Thursday, September 11, 2008

Do You Remember?

It was a quiet morning. A cool breeze was blowing. I had just stopped at the bank on my way to work to make a deposit. The radio station, 103.5 The Fox was in their morning show at the time, Lewis and Floorwax.

It was 6:46 AM Mountain. A news break came on stating that there were reports of a plane hitting the north tower of the World Trade center. They thought it was a small, Cessna style plane. Maybe a twin engine. Back to regular programming. What an awful accident, I thought.

I had a strange feeling about it, so I called Denise. She wasn't awake yet, so she wasn't real happy with getting a call that early in the morning. I said that I was sorry, but I thought she should wake up and watch the news and see if there was anything more about it.

7:03 AM. Traffic was bad and I hadn't quite reached the office yet.  Denise had been watching the TV. They were covering the fire at the WTC. It was still thought that a small plane had hit. No one really thought that a large plane was involve. Then the South Tower was hit.

For a few minutes, I tried to rationalize what was going on. I thought, wow those air traffic controllers really screwed up. Then I thought wow, those pilots really scewed up. Then I thought.. wait... 2 planes hitting 2 towers? That's just not a coincidence. It's terrorism.

Denise called me back and told me another plane had hit the other tower. I told her to stick to the TV and call me back if anything else happened. I ran up to my office and got on the internet. Usually CoCo and Dave were the only others in the office that early, so we all started searching the news sites on the internet. We got a radio and tried to listen to reports, but the reception in our building sucked.

7:37 AM The fact that America was under attack was confirmed. A plane slams into the Pentagon. At this point, our boss (Linda) relizes that not much work is going to get done today. Dave had been having trouble getting his VPN working at home, so Linda told us to go try to get it working. Dave drove. The mood was somber. We didn't talk a lot. Mainly we just listened to the radio. When we got to his house, we turned on the TV and started working on his VPN. The images we saw of the Towers and the Pentagon are etched into our minds forever. We saw a man jump from the towers and the camera followed him for a ways. It was awful.

7:45 AM The FAA suspends all non-military flights and orders all airborne flights to land at the nearest airport. All inbound international flights are diverted to Canada. 

Dave was still watching the TV while I w
orked on his computer. Suddenly he yelled for me to come to the living room.

At 7:59:04 AM The south tower of the world trade center collapses. It was a strange moment. Eerily quiet. Everything was still. The news announcers were too shocked to say anything.  A huge cloud covered Manhattan.

8:03 AM Flight 93 crashes in a Pennsylvania field. It takes a while for the news of this to be announced, but once it did, a feeling of fear enveloped probably everyone in the U.S. How long was this going to go on? Are more planes hijacked? Where will the next one crash? Is anyplace safe? Parents began to think about whether or not their kids were safe at school.

8:28 AM The north tower of the world trade center collapses. Seeing the terror on the faces of the people there was just heartbreaking.

We watched the news for a while. The VPN was working, but we couldn't leave the TV.

Around 10 AM we headed back to work. When we got there, the parking lot was almost empty. One of the managers was at the door, and at first wasn't going to let us in. Our company had sent all non-essential personnel home. We explained to her why we had left and that we just needed to go up to our offices and grab a few things and we'd be right back out. She let us. After we got our stuff, we just stood in the parking lot talking for a little while. The normally busy skies over Denver were empty. Occaisionally you'd see a lone plane headed for whatever airport they were directed to land at. More often you'd see or hear military fighters circling the city.

We went home and hugged our families and sat in front of the TV for hours. It was a day of shock. It was a day of fear. It was a day of death. It was also a day of miracles.
3:00(approx.): Pasquale Buzzelli had been on the 22nd floor, lost consciousness in a North Tower stairway during the collapse and awakens to find himself lying atop the debris with only a fractured foot.

Sometime during that day, the shock and sorrow and fear started turning into anger.

I remember. I felt that rage again today as I heard a tribute on the radio. I heard the names of the dead being read. A little girl and a woman were alternating, reading one name at a time. On the last one that she read, the little girl said "My father....".  She was only about 9 or 10. Probably too young to remember that day.

Do you remember?

Too many of us seem to have forgotten. We are at war. It is not a war of our choosing or desire. It is a war not just against terrorism, as it has been called, but it is a war against evil. Whether you like it or not, this is a war against Islam.

Those who belive in Islam belive that the entire world must be converted to Islam or be destroyed. Allah, they say, has commanded it. If a muslim tells you that Islam is a religion of peace and tollerance, there's one of two things going on. They are either lying to you or they don't know their own religion.

While I think the various religions on this crazy planet should












I also don't believe it will ever happen. Islam will not stop terrorizing the world while the world is not fully under Islamic control and governance.

Check out this article on Foxnews http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,335500,00.html.. How many of the events listed are related in some way to Islam? Most, if not all.


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