Reading the timeline each year is a sobering experience, but it doesn’t matter what time of year I look at the images from that day. They haunt me. There were 2996 immediate deaths on September 11th, 2001. There were people who cheered that day, celebrating an attack on America. But it wasn’t just an attack on us. It was an attack on the world, with victims from over 90 countries. And those countries came together in the wake of the attack to bring those behind the attack to justice.
9/11 isn’t over. Victims and rescuers alike suffer life threatening medical conditions due to the exposure to toxins during the attacks and continue to succumb to these lingering wounds.
And then, there’s the war. It doesn’t end. In the ensuing 16 years we’ve definitely taken the fight to the enemy and even cut their head off a time or two. The names change, but they remain enemies of freedom. We must secure our future.
Even now, the world is faced with the threat of a resurgent Islamic fundamentalism that targets our ideals in both word and deed. We must oppose them in every case, lest our efforts thus far, be in vain.
Never Forgive, Never Forget
Tags: 9/11
I was in Iran when this happened. We watched on pirate satellite tv beamed from turkey. The persians straight away saw this as a sunni attack but new they would suffer for it, despite trying to root out those who did it themselves, for the reason the US was – ideological attacks on their soil.
Under their own steam Iranians evaced us to the border, knowing we were safe in Iran but that no one else would see that.
No one i saw cheered, they all knew the shitfight that would come.
In turkey i heard a lot about how the US itself was to blame.
Its a complex series of events, with many elements of stupidity, ignorance and undeclared agenda in the mix. Lets remember ALL those who died in it by not repeating any more of the mistakes than we have to.
Thank you for the recounting. As everpresent as it is in our way of life now, it’s also easy to forget that morning. That reminder is all the more important now as it becomes more distant.
Smoke checking thousands of office workers is not war it’s terror.