9/11

[NasusJW]

I don't know if this has been discussed before, but I've noticed there has been alot of talk lately about the terror attacks on 9/11. I was just wondering if there were any brothers or sisters on this forum who were there or know someone who was. I know at the time it happened the Watchtower Society took in alot of people who walked across the Brooklyn bridge who had nowhere to go. I can't imagine the terrified look on those people's faces. I'm sure the brothers and sisters there did everything they could to help.

[GrumpysWife]

My son and daughter in law were in Bethel.

[Shawnster]

I know a sister from another DB (now defunct) who lost her brother in the Twin Towers.

[Danielledyc]

I have a friend in New York, who worked in a school near the towers but she was late that morning getting to work and she wasn't able to go to work that day. Her sister works at Bethel and they helped a lot of people. My friend was happy she was late for work that day. I was starting my regular pionneering in September 2001 and I was in the service completely unaware what was going on until a return visit told us around 11 am. What a shock!

[ava]

I did not know anyone. That was an awful day, my husband works for American Airlines, and I still remember watching it in the morning on the news and then he had to go to work in the afternoon even though airports across the country were grounded. It was pretty awful at work for him with their planes being used and having coworkers killed.

[GrumpysWife]

I did not know anyone. That was an awful day, my husband works for American Airlines, and I still remember watching it in the morning on the news and then he had to go to work in the afternoon even though airports across the country were grounded. It was pretty awful at work for him with their planes being used and having coworkers killed.

That must have been terrible for you too. Won't it be wonderful when these worries are a thing of the past?

[isabella]

I know a brother who lives in NY and works for an air conditioning company, and they had to erect air conditioned tents to contain the human remains.He said he saw things no one should have to see.

[Brother_Bliss]

There is a lot of buzz about 9/11 at my daughters school, and I am thinking 'man, they are virtually making this into a holiday'.

Then my wife looks at her mobile phone calendar and here they did! It's called Patriot Day.

Good grief.

[John_boyRBi8]

There is a lot of buzz about 9/11 at my daughters school, and I am thinking 'man, they are virtually making this into a holiday'.

Then my wife looks at her mobile phone calendar and here they did! It's called Patriot Day.

Good grief.

But it's on a sunday this year, how does that work?

[tgburd]

I did not know any of these dear brothers and sisters, but I do look forward with great anticipation to meeting them all in paradise where Revelation 21:1-5 will be experienced by all.

[Musky]

I did not know any of these dear brothers and sisters, but I do look forward with great anticipation to meeting them all in paradise where Revelation 21:1-5 will be experienced by all.

WELCOME TO THE FORUM!

Who are you speaking about?

[tgburd]

wrong topic forum. Meant to be in response to those who died 9/11

[sweetwillow58]

Pearl Harbor Day. The Oklahoma City bombing. 9/11. and whatever comes up next. Someday, there will be no need to "remember"

[Musky]

There is a lot of buzz about 9/11 at my daughters school, and I am thinking 'man, they are virtually making this into a holiday'.

Then my wife looks at her mobile phone calendar and here they did! It's called Patriot Day.

Good grief.

But it's on a sunday this year, how does that work?

Calendar dates fall on different days of the week each year?

[Willow]

Have you seen this article? It was written by a brother (Bill Underwood) who works for the "Phoenix Signs of the Times Examiner" (he lives in Mesa, Az.):

http://www.examiner.com/signs-of-the-times-in-phoenix/bill-underwood

"I have two really strong memories from 9/11. I recall being glued to the television for hours. I don't recall any commercials. I think any sponsor who had the nerve to interrupt the coverage to run a commercial would have lost customers rather than gaining any.

After hours and hours, I remember an interview between Peter Jennings and a psychologist, about the effect all the horrific images could be having on the viewers, and the lady actually recommended turning off the television. It’s funny, now… I can picture Peter Jennings’ bosses having apoplexy when they heard her say that… but at the time, I felt like she was talking directly to me. I turned the TV off and went for a walk.

And it was so quiet. In Phoenix, Sky Harbor airport is smack in the center of town, so no matter where you live you get used to the sound of jets passing over every couple minutes. But on that day the silence was palpable.

