Tuesday September 11, 2001 Remembrance

[alxlwson]

A day I'll never forget.

I was attending a military school and was in Algebra class when the commandant came and gathered us all to watch the news.
We had just got a new TAC Officer a few weeks prior, he had just retired from the Army, a MSgt Green Beret. About ten minutes after the towers fell, his Nokia rang. He wished us well, asked for our prayers, and said he'd been recalled. I was there for two years. We got one letter from him, and never heard from him again.
My father had also just retired from the Navy that April, electronic warfare CPO. He got some notice of standby (he was one of five or so people in the world that did what he did/knew). Thankfully he never got recalled.
My grandmother and great aunt was up in NYC visiting old friends and they were touring the city that morning. They were unharmed, and ended up chartering a limo service to drive them back home.

Our grandparents remember PH, our parents remember Vietnam, we have 9/11, the current batch had Dr's election(lol, whiney brats), hopefully there won't be anything for many many generations. There has been more than enough death.

 

[FrgMstr]

I was in New York the first week of October after the attack. Was really strange still seeing the smoke rising from the fires underground. Portions of the Trade Center walls still standing and recognizable. All the posters up on the streets for the missing. It was truly surreal.

 

[Grimlaking]

Still chokes me up to this day. I was at home about to leave for work when the news broke about 9/11. We didn't have a TV in our office and the internet was pretty crap even at IBM at the time. I remember stopping off at a radio shack and buying a cheapo hand held tv unit just to watch the news. I made it into the office and had the news on when we watched live as the second plane slammed into the WTC tower... then they showed the specs falling off the tower and zoomed in just enough that we watched as the Anchorman came to the realization that those were not pieces of the building but people jumping out of the tower to escape the fire. That still sends a shiver up my spine just remembering those terrible images.

The fact that today we have hatred in our leadership and a division of people in this country shames me. We should have learned but we chose not to.

 

[DejaWiz]

My sister just posted this. Good perspective from somebody that went through it as a first-responder.

...and her husband's (my brother-in-law) response:

 

[DooLocsta]

I remember exactly where and what I was doing that day. I will never forget.

 

[Riccochet]

I was at a job interview. It was terrible. Emotional.

Semper Fi. Never Forget.

 

[[21CW]killerofall]

Sophomore year in high school I was in English class when I heard about it and was in study hall when I saw the 2nd plane hit live on TV. My father (now retired) was working for the DOD (civilian in St. Louis) working in imagery analysis and later that day, was already working on intel. He knew one person who died in the Pentagon and two people who should have been on one of the flights but decided to sleep in that morning instead. That day and most of the next 6 months were a blur.

 

[Grimlaking]

To all those that suffered a loss of loved ones you have my sympathy.

To those that lost their innocence in a vicious world you have my support.

To those that found hate for a race you have my pity.

Hate the act, hate the monsters that precipitated and enabled this act. But to hate a race or a religion over it... Well that's the exact same reason we were attacked because of hate of our culture, or race, and our religion.

 

[AceGoober]

I was at home, sick, trying to get some sleep when my boss called. He told me over the phone to turn on my TV and that this was a very bad day. I flipped on the TV and couldn't believe my eyes. First jet had already hit and I watched as the second jet hit. All too surreal. Spent the rest of the day sipping warm tea and soup glued to the TV.

 

[M76]

To those that found hate in this tragedy you have my pity.

An accident is a tragedy like the bridge collapse in Italy recently. But I Have a very hard time considering something premeditated a tragedy. Surely if there was a time appropriate for some hate then it was this. I'm sorry, but I do hate the people brainwashed monsters responsible.

I don't have a good story for when it happened. And I'm not even going to try to pretend that. I was in P.E. class in high school when we heard the news, and it was the age before smartphones (hell even cellphones) and readily accessible internet, so I only could believe it when I saw the news broadcasts after going home. We thought surely it is an accident, until we saw the second plane hit live.

 

[Grimlaking]

An accident is a tragedy like the bridge collapse in Italy recently. But I Have a very hard time considering something premeditated a tragedy. Surely if there was a time appropriate for some hate then it was this. I'm sorry, but I do hate the people brainwashed monsters responsible.

