Our Pearl Harbor

9/11, 8 years later

The memory of that day is still fresh

I haven't been able to watch the Documentary Inside 9/11 on the National Geographic channel without A) tearing up, B) straight bawlin' or C) finish it all in one sitting (it's 2 hours long) but there are a couple of things that stand out to me and I'd like to talk about them being as this is the anniversary.


The three most gut-wrenching moments.


1) The survivors who were above the impact zone of the towers, waving, waiting for rescue. They really thought they were being rescued at some point. So sad. When that building suddenly collapsed do you have any idea how scared they were? They were turned to dust.


2) The firefighters climbing the stairs, filing into the towers as they got closer and closer to collapsing. They play radio transmissions of firefighters and two captains made it to the 78th floor of the South Tower and you can hear his fear, his panic in the voice where he calls for help in fighting the fire on that floor. 10-45 which means dead bodies is said more than once. The minute those Towers collapsed all those lives were lost an in instant, the same instant they decided to walk up those stairs to fight a fire and save anybody that was still alive. Tragic.


3) The phone calls made from passengers on the hijacked airlines. Most notably the United 93 plane that was overtaken back by some brave men. Could you imagine your wife or husband calling you and your watching the news and they are going to be part of that news in the most tragic, horriffic way? I can't even grasp that, I can't even imagine what that is like.


The Pentagon camera footage that shows, for a milli-second, the jet right before it slams into the E ring. Amazing.

The fact that knives were allowed on the airplanes back then. Major hindsight type thought like, what the fuck, why were knives allowed on airplanes if the cockpit doors weren't sealed shut?

Overall the general feeling of anger that this happend on our soil with our planes. They hijacked our commercial airplanes, relatively easy and flew the planes into our buildings. WHAT THE FUCK. After spending months in our country learning to fly the damn planes. The lax of the country, our security, our borders, our "student visa" program, our response to international attacks, etc. was not our proudest moment. And it cost us American lives in a gross fashion.

I will never get over or forget what happened that day. Never. I carry the images, the smell, the walk, the tears, the panic, the soot, the horror, the phone calls, the unity all with me everyday. I walk past the site everyday, twice a day. My path train rumbles underneath what used to be the World Trade Center. I'm not allowed to forget because besides being a New Yorker, I'm an American.