Never Forget 2012

[ShotoJuku]

[Publius]

I was 6 when it happened but still remember it pretty well. As tragic of a day that it was, something that a lot of people don't remember, is that planes themselves weren't filled to capacity, and that the towers (and the pentagon) had something like one tenth of people it could hold in it. I'm not trying to take away from all that lives that were lost, never. They tried killing us, and so they did, but only a small percent. The problem is, any percent that is killed is far to big.

[Prloko]

I was 24 yrs old. I left corporate America and joined the military shortly after.

[NAP]

Beautifully done, ShotoJuku!

So many lives changed that day, you are all in my prayers.

[Snickerdoodle]

Like Publius, I too grew up in the aftermath of that day. On a sidenote, my generation doesn't know what it's like to travel by air hassle-free. For some of us, it changed our families at a very impressionable stage of our lives. Never forget....

[quasarvs]

I was 24 yrs old. I left corporate America and joined the military shortly after.

I was a little older than Publius, when it happened, but my life didn't change like yours did...

Wow,... Thank you for serving!

[ShotoJuku]

[COLOR="#000080"]The New 9/11/01 Math...

On September 10th 2001 the somewhat simplistic math problem of 11 + 175 + 77 + 93 would = 356.

The next day however changed this formula for everyone as on that day American Airlines Flights 11, 77 and United Airlines Flights 175 and 93 altered the courses (and math) of countless lives across our nation. The end result being nearly 3000 people (2977 not including terrorists) gave their lives when our nation was attacked.

Of those 2977, I went to school (the NYPD Academy) with 5 of them. A few years later another graduate of the academy became my trainee and also my friend. His name was, is Vincent Danz.

Just as I will never forget Vinny, and my other 5-classmates, I will never forget the 2977 heroes that died that day and I wonder......how many of you, our IC-Forum Classmates, knew some of those heroes too?

Yes, 11 + 175 + 77 + 93 = 2977, is a new math formula that I will Never Forget!! [/COLOR]

[mrs.b]

Before that day, parents could tell their children that monsters were just faerie tales and villains were just in movies and comic books. In one morning, the way we live our lives changed forever. It changed for the bad in some respects; trust is hard to come by when it used to be given much more freely, and security continues to increase as villains think of new and better ways to beat the system and hurt people. I would like to think it changed for the better in other ways, to try to give some meaning and purpose to the deaths of all those innocent people. I remember sitting in stunned silence for most of the three days I was stuck out of work (I worked in the then-Sears Tower and it - or at least my employers' floor - was shut down for three days for emergency retrofitting of security barricades and procedures), staring at the same footage of the planes over and over. It was horrifying and confusing, but since then, it is easier to justify "living for today."

We never know when some crazy person might walk into a building with a gun because he dislikes the decor. We never know when we might step off a curb and get hit by a bus. We never know when we might be victims of a group of religious or political zealots who think bombing thousands of citizens is ever a logical progression in delivering the point of their platform. I would like to think the victims of 9/11 and their loss at least taught us that we should appreciate what we have and who we have a little bit more, and hold on a little bit more fiercely than we might have before thousands were victimized so senselessly.

[CLEPitgirl]

This is definitely a day of reflection for us. Suddenly the national anthem comes to mind:

"...And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?"
-Frances Scott Key



Our flag is still there! God Bless America!