I don't have a good story for when it happened. And I'm not even going to try to pretend that. I was in P.E. class in high school when we heard the news, and it was the age before smartphones (hell even cellphones) and readily accessible internet, so I only could believe it when I saw the news broadcasts after going home. We thought surely it is an accident, until we saw the second plane hit live.

You know what you are absolutely right. I fixed it.

 

[next-Jin]

I was stationed in Germany. I don’t think I can forget it. AFN and local channels were playing everything.

We had a formation before release for the day and was told to go call our relatives if they lived in NYC. I thought nothing of it, maybe a prop plane had hit a building (what’s the big deal).

Ended up pulling more guard duty over the next year than most service memebers will do their entire careers. They brought in a contracting company to pull the security and the Brigade went to Kuwait to scare Saddam.

A few weeks later I was crossing the berm with 101st.

If the 9/11 attacks did anything for me it was to fundamentally change my viewpoint of the world. Prior to 9/11 and leading up to the wars I was a hardcore neo conservative. Now that I’ve seen war, worked at the White House, and traveled the world with a career in the military I fully adhere to the libertarian philosophy.

It saddens me greatly that over the course of my last 20 years we still have not learned valuable lessons, solved this problem, and the fear of knowing my 5 and 8 year old children will probably fight the same enemy and wars my generation did.

 

[dgingeri]

To those that found hate for a race you have my pity.

Hate the act, hate the monsters that precipitated and enabled this act. But to hate a race or a religion over it... Well that's the exact same reason we were attacked because of hate of our culture, or race, and our religion.

Because of 9/11, I took a close look at Islam and its history. I read the Quran to find the sources of their actions. My findings on Islam are not irrational fear, but a well researched knowledge of a very violent history. Let me tell you exactly why we should all fear and oppose this religion.

From the start, it was and has been a very violent religion, with the one who formed it commanding his followers to kill every man, woman, child, and horse in two different cities simply because they offended him, Mecca and Medina.

His hatred for the Jewish people is well documented in the Quran, but his followers were not able to conquer that area until long after his death. He had repeated calls to kill or enslave nonbelievers who refused to convert, and those who converted were kept at the lowest caste of their society. That's all in their holy book that establishes their actions as part of their religion.

Now, into their history. From about 622AD until 750AD, the Islamic empire waged an unopposed war against Christian areas, wiping out more than 10 million Christians from northern Africa and enslaving more than 30 million in that time period, even taking over the Iberian peninsula and some of southern France. They wiped out many of the oldest Christian societies across northern Africa. From 750AD until 1095AD, they waged a pirate war against Europe, killing tens of thousands, wiping out villages, and enslaving hundreds of thousands more, all without a major response from the Christian nations.

In 1095, the first Crusade was called, and from then until last Crusade in 1291, the Christians suffered defeat after defeat, inflicting little damage that the Islamic empires couldn't undo within months. The Crusades, spread over 194 years, caused 1-1.5 million casualties, about half of which were Muslims, barely scratching the surface of the Islamic expansion. In those Crusades, the Islamic armies slaughtered hundreds of thousands of civilians the Crusaders were attempting to evacuate, while the Islamic cities suffered very few civilian casualties. Also killed during that time period were over 20 million Christians in Islamic territories that the Crusaders were unable to reach.

They don't tell you that in the same time period of the Christian Crusades, the Islamic empire expanded toward India, killing over 20 million Hindus and 3 million Buddhists in that time, and over 60 million enslaved or "converted".

Since 1291, Islamists have continues to kill and enslave nonbelievers, to the tune of 30 million Christians, 40 million Hindus, and 7 million Buddhists. This has never stopped, and continues to this day.

This is historical record. Look it up. The sources of information are readily available, and I looked them up as I wrote this. Just too many to note here.

One point that many people like to criticize the US about is the history of slavery. They don't know the half of it. The US had about 12.5 million black slaves from 1525 until 1866. Islamists in Africa, however, had over 60 million in that same time period, with over 150 million more in the time preceding that. What's more is that since 1866, after slavery ended in the US, Islamists in Africa have continued to enslave people to the tune of over 120 million more, with over 200 million people working as slaves of various types for Islamic leaders and rich right now, stretching all the way from Morocco to Malaysia.

