Soccer Dad

9/11 + 6

My 9/11 post from last year, Three strands not easily broken.

On the occasion of Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's ouster last November I recalled what he did on 9/11.

Last year's 9/11 roundup.

How not to /to remember 9/11 from two years ago.

While I can't relate to the Christianity of Alan Jackson's "Where were you (when the world stopped turning)" many of the lyrics recall how I felt.

Where Were You (When The World Stopped Turning)
Where were you when the world stopped turning on that September day?

I was at work when my wife called to tell me that there was a fire at the World Trade Center (where her brother worked) and she was quite concerned. I did as much research as I could and was pretty certain that Jon was OK as the fire was at least 30 floors higher than where he worked. But the internet didn't work too well that day as servers were no doubt overloaded by people trying to do what I was trying to do.

Were you in the yard with your wife and children

That's what I came home to. On another day it would have been beautiful. My wife with our new daughter sitting out in the sunny front yard. But the idyllic appearance would be deceiving for we were filled with worry.

Did you burst out with pride for the red, white and blue
And the heroes who died just doin' what they do?

This line is still the most poignant. The path down the emergency exits was quite hot. The firemen used their axes to break open soda machines to provide the evacuees with water on the way down. Jon said that he was sure that not too long after a firefighter handed him a bottle of water on the 21st floor, that that firefighter almost certainly died. Died, while saving others. Just doing what he did.

Or driving down some cold interstate?

The interstate I went home on was not cold. Though it was, as I recall, empty. As a federal employee in the DC area, I would have been sent home anyway, but I had to take leave a little earlier to support my wife.

This year's additions:
Seraphic Secret
Pillage Idiot
And you must read Oyvay Blog's response to 9/11 "fatigue."
Jewish Current Issues
Kesher Talk's 9/11 story and roundup.
Jack's Shack has a completely unique perspective.
Life of Rubin has a roundup with a number that I haven't included.
Israel Matzav.
LGF on remembering 9/11 through a PC lens.
Roger L Simon's review of Norman Podhoretz. His criticism of the President is on target:

But truth to tell, the president has been the enabler of these hypocrites. He has not stood four square in front of the public and done his job FDR-style in keeping us together. “What we have here,” as Strother Martin told us so memorably in Cool Hand Luke, “is a failure to communicate.” We also, sadly, have a leader who, for all his reading of history, forgot the most famous words of the great military strategist Sun-Tzu: “Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.”

I wish Elder of Ziyon would re-post his picture of lower Manhattan.

9/11.

Posted by SoccerDad at September 12, 2007 12:02 AM