  

It took me two days to locate my brother.  He walked with thousands of others across the Brooklyn Bridge.  He was covered head to toe with the debris from the buildings.  His first stop was an open bar.  He eventually walked to his sister-in-laws home in Brooklyn and stayed there for 3 days.  My company lost 11 people that day of the thousands that worked there. We were “lucky.” So many other weren’t.  None of my friends perished, but one of my client’s lost his newly married nephew. 

I went back to the memorial last year and as I walk along the foundations, I started reliving that day again and had to leave.  I walked out into the sun and looked for my client’s nephew’s name on the memorial and some tourist was sitting on it like it was a bench and not a grave marker.  I lost it.  

I’m nearly in tears as I type this.  We must never forget, but we must move forward.  My kids are grown. My baby is a senior in college. I learned that day to cherish what I have.  Family.

[Randall Flagg]

This morning I wondered why we still had work and class today. 

But I realized it's pretty awesome - they wanted to hurt America and destroy what it stands for. If we shut everything down on that day, year after year, in some sense that could be seen as a technical success. But instead, we keep on going. We keep building, and fixing, and working, and creating. Products, infrastructure, relationships. And all the while, remembering. 

[Hank]

25 minutes ago, Randall Flagg said:

This morning I wondered why we still had work and class today. 

But I realized it's pretty awesome - they wanted to hurt America and destroy what it stands for. If we shut everything down on that day, year after year, in some sense that could be seen as a technical success. But instead, we keep on going. We keep building, and fixing, and working, and creating. Products, infrastructure, relationships. And all the while, remembering. 

That's an interesting take, I like it. 

[SwampD]

This is my niece's take.

http://www.wkbw.com/news/eye-on-education/high-schoolers-too-young-to-remember-september-11-reflect-on-the-2001-terrorist-attacks

Edited September 11, 2018 by SwampD

[etiennep99]

Where's "IKNOWPHYSICS" when you need him?

[Sabre1974]

Remember the day well, always will plus others that you speak to can always remember where they were when it happened. So glad I visited when I was in new York last year. Had to be done. 

 

[North Buffalo]

Hard for me to go back haven’t been to NYC Memorial but from a distance.  Was in US Capitol Senate Cloakroom running some business after planes hit NYC... Came upstairs to front windows to see smoke from Pentagon. Went back to my desk in Hart Senate Bldg to incessant calls from my soon to be fiance to get out there are 2 more planes in the air, turns out only one, headed for US Capitol... the one that crashed in PA.  Grabbed two people, hopped in my pickup and took the back roads out by the Marine Corp baracks into MD.  Had to cross back over the Potomac at Wilson Bridge. People were stopping at base of bridge, looking both ways and then gunning over the bridge.  Lived in Alexandria’s Quaker Hill up on Hill.  Two F-18s started doing loops around Beltway at what seemed like 500 feet.  Could see the pilots in their cockpits.  Oof like yesterday it all comes flooding back.  October 19th I got hit by Anthrax... but that is another story of a bad couple of years.  Luckily I didnt know anyone who died, but knew plenty of folks that lost friends and colleagues. Had a lot of close calls with friends and family... but for the grace of God.

P.S. Had to drive by the Pentagon on my normal way to work... saw the tail and very back of the plane and remember smelling all the jet fuel as I passed by.  Took them 4-5 days to finally squelch the fire, it kept re-lighting because of the heat and you could see the flames from 395.

Edited September 14, 2018 by North Buffalo

[Huckleberry]

I remember sitting at home with my brother, playing NHL on our playstation.    Thought we'd check out the news a bit and saw the second plane go in live.

Seemed unreal , still gets my blood boiling when I see the images again.    

[shrader]

It happened while I was sitting in a random class and then I didn't find out until I was waiting in line for lunch at the dining hall.  Someone in front of me was freaking out because we were in a building in Boston with the word "Towers" in the name.  That came off as really odd to me, but I knew something was up.  I didn't really figure it out until I got back to my dorm and turned on the tv.