The fear of the spread of Islam is NOT bigotry nor is it a phobia. It is well reasoned and completed established in the past actions of those following the religion. That religion is very dangerous.

 

[dgingeri]

Most (all?) religions are very dangerous and are responsible for countless of atrocities and oppression.

Let's compare death of civilian non believers over time, roughly, as the historic record isn't all that complete:
Christians - ~200,000-300,000 over 2000 years (And, no, I am NOT counting deaths by specific nations classified as Christian, as they do not follow the Christian religion and are led by men, not God, and no nation since the Holy Roman Empire has done any such actions in the name of Christianity. I know a lot of leftists like to attribute the deaths from nations and empires to Christianity, but that is not so. I also do not count communities that acted against nearby Islamic communities acting for their own preservation, such as what happened in Serbia, because that was NOT done in the name of Christianity, but rather for and by the local people.)
Judiasm - ~500,000 over 3500 years, mostly before 300BC
Hindus - ~1000 (no recorded incidents of Hindus killing anyone over religion. However, there were early references of rituals that led to the deaths of the participants.)
Buddhists - ~0 (no recorded incidents of Buddhists killing anyone over religion.)
Islamists - ~120 million over 1400 years (These were, and continue to be, completely attributed to and done in the name of the Islam religion itself. I do not count deaths from countries such as Saddam Hussein's Iraq regime or Assad's Syrian armies to this number, for the same reason as above.)
Atheists/communists/socialists - ~200 million over 120 years (Done by communists and socialist regimes that actively discourage religion.)

The big difference, though, is that Islam has that violence baked into the religion itself. No other religion does. In fact, most religions have prohibitions against it, including Christianity. No religions comes anywhere close to the numbers of deaths directly attributed to Islam or leftist political theory, which is most certainly a religion as its followers act against scientific evidence or history.

 

[NickJames]

Let's compare death of civilian non believers over time, roughly, as the historic record isn't all that complete:
Christians - ~200,000-300,000 over 2000 years (And, no, I am NOT counting deaths by specific nations classified as Christian, as they do not follow the Christian religion and are led by men, not God, and no nation since the Holy Roman Empire has done any such actions in the name of Christianity. I know a lot of leftists like to attribute the deaths from nations and empires to Christianity, but that is not so. I also do not count communities that acted against nearby Islamic communities acting for their own preservation, such as what happened in Serbia, because that was NOT done in the name of Christianity, but rather for and by the local people.)
Judiasm - ~500,000 over 3500 years, mostly before 300BC
Hindus - ~1000 (no recorded incidents of Hindus killing anyone over religion. However, there were early references of rituals that led to the deaths of the participants.)
Buddhists - ~0 (no recorded incidents of Buddhists killing anyone over religion.)
Islamists - ~120 million over 1400 years (These were, and continue to be, completely attributed to and done in the name of the Islam religion itself. I do not count deaths from countries such as Saddam Hussein's Iraq regime or Assad's Syrian armies to this number, for the same reason as above.)
Atheists/communists/socialists - ~200 million over 120 years (Done by communists and socialist regimes that actively discourage religion.)

The big difference, though, is that Islam has that violence baked into the religion itself. No other religion does. In fact, most religions have prohibitions against it, including Christianity. No religions comes anywhere close to the numbers of deaths directly attributed to Islam or leftist political theory, which is most certainly a religion as its followers act against scientific evidence or history.

Sounds unfair to not include every Christian follower leading their people to war, it was all done in the name of "God" and the "Bible" so I would see fit to include that number which is said to be in the tens of millions. Although I am not sure where you got that 120M for Islam.

