It's 9/11 again. It's hard to believe that the horrible day was 14 years ago, as I can remember it like it was yesterday. I can see myself, my wife, and my little boy watching the Today Show as the second plane hit. I can remember standing there in stunned silence when my boy asked, "What just happened, Daddy?" "A lot of people just died," was all I could say. The rest of that week is cemented in my mind in a similar way.
The hardest thing to deal with, to me, was the messages left by people facing the inevitability of their own death that morning. They called home, or to their parents, or kids, to simply say "I love you." They prayed with complete strangers. There were moments of true, naked humanity, person to person.
Peggy Noonan does a fantastic job relating some of these messages, and the impact they've had. And what really matters most when your end is nigh. I hope you enjoy the article as I did.
Everyone remembers the pictures, but I think more and more about the sounds. I always ask people what they heard that day in New York. We’ve all seen the film and videotape, but the sound equipment of television crews didn’t always catch what people have described as the deep metallic roar.
The other night on TV there was a documentary on the Ironworkers of New York’s Local 40, whose members ran to the site when the towers fell. They pitched in on rescue, then stayed for eight months to deconstruct a skyscraper some of them had helped build 35 years before. An ironworker named Jim Gaffney said, “My partner kept telling me the buildings are coming down and I’m saying ‘no way.’ Then we heard that noise that I will never forget. It was like a creaking and then the next thing you felt the ground rumbling.”
Read more at: http://www.peggynoonan.com/366/
The hardest thing to deal with, to me, was the messages left by people facing the inevitability of their own death that morning. They called home, or to their parents, or kids, to simply say "I love you." They prayed with complete strangers. There were moments of true, naked humanity, person to person.
Peggy Noonan does a fantastic job relating some of these messages, and the impact they've had. And what really matters most when your end is nigh. I hope you enjoy the article as I did.
Everyone remembers the pictures, but I think more and more about the sounds. I always ask people what they heard that day in New York. We’ve all seen the film and videotape, but the sound equipment of television crews didn’t always catch what people have described as the deep metallic roar.
The other night on TV there was a documentary on the Ironworkers of New York’s Local 40, whose members ran to the site when the towers fell. They pitched in on rescue, then stayed for eight months to deconstruct a skyscraper some of them had helped build 35 years before. An ironworker named Jim Gaffney said, “My partner kept telling me the buildings are coming down and I’m saying ‘no way.’ Then we heard that noise that I will never forget. It was like a creaking and then the next thing you felt the ground rumbling.”
Read more at: http://www.peggynoonan.com/366/
