It's mourning in America. At least it is in my heart and home and I'm sure for many others on this September 11th anniversary. Although sadly, it's a virtual certainty that the media will be talking much more today about January 6th than September 11th.
Who can forget where they were when they heard the news that terrorists in Washington had broken several windows, rattled some fences, waved American flags, and strolled through government buildings taking selfies before walking away peacefully hoping to arrive in time for Early Bird dinner specials in nearby restaurants.
It is an obscenity for anyone to compare the two events, let alone to have media outlets reporting stories suggesting "9/11 Was Nothing Compared To January 6th."
There is no one here on this site who believes that statement to be true. Which is why, on this always-hard day of remembrance, I'm grateful to be in the company of patriots.
FROM THE VAULT: SEPT 11, 2016
I can't believe the events of 9/11 happened 15 years ago. It feels no longer than a heartbeat. And despite the admonition to "never forget," too many have. They've forgotten the spirit of unity that Americans shared for a brief time. A spirit that transcended race, class, or political parties.
I apologize for even briefly mentioning politics today, but I believe that the beginning of the end of that unity occurred when newly-elected Senator Hillary Clinton took to the floor of the Senate, held up a tabloid newspaper headline, and declared "BUSH KNEW" an attack was likely and didn't stop it.
Years later, as Secretary of State, for purely political reasons Hillary Clinton claimed not to know that September 11th was a day of special meaning to terrorists and a day when security should be at its very highest level. And four Americans serving in Benghazi paid the ultimate price for her recklessness and folly. This detestable woman must not become our next president.
But enough about that. This should be a day of reflection and contemplation. And to that end, I want to remind readers of heroic firefighter David M. Weiss, the brother-in-law of Jim Hlavac, a frequent commenter here on Hope n' Change. (2023 Note: sadly, Jim Hlavac died a few years ago.)
Here's how the New York Times described him:
David Martin Weiss, a New York City firefighter, was built like a fireplug. He stood 5-foot-9 and weighed 225 pounds. He was all muscle, with biceps as big as the thigh of a medium-build woman.
He was bulldozer-strong. He looked as tough as he sounded. His head was shaved and his body was covered in tattoos. He drove Harleys.
He was an ironworker before he became a firefighter 13 years ago. He blended both experiences to become a member of the Fire Department's elite force. He joined Rescue Company 1 in Times Square about six years ago after receiving a medal for a rescue attempt: a man's car careened off Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive and plunged into the East River. Mr. Weiss, off duty, stopped his car, climbed down the iron trestles of the elevated highway and jumped into the river to rescue the driver, whose heart had given out.
"He just jumped, knowing that he was the person's only hope," said Thor Johannessen, a firefighter.
Mr. Weiss, 41, of Maybrook, N.Y., had a mean sense of humor. "If he saw a thread, he knew how to pull it to unravel the whole shirt," said Joel Kanasky, another firefighter. "He was the king of that."
On 9/11, along with other members of the elite "Rescue 1" group, David raced into a burning tower of the World Trade Center to help as many people as possible. He was last seen on the 31st floor of Tower Two, climbing stairs and rushing towards the danger, when the building fell.
The image below is from a commemorative t-shirt which is a prized possession of mine. A remembrance of both the tragedy and remarkable heroism seen on that day.
Let today be a day when we step back from the petty distractions and noise of the media, and think about more important things. About what this country is. About who we are. About what we've lost, and what we each need to do every day to live up to a legacy forged by our best and bravest.
Above all, let's remember the many heroes - living and dead - who have made this a country worth celebrating and defending.
Thanks, Stilt. Yours I'm sure is going to be one of the best remembrances. We all need a reminder, time to time of both heroes and tyrants, and you are just the guy to do it. May your day remain uneventful and may your night be quiet and peaceful.
ReplyDeleteHillary should have her own line of urinal cakes and never come to mind any other time of the year. Soldier on, Stilt!
ReplyDeleteWith her likeness stamped into it.
DeleteThanks, for helping us remember what is really important.
ReplyDeleteSo many of us knew people who died that day; so many heroes rushing in to help others. We should still pray often for the families who lost members on that hideous day. An would anyone blame me for wanting to see a head on a pike, of a scumbucket who famously said, "So some people did something", and a bottomless pit for another who said, "At this point, what difference does it make?"
