Remembering 911

The fifth anniversary of the terrorist attack upon the World Trade Center is approaching and America needs to use this opportunity to remember and personally reflect upon the events as they unfolded that dreaded morning as we all sat glued to our televisions. Every one of us should allow this deceitful act of war upon the United States of America to serve as a catalyst in jogging our memories as to why we are presently in Afghanistan and Iraq.

This is not going to be a piece eulogizing the event; on the contrary, I want to point out a few things that perhaps people either were not ware of or did not know at all. Many wonderful pieces have been published in blogs as a remembrance to 911, I wrote a piece as well titled, Our Beacon of Freedom and that will serve as my thoughts on the matter.

On September 11, 2001 terrorist’s commandeered commercial aircraft piloting them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and straight into the ground after courageous passengers fought back attempting to take control of the aircraft. Thousands of human beings perished that day, The National Geographic Channel’s documentary on 911 stated the death toll was 2,983 innocent human beings whose lives, families, and future generations were destroyed by an individual and a group bent on destroying our way of life; 2,983 human beings who will never walk the earth again.

On the made for television show they interviewed many of the witnesses, fireman, police officers and individuals who were there witnessing the events and having their lives changed forever. Many talked of the loud noises of bodies hitting the ground every few minutes, human beings jumping from the hell that had been cast upon them by al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, surrounded by fire and smoke, their only escape to leap the building’s windows to their death.

One fireman described an image burned into his mind of a woman crawling out onto a ledge eighty stories in the air, standing there and making the sign of a cross on herself she gazed into the clouds spread her arms out wide and leaped. He said he would never forget that image and take it with him to his grave.

Perhaps one of the saddest commentaries on the aftermath came from the fireman working through out the day, the night and greeting the sunrise the next morning. They had not left their post, they were not going to leave a man or woman behind, and they were staying. The rising sun brought forth a new light onto the scene of devastation and most, if not everyone stopped, bowed their heads and prayed. A sound greeted them; loud chirping sounds and they seemed to emanate from ever corner of the rubble. Everywhere they looked, they could hear the chirping noises and it destroyed the very fabric of their soul, they were lost and began to cry openly, some fireman holding one another an openly weeping.

It was a surrealistic moment comprised of hundreds of chirping sounds, a cacophony of music from the depths of sadness that filtered through their minds and hearts. They were the emergency locator transponders of the fireman who perished in the devastation, the fireman had disintegrated among the rubble, but their transponders survived and now served as a beacon of prayer to remember them.

Smoke, fog and devastation was everywhere, some described the scene as a sight from the depths of hell, others as the aftermath of a nuclear explosion. The two tallest buildings in New York had come down upon itself and the landscape was now a rescue operation with every fireman praying they would find a brother lost in the rubble.

After the sunrise and the transponders, all singing their song of prayer the smoke and fog began to lift from the massive piles of rubble strew about the landscape of a proud city. The sight that now greeted the fireman put all thoughts of rescuing brothers and sisters from the rubble into a different perspective, a new realization of no one surviving this attack struck them from the scene of devastation. Littered among all the debris, the twisted beams of steel and pebbles that were once proud pieces of masonry serving as a tribute to democracy were hundreds upon hundreds, thousands of shoes. Shoes of all different sizes, colors, and shapes everywhere the eye could see were shoes, some destroyed, but intact laying upon the now hollowed ground.

The lost fireman’s emergency locator transponders all chirping, the hundreds or thousands of shoes struck these men and women, it moved into their souls and moved them and served as a notice to them that no one survived only transponders and shoes of the dead.

2,983 human beings perished on September 11, 2001 and perhaps ten times that amount became heroes, rescuing people from the devastation of an attack upon America. This memory should be burned into the depths of our souls, our hearts and our minds each moment of the day. We should never forget one moment of that day, not one-second, or nanosecond.

This is what Osama bin Laden set into motion upon our country on that day. This is what the cowardly creatures of the netherworld, under orders of bin Laden did to the families of 2, 983 human beings and this is why we need to fight terrorism with every breath of our bodies until it is dead and buried.

Remember 911, but remember the 2,983 souls who perished that day.