Friday, September 11, 2020

9/11 ~ 19 Years Ago Today



 I’m teary eyed as I write this. My memories of that day 19 years ago are still vivid. I was sitting at my desk, a claim supervisor for an insurer, looking out the window at the Mall in Columbia, Maryland. One of my coworkers was on the phone with a friend who was a secret service agent at the White House. She slammed down the phone & said a plane had struck the World Trade Center. We all gathered together in the lunch room watching an old vacuum tube TV that could only broadcast one channel. We watched horrified as a second plane flew into the second tower. It was surreal. Next was the Pentagon, that massive complex on the Potomac that is the heart, soul and brain trust of our military. By then we knew there was a 4th plane. Everyone speculated the target....Fort Detrick? The a White House? The Capitol building? Fort Meade? We watched the towers collapse with the roar of debris tumbling on everybody in the vicinity. The site looked like a dystopian Armageddon. The world vowed we would never forget. We would never forget the firefighters and police officers who ran into the burning building to rescue people of every race, creed, color, sex or national origin. Many that were not killed when the towers fell have died of illnesses related to exposure to toxic chemicals. I will not forget the heroes on Flight 93 that died trying to stop the terrorists that highjacked the plane from hitting their unknown target. I recall walking along sidewalks in Westchester County a few weeks later as my friend identical homes where someone had died in the towers. 


It is painful to recall the tragedy of that day and the weeks that followed and consider the hate, discord, protests by those to young or too uneducated to know what happened. Terrorists attacked  the symbols of our freedom, our strength, our center of commerce, our safety, the fruits of capitalism, our glory architecture, site where countless immigrants came ashore to start new lives.


9/11. If for no other reason, every patriotic American  should rise up, lead the throngs of we everyday citizens who still mourn the day of our lost innocence, tell those who hate people  they consider ‘privileged’ to watch very video, see the footage of people jumping to their deaths to avoid death by fire, listen to every phone call made to loved ones, read the names of every public servant and victim, look at their pictures, consider the volunteers, and then tell us a with a straight face that only certain lives matter.  



I will never forget. And I do not accept that denigrating our flag is an acceptable protest. This flag, the symbol of our republic, helped us through the horror. If you cannot honor the symbol of the free world, LEAVE🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸



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