ReplyDeleteI met a man only a year ago, who had been in one of the buildings that collapsed- he was homeless and had few possessions, and he was waiting for someone to take him back to his hometown. From his pocket he pulled out a rosary which had been blessed by Father Mychal Judge, the priest and chaplain of the Fire Department, who had been rushing from one person to another, in the rubble, and who ran into one of the collapsing buildings to offer last rites and to offer comfort for the dying. After his body could no longer sustain him he died in the wreckage of the building of a heart attack, his last words praying for the horror to end.
Thanks, Stilt. I love your insight.
ReplyDeleteI can add nothing but may God rest their souls.
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ReplyDeleteMy thoughts that day were almost exclusively, "Somebody needs to get nuked!" There were plenty of commies who never felt any unity and within a day or two claimed America deserved it. Too bad those people weren't in the buildings...
My office was 3 miles due north of the Pentagon that day. Will never forget or forgive.
ReplyDeleteAs to the vile venal poisonous creature who has infected or political and social discourse and just happened to just tag along as her over-amped husband fluked into the Presidency, I thank province it was Trump who ended her political career. She wasn't BTW, the only democratic politician who publicly said 'Bush Knew' . Then Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney from Georgia, a true nut case said on a NPR broadcast shortly after 9/11, the same thing.
Later on, she was tossed out on her ear by her district and has never returned to politics.
Well said Stilt, as always.
ReplyDeleteI lost my best Battle Buddy this day 22 years ago: SGM Lacey Ivory, KIA Pentagon.
ReplyDeleteNow I see a bunch of Hippie, Communist, British Cigarettes burning our Flag outside a Jason Aldean Concert.
Terrible shame that these clowns can still walk and breathe and stuff.
Never again.
ReplyDeleteAt least one corner of the Internet besides here will never forget:
https://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2023/09/11
Thank you so much for that heart-lifting tribute. I can barely see to type this or read the screen. In future: I'm going to substitute that good man for the bitch. It will be helpful.
ReplyDeleteI remember the day and a half when we were all united. It never ceases to amaze me the number of people who moan and groan and promise to leave if Trump is elected . . . but never follow up. That should be the burning question that everyone of these clowns have to answer each and every time anyone shoves a microphone in their face. Same goes for each and every protestor when interviewed during a march.
ReplyDeleteProtestor: "America is bad."
Reporter: "Well, then, if it's so bad, why don't you leave?"
Protestor: "Uhhhhhh... don't be silly."
Reporter: "Go to the border. You should be frantically telling the thousands who are
bum rushing the border, 'Stop. Go back! It's a trap! This is a horrible
place. Save yourself!"
My wife, who is a Mexican national, frequently complains and I always tell her, "Hey, just say the word and we can go to Mexico." She never takes me up on the offer, though.
Stilt; I note that Yahoo! News has nothing on 9-11 today. Kind of tells you something on how divided we are.
ReplyDeleteI was making sales calls in another state and right in the middle of my first call the call came in about the first plane. Everything was cancelled and by the time I got to the freeway the second plane had hit. I was the only car in the road, it seemed. I was kind of in a hurry and travelling at about 110 MPH when out of the blue I got passed by eleven state troopers headed for DC. They must have been doing at least 140. I made the three hour trip home in under two hours. And now all biden-the-senile can talk about is Jan the 6th. Grrrrr.
ReplyDeleteAmen my friend....9/11 is a memory of impact. Never forget the moment when thr house came down.
ReplyDeleteStilton, as others have said, I have nothing to add....God bless those who gave all and God bless the families of those who perished.
ReplyDeleteAnd may God continue to bless The United States of America, although I can't blame him if he doesn't.
Thank you Stilt for reminding us of something we are all trying to put behind us. We all remember exactly where we were and what we were doing when the dreadful events of that day were made known to us.
ReplyDeleteAs a retired Navy Intelligence officer I knew people that were in the Pentagon that were killed. Prior to the daily brief there is a"pre-brief" which is done for updates and corrections prior to its final presentation to senior personnel. The plane that hit the Pentagon hit in the recently remodeled portion of that structure during the daily pre-brief. A fellow Intelligence Officer was in that brief when called out IOT discuss another matter. He survived because of that call out. Many of those killed that day in Pentagon were Intelligence Officers.
Another 9/11 we shouldn't forget: On 11 SEP 1857 Mormon militia attacked the Fancher Party (a gentile wagon train) in southwestern Utah and murdered 120 men, women and children. It is known as the Mountain Meadows Massacre.