I had one class later that day, which was probably the only one in the entire school that wasn't canceled.  The prof started with some horrible talk about how this was no big deal.  I was slamming my head on my desk wondering why he would try to say something like that knowing that a good portion of the university was from NYC/NJ and there pretty much had to be connections to the disaster right there inside that room.  The guy was completely clueless.

On a side note, right before that class, I ran into someone from my high school (2 years older) who I had no idea went their as well.  We caught up for a bit, but then I never ran into him again after that (huge school).

[IKnowPhysics]

On 9/11/2018 at 5:39 PM, etiennep99 said:

Where's "IKNOWPHYSICS" when you need him?

 

Sup.  Which story do you want?

[etiennep99]

Not to put you on the hot-spot, as if I hadn't already, but any opinions on the soundness of the NIST report?  Feel free to ignore or "no comment".

You see, I think that we best honor the victims by telling the truth, the whole (as much as we have) truth, and nothing but the truth. 

 

One day I imagine writing a very vague Freshman Physics final exam on subjects like:

Newton's 3 Laws, potential & kinetic energy, momentum, conservation of energy,  elastic & inelastic collisions, free fall, the range equation of projectiles,

specific heats of metals, et cetera.

Edited September 18, 2018 by etiennep99
added comments

[WildCard]

On 9/14/2018 at 1:18 AM, IKnowPhysics said:

 

Sup.  Which story do you want?

Any

[Weave]

At the risk of exposing myself as ignorant, what is the NIST report?

[IKnowPhysics]

7 minutes ago, Weave said:

At the risk of exposing myself as ignorant, what is the NIST report?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_NIST_World_Trade_Center_Disaster_Investigation

Report on the World Trade Center Disaster Investigation performed after the FEMA World Trade Center Building Performance study.  NIST houses the National Construction Safety Team, created in 2002 because FEMA didn't have legal authority to gather the information it needed to perform a thorough investigation.  The NCST is now effectively like the National Transportation Safety Board, but for buildings.

The NIST findings are  here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_NIST_World_Trade_Center_Disaster_Investigation#Findings

The actual report is here: https://www.nist.gov/engineering-laboratory/final-reports-nist-world-trade-center-disaster-investigation

Wacky conspiracy theorists love to all over these reports, which is what I suspect etienne is attempting to goad me into wasting my time discussing.

[Randall Flagg]

1 hour ago, Weave said:

At the risk of exposing myself as ignorant, what is the NIST report?

I respect you more for not having awareness of things that are only talked about today in the context of peddling nonsense

[Weave]

4 minutes ago, Randall Flagg said:

I respect you more for not having awareness of things that are only talked about today in the context of peddling nonsense

You can only look up when you're at the bottom.

[etiennep99]

I wasn't trying to goad anyone into any discussion.  I was just wondering if anyone was willing to take a stand.

I realize that people's professional reputations are on the line regarding "conspiracy theories".   I'll stand with

the experts on this one: "The Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth"; and I'll leave it at that. Good day y'all. 

https://www.ae911truth.org/

[Sabel79]

19 minutes ago, etiennep99 said:

I wasn't trying to goad anyone into any discussion.  I was just wondering if anyone was willing to take a stand.

I realize that people's professional reputations are on the line regarding "conspiracy theories".   I'll stand with

the experts on this one: "The Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth"; and I'll leave it at that. Good day y'all. 

https://www.ae911truth.org/

Dude.  F**k Right Off. 

[Randall Flagg]

3,000 + experts?

I could find more engineers and architects named Jeff or Bill that aren't 9/11 conspiracy theorists

That's roughly one tenth of one percent of the # of architects and engineers in America

Edited September 19, 2018 by Randall Flagg

[North Buffalo]

P.S.  My wife felt the explosion at the Pentagon, working in one of the buildings overlooking it from Arlington and saw the fireball.  Saw the tail section the next couple of days as I drove to work going by the Pentagon with my own eyes...