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I walked every day, and I recall about day three suddenly hearing jets. After all the silence it was astounding, and I looked up in time to see three planes: military jets, flying in formation.

Mom

My mom was still living at the time, on Columbia Heights in Brooklyn, right across the river from lower Manhattan. On 9/11 the bridges and tunnels were closed to cars, and the subways weren’t running, so thousands of people walked across the Brooklyn Bridge. Many of them showed up at her building, covered in white dust, and Mom and Dad were able to help with the effort of cleaning these people off, feeding them, in many cases giving them something else to wear or even a bed for the night.

She said for weeks it was so jarring to look out her window at the familiar skyline and not see the Twin Towers standing there, to see a column of smoke instead. She also spoke of the horrible stench that drifted across the river, an amalgam of smoke, wet debris, spoiled food, and death…

Deaths

With all the coverage this weekend, I keep seeing varying numbers of victims; 2,996, 2,882… The variance may be due to the sheer enormity of the task of determining exactly who should be counted as a 9/11 victim. Over 1100 people who were in the vicinity of the destruction have never been heard from again. They were declared dead without any body or even DNA ever being found.

This, of course, gave rise to scams. A half dozen people have been found guilty of filing fraudulent claims and missing persons reports related to the 9/11 tragedy. There has been at least one note posted on the internet to the effect that ‘Everyone who knew me before September 11 thinks I'm dead.’

And I came across a post of an unbelievable email exchange between someone calling himself “John” and an insurance expert named Mark Colbert, in which John lays out a very believable scenario in which he asks whether the wife of ‘someone he knows about’ who faked his death on 9/11 and ran off, would be required to return the loot if he were to reappear… It's a significant amount: the payout to families of victims averaged about $3.5 million.

On the other side of the coin there is the mystery of Dr. Sneha Philip. She left her apartment on September 10, 2001, made a couple purchases at a department store in the vicinity of the World Trade Center that Monday afternoon, then disappeared. There is no evidence that she was anywhere near Ground Zero on 9/11, yet her disappearance has been ruled a 9/11 death.

Gold

A New York Times story published November 1 of 2001 gave credit to the rescue workers for turning In over $200,000,000 worth of gold and silver bullion stored under Ground Zero. However, other news stories prior to 9/11 indicate that there would have been over a billion dollars worth of bullion in storage. And that doesn’t even take into account the currency, jewelry, bearer bonds, and other valuables in the hundreds of stores, banks, ATMs, ticket booths, and offices in and under the World Trade Center.

Do you remember, about a week after 9/11, when Mayor Guiliani restricted the number of workers who were allowed on the site, and fistfights broke out among the rescue workers trying to get in there? I'm sure they all had only the noblest of motives. Hmmmm…

Dogs

Over 400 rescue dogs were brought in to help in the recovery effort. I recall hearing a report about the dogs getting depressed. They are sensitive to the mood of the people around them, but they are also taught their job as a “game,” and the game is no fun for them if they don’t find any living people.

Many of them wore special protective gear on their feet; and I recall seeing footage of them having eyedrops administered. But I didn’t see any wearing respirators. UC Davis professor Emeritus Thomas Cahill says the thousands of tons of toxic debris resulting from the collapse of the Twin Towers consisted of more than 2,500 contaminants, including asbestos, lead, and mercury. Breathing these contaminants without proper protective gear is considered to be responsible for the 60 to 70 percent of rescue workers who report new or increased cases of asthma and other lung diseases.

Yet, according to Veterinary News, there have been no new or increased cases of respiratory illnesses among the rescue dogs, nor any evidence of a shortening of their life span.

A different kind of dog story is that of Roselle, the guide dog of Michael Hingson, a blind employee of Quantum ATL on the 78th floor of the North tower. When the tower was hit Hingson didn’t know what had happened, but he could smell jet fuel and knew they needed to get out. Roselle guided Hingson and some of his coworkers down all 78 flights to safety, amid thick smoke and thousands of fleeing people crowding the stairs, as well as firemen rushing up (one of whom Hingson had to argue with to convince him Roselle was all the help he needed.)