ReplyDeletePreach it, brother.
ReplyDeleteElabarto,
ReplyDeleteWTF is your point?
The massacre was a tragedy, but hardly something for the nation to memorialize.
9/11 cut us to the bone, it is something for us to memorialize!
Well said bro, the exact thots of many, but sadly not all. Prayers to all the families, friends, and work mates.
ReplyDeleteI think it's salient to note that we're now living in an age where an ever-growing number of voters were not even alive when 911 happened. They've only experienced it from textbooks or low-res standard-def video.
ReplyDeleteThey'll never understand that 911 was preceded by the "vacation from history" that America took during the Bill Clinton years. Just as America today obsesses about contrived insane issues like transgendered rights and climate change while the enemies of what America used to stand for coordinate for a world after our demise.
Bobo September 11, 2023 at 9:30 AM
ReplyDeleteGOD BLESS AMERICA, TODAY AND FOREVER
I will NEVER forget!
ReplyDeleteI will never forget and I will always remember descending into the 09/11 Memorial and seeing this quote by Virgil displayed in mosaic on the wall; "No one day can erase you from the memory of time." God bless America and you for your patriotism.
ReplyDeleteWatching a plane fly directly into my old office space from a mile south of the Pentagon is not something I will ever forget. We were to move back in two days later, in the remodeled spaces east of the collapsed portion. New water sprinklers kept the area from burning, but the water destroyed our new digs. Our servers were already in the new space, and they continued to work for 15 minutes after impact, before the water killed 'em. IT immediately ordered new ones of exactly the same make/model.
ReplyDeleteHad we been there, IT was next to the fireball Corridor 3 and would have been scorched. My office was by Corridor 4, and we'd have gotten very, very wet. We finally moved back in ten months later. Our office didn't lose anyone, but there were injuries; folks were in meetings near the impact zone.
A buddy lost 6 co-workers, and he did the work of 6 for months. The entire Army Comptroller Office died. Before even being asked, retired comptrollers reported for work at the alternate site on 9/12, and the Army still got its budget submitted to Congress on time. About half of the Defense Intelligence Agency's comptroller office died, too.
Our neighbor across our residential street was the Commandant of the Marine Corps’ General Counsel. He was in the Commandant's office when they were both thrown to the ceiling in pitch black. They crawled toward a tiny light, which was a crack in a door. A Marine on the other side smashed the door in, and they got out. Neighbor lost his hearing for several weeks, but recovered. He then embarked on a serious strengthening regime, so that he would never again be trapped. He got so ripped that when he mowed his lawn, women came out with lawn chairs to admire the view from my driveway.
On that fateful day, my children and their spouses and I gathered to be together on that wretched day. My first and only grandchild learned to walk that day, and the juxtaposition between that sweet little angel toddling around and the carnage on TV was almost too much to bear. He turns 23 tomorrow. I just made myself cry.
ReplyDeleteRemember the victims.
ReplyDeleteRemember the heroes.
Remember the sons-of-bitches that did it.
Comparing 9/11 with J6 is an obscenity.
ReplyDeleteThank you for putting it so succinctly.
FIRST RATE, Stilt. I can't come close to putting it more accurately and spot-on. Time moves on but some things do not fade. Let us NEVER FORGET their sacrifices along with the lives senselessly and tragically lost (think of the jumpers and try not to cringe) that day. An Inside Job, to be sure. All true, freedom loving Americans (who JUST wanted to be left alone) need to keep this close as their rallying cry. We're nowhere near finished in the river of evil that's been opened up upon us.
ReplyDeleteIf the idiot now sitting behind the Resolute Desk couldn't dig himself a deeper hole, it is reported yesterday, he has falsely claimed (again) he was at Ground Zero right after the 9/11 attacks.
ReplyDeleteCalumny is the word that comes to mind here.
I do not mean to be obscene, but the commonality between the two events is our own government's complicity.
ReplyDeleteGod, damn those people responsible for the events of 9/11/2001, and those who could care less about what happened.
ReplyDeleteIn her 911 speech Kamala outlined the biggest tragedies in our nation's history, December 7th, 911, and J6. No mention of the invasion of Kevin McCarthy's office by AIDS protestors the other day. Or her boss in Vietnam rambling on about how he's just doing what his staff tells him to and that it's past his bedtime until a voiceover announces that the event is over and music starts playing. The only thing missing was the off-stage hook appearing to pull him away...
ReplyDelete