9/11
Fifteen years have passed since the day the world changed on 9/11/01. Our kids were 10, 8 and 5. We lived in a different home. We didn’t live in fear of terrorism. We didn’t have TSA at the airports. We didn’t have Twitter.
We had zero idea how the next 15 years would change how the world lives from decisions made by our Government that day. The anger and fear that has been unleashed from that day is overwhelming. Did it have to be that way?
Downtown NY has been transformed. Lives have been changed. It is a day that is etched in my memory like no other. I don’t think about it often but when I do I can go back in my mind like I am re-watching a film. I recall the morning, watching the second plane hit the tower while I stood with others on 5th Avenue in shock, walking up 6th Avenue with our kids in tow answering questions that we couldn’t answer, seeing people covered in ash who had made their way from farther downtown, sitting in front of the TV all day with people from a company that no longer exists, walking down to the hospital after the call that they were in need of clothes for the survivors when they arrived. They never arrived.
Tears still come to my eyes and a slight chill goes up my spine when I recall that day in my mind. We live in a very different world than we did 15 years ago. Time passes, wounds heal but that day will never be forgotten.
Comments (Archived):
I’m with you on this.http://arnoldwaldstein.com/…
Those photos of loved ones with the phone numbers attached to them were the most heart wrenching.
– Did it have to be that way?I often ponder that question too. And I wished one could rewind the clock on 9-11 itself and what ensued.
For sure. As more info comes out in the years to come how the Bush administration handled things will be very telling
Did they have to go to war? Probably not. Did they need to set up an entire ineffective federal bureaucracy (Homeland Security)? Probably not. Do we need to take on radical Islam? You bet we do and it’s better to do it somewhere else than the US. It’s the strategy behind how you do it that’s important. It does take brave people doing distasteful things to stop it.