 

[vegeta535]

Let's compare death of civilian non believers over time, roughly, as the historic record isn't all that complete:
Christians - ~200,000-300,000 over 2000 years (And, no, I am NOT counting deaths by specific nations classified as Christian, as they do not follow the Christian religion and are led by men, not God, and no nation since the Holy Roman Empire has done any such actions in the name of Christianity. I know a lot of leftists like to attribute the deaths from nations and empires to Christianity, but that is not so. I also do not count communities that acted against nearby Islamic communities acting for their own preservation, such as what happened in Serbia, because that was NOT done in the name of Christianity, but rather for and by the local people.)
Judiasm - ~500,000 over 3500 years, mostly before 300BC
Hindus - ~1000 (no recorded incidents of Hindus killing anyone over religion. However, there were early references of rituals that led to the deaths of the participants.)
Buddhists - ~0 (no recorded incidents of Buddhists killing anyone over religion.)
Islamists - ~120 million over 1400 years (These were, and continue to be, completely attributed to and done in the name of the Islam religion itself. I do not count deaths from countries such as Saddam Hussein's Iraq regime or Assad's Syrian armies to this number, for the same reason as above.)
Atheists/communists/socialists - ~200 million over 120 years (Done by communists and socialist regimes that actively discourage religion.)

The big difference, though, is that Islam has that violence baked into the religion itself. No other religion does. In fact, most religions have prohibitions against it, including Christianity. No religions comes anywhere close to the numbers of deaths directly attributed to Islam or leftist political theory, which is most certainly a religion as its followers act against scientific evidence or history.

Sure the difference is huge. It doesn't excuess the other religions from what they did/try to do. A lot of it still goes on today in the Christian/Catholic community. Religon itself is a disease and needs to be removed from the world. Still won't change anything since humans will find something else to fight over.

 

[dgingeri]

Sounds unfair to not include every Christian follower leading their people to war, it was all done in the name of "God" and the "Bible" so I would see fit to include that number which is said to be in the tens of millions. Although I am not sure where you got that 120M for Islam.

Let me give you an example of this overblowing of the count:

https://www.quora.com/Which-religio...of-deaths-of-infidels-over-its-entire-history

The idiot who wrote this article has a huge list of "Christian wars", of which only one is actually a war waged in the name of Christianity, and his count includes the deaths on both sides, and the deaths of the soldiers, not a bare count of innocents. Of that list, every single one except the Crusades from 1095 through 1291 (which he got that wrong as well, completely missing a battle in 1291 where the 12,000 Islamist attackers killed over 5000 fleeing civilians along with the 36 Christian defending soldiers) were waged by a leader of a country in the name of his own power, like the Hundred Years War, or, in most cases, the Christians were on defense and had never attacked anyone, such as what he labeled the Gothic Wars. Do you really think the Mexican revolution was done in the name of Christianity?? This idiot even included the Vietnam and Korean wars as Christian wars. What was he smoking to think that??

 

[[21CW]killerofall]

Atheists/communists/socialists - ~200 million over 120 years (Done by communists and socialist regimes that actively discourage religion.)

"Atheists/communists/socialists" are not a group of religious people and should not be included in your list. Atheism is simply the lack of belief in one or more gods. It is not a religion as atheists have a wide range of beliefs. Also technically, many Buddhists are also atheists. The only way you could include atheists is if they killed someone because they were theists, which I am sure did happen, but likely at a much lower level than what you stated, assuming that you want to keep the same level of standards for all groups in your list.

Also where did you get your numbers? Or did you just pull them out of your ass?

 

[Nebell]

9/11 doesn't have as much to do with religion as the US pissing off some really mean people. This whole incident is because of US foreign policy. Which honestly is threatening, oppressive and a danger to the whole world.

 

[dgingeri]

"Atheists/communists/socialists" are not a group of religious people and should not be included in your list. Atheism is simply the lack of belief in one or more gods. It is not a religion as atheists have a wide range of beliefs. Also technically, many Buddhists are also atheists. The only way you could include atheists is if they killed someone because they were theists, which I am sure did happen, but likely at a much lower level than what you stated, assuming that you want to keep the same level of standards for all groups in your list.

Also where did you get your numbers? Or did you just pull them out of your ass?

Oh, but it is a religion. Socialism and communism have shown every single time that they don't work, and yet there are people who voluntarily disregard evidence that it doesn't work, as well as evidence that their other stories used to push for power are lies, and push that it is the future. If that isn't blind faith, I don't know what is.