--Riverthalos
Jonas is the guy from the planet where Daniel gets accused of mass murder. I think that's how it went, anyway.
I do want to talk about it, actually. The memorial today was very moving. I wrote this on HoF.
******
Lalaith wrote: I actually shed a few tears--something I rarely do in public.
The 21-gun salute is stirring. Taps can make you teary-eyed. If neither of those do it, the bagpiper playing Amazing Grace will surely bring a tear or two. What really did it for me, though, was when all of the First Responders turned on their lights and sirens simultaneously at 1pm. This was something all police and firefighters were going to do across the nation. Amid the cacophony of sound, I couldn't help but think, "This is what they heard at the Towers. This may have been among the last sounds the firefighters and officers heard. This may have been among the last sounds the people heard. It would have been so terrifying, so incredibly awful and dire."
Someone I know posted a first-hand account of someone she knows. This part, in particular, really hit me in the gut:
Written by Michael Graves, from here: https://www.facebook.com/notes/jennifer ... 1985049289
Quote: To my right was a set of three fire engines, lights flashing, and I could also hear their dispatch radio from one of the engines. My attention was caught by a woman who sounded slightly hysterical. It was a black woman in a dark purple business suit, completely drenched, with no shoes and a large tear in one sleeve. She was explaining – in shrieks – to the leader of a fire company that was standing nearby that she had just come down from the 84th floor of 2[??] WTC. She worked for MetLife and had narrowly made it down the stairway alive. She’d had to change stairways at the 44th floor, and the stair she took down from there was completely dark, filled with smoke, and had water cascading down the shaft in such great quantities that she and the others descending with her more fell down the 44 floors of stairs than walked. Above 44 she said, it was an inferno, and no one could survive it.
It became clear from the lead fireman’s response and his directions to his team that they were suiting up to go up into the tower. “Ma’am, we’ve got a job to do. Please let us do it.†At this point the lady began to beg the men not to go. I’ve no doubt that the story the lady was telling the men was unnerving, but as they finished strapping their tools and gear on, and collecting their helmets, a large explosion blew out windows in 2 WTC and several nearby towers in sympathy. At this point, the group of firemen (maybe a dozen) had moved to the curb just beside me, and were headed toward the tower just three or four blocks down. The lady was following them, sobbing uncontrollably, pleading with these men to abort their plans. Whether it was the woman, the explosion or just the awesome spectacle of the conflagration they were walking into I don’t know, but several of the men were crossing themselves, one I could hear mumbling parts of Psalm 23, and a shorter red-headed firefighter was saying ‘Hail Mary’ over and over:
Hail Mary, full of grace.
The Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women,
And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus
Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners
Now and at the hour of our death.
I don’t know if this is the ‘official’ version of the Hail Mary, but this is how the man repeated it, over and over. I don’t know how many times I heard it, but it was enough that I memorized it. I haven’t been able to get it out my head since.
The leader finally pushed the woman aside, and moved across the street with his team, up West Street towards the towers. The Hail Mary and crosses affected me, but I’ll never forget the looks on the faces of those firefighters. It was a powerful mixture of cold fear and raw courage, and I believe, a deep sense of their prospects for coming back alive. The night before in my hotel room, I’d been reading about the landings of American Infantry at Omaha Beach in Steven Ambrose’s D-Day, marveling at the unalloyed courage of these young soldiers. More than fifty years had passed, and I was seeing firsthand the same faces, the same courage in these firemen.
No doubt the police officers and Port Authority officers had the same grim determination on their faces as they went toward the danger instead of away from it.
I remember where I was, of course, as do all of you, I'm sure. I was on my way to my friend's house to see her new baby. Katie was 5 (almost 6), and Sarah was 2. When my mom met me at my house (we were riding together), she said, "Something terrible has happened in NYC. A plane crashed into one of the World Trade Towers."
We drove to my friend's house and turned on the TV. We admired the newborn baby girl and watched the carnage unfold--the second plane hitting the tower, people jumping to their deaths, the towers collapsing. We watched in horror and mostly silence. With tears. And we kissed that baby's wee hands and toes and watched our toddlers play with dolls. I kept hustling Katie out of the room, though. She was old enough to understand that those were people falling from the sky. She says she remembers that day, remembers me yelling at her to leave the room and not look at the TV. I knew the tower was going to collapse as it started to happen.
I drove home shortly after that and crawled into bed with Craig. He worked midnights then, so he was asleep. I woke him up to tell him the terrible news. Later that day, with our nerves already frayed beyond reason, we all became panic-stricken when a terrific boom shook our houses and the sky. There was a plane that had been hijacked over Cleveland. Was this it? (Obviously, we found out later that that plane was the one that had crashed in Pennsylvania.) After some time, we saw some smoke rising on the horizon. Was it another attack? We live close to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. I could see it being a target.
We found out much later that it was an F-16 creating a sonic boom as it cleared the air space for Air Force One to come through. The smoke? I think it was a fire at a dump or plant or something. Completely unrelated.
I spent that day on the phone with friends and watching TV, all the while trying to keep Katie from hearing or seeing. I explained to her what was going on in general terms, of course.
One of the beautiful stories that came out of that time was the hospitality of that town in Canada where so many planes were stranded. Thank you guys for being there when we needed it.