Capitalism

Remember everyone driving around with flags flapping from their car antennae, mirrors, and windows? I remember a friend of mine remarking at the time that the net loss of gas mileage was probably costing thousands of barrels of oil to be purchased from the very people who caused the problem in the first place.

History channel did a retrospective this week, and there was footage from 9/12 of a woman buying an American flag at Walmart, saying she was so glad to find it, because she’d been to eight different stores that were sold out. Walmart, though, good old red white and blue Walmart, had just gotten a special order in… from China.

And this commemorative weekend, there are thousands upon thousands of World Trade Center mementos for sale on Ebay, from folks asking a few bucks for their ticket stubs, left over from visiting the observation deck on top of WTC prior to 9/11, to a scam artist asking a cool half million for a concrete core sample he claims was given to his grandfather for being one of the original tenants of the South Tower."

[idclair]

Yes, Bill let me post on the comment section.

Kathleen H. Lacey · Mesa CC

I watched a Frontline story on tv http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/faith/.

A lot of people lost their faith after 911 including religious leaders. Also many blamed God. How sad.

[Willow]

Moderator,

Can you please remove the following last 4 lines from my post which is 2 posts up where I pasted in an article from "Phoenix signs of the times examiner"? I believe it may be confusing to others and I didn't realize it at the time I made the posting. Thank you:

I just edited this post to take it out.

[idclair]

Moderator, I believe it may be confusing to others and I didn't realize it at the time I made the posting. Thank

Hi Willow, I think i am confusing everyone. what i meant on my post was that i had written a comment on the bottom of Bill's Blog.

http://www.examiner.com/signs-of-the-times-in-phoenix/bill-underwood

Scroll to the bottom and you will see my comment and also a picture of me.

Please excuse my mis-print, Kathleen

[Musky]

Moderator, I believe it may be confusing to others and I didn't realize it at the time I made the posting. Thank

Hi Willow, I think i am confusing everyone. what i meant on my post was that i had written a comment on the bottom of Bill's Blog.

http://www.examiner.com/signs-of-the-times-in-phoenix/bill-underwood

Scroll to the bottom and you will see my comment and also a picture of me.

Please excuse my mis-print, Kathleen

I think she was talking about the contact information she accidentally copied with the article that I deleted as requested.

Also, I scrolled to the bottom of the page in the link you posted but see no "comments".

[idclair]

I'm sorry, One has to be logged in on Facebook i think. Bill has Phoenix Examiner Blog there also. We are on each others friend list. Must be why i can see it to copy and paste the comment i made. Plus i forgot, i have an account at Phoenix Examiner.

I think she was talking about the contact information she accidentally copied with the article that I deleted as requested.

Also, I scrolled to the bottom of the page in the link you posted but see no "comments".[/quote

[pinkpopcorn]

My sister, Michele, was in Ireland at the time of the attacks. She wrote an article and it appeared in an Irish newspaper. It is an interesting read from another 'American' perspective. Barry, her hubby, was working for United at the time. He instantly recognized a plane that crashed into one of the buildings as a United plane.

http://www.donegaldaily.com/2011/09/11/remembering-911-travel-writer-staying-in-rathmullan-writes-about-that-day/

[idclair]

Thanks Chris, your Sis is excellent author. Enjoyed reading the article.

[GrumpysWife]

Thanks Chris' date=' your Sis is excellent author. Enjoyed reading the article.[/quote'] I enjoyed it also.

[pinkpopcorn]

Thanks ladies. I think Michele is a terrific writer. I looked hard at the pictures she posted. The one of her in the living room of the B&B reading the paper shows the twin towers burning on the front page.

What an amazingly horrible day that was. Who knows what future things will come to pass?

[DLM]

This may be off topic but I heard an interesting exchange on the radio the day after 9-11. They had a preacher on to answer ?s that people had (I don't know now who he was but I will always remember his comment!) The person asked why God would allow such a horrible thing to happen or if God caused it. The preacher said " Well, God didn't cause it but he was POWERLESS to stop it" What a statement to make about the Almighty!!