NEVER FORGET SEPTEMBER 11, 2001

[admin]

AMERICA ATTACKED - A 9/11 MEMORIAL

[bluepride]

All of the Police Officers, Firefighters and other first responders who were murdered and killed on 9/11/01 are heroes. And so are all of those who were killed within the towers, the Pentagon, and the plane that eventually crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. We should also remember all of those who later died as a result of the cancers and other catastrophic illnesses that were caused by the toxic air at Ground Zero. I lost many friends and co-workers on 9/11 and in the years afterwards. And it is still an ongoing thing. RIP Vinnie, John, Ed, Tommy, Renee and all the rest. I hope the savages who hijacked those planes continue to burn in hell and those who planned and executed the hijacking and the murders burn in hell.

[bluepride]

New 9/11 Video Surfaces

Video taken from inside an NYPD police helicopter on 9/11 has just turned up on the internet.

The 17 minutes of footage was taken by NYPD Emergency Services crew.

The clip starts with the helicopter getting very close to the burning twin towers. The helicopter then lands on a field in lower Manhattan.

The clip restarts just after the first collapse that brought down the South Tower. One of the men on the helicopter shouts that the tower has vanished.

One of the men on the helicopter is heard saying on the tape, "We got out of there at the right time" a few minutes later.

Read article and see video here: New 9/11 Video Surfaces

[bluepride]

[TheBear]

Below are thoughts from the Cops Alive site for September 11, 2011...

Bear
_____________

May our thoughts and prayers, today, be will all the survivors and victims of the attacks on September 11, 2001. Starting today we must work harder to maintain the ideals that prompted us to put on a badge and take an oath to protect and preserve a peaceful society. As peace officers and peace makers we must lead the peoples of the world to overcome their prejudices and to reconcile their differences in order to create a world we can all share in peace.

We must strive for world peace, as we wage a campaign against terrorism in all it’s forms.

Let today be a day of peace and unity, rather than one of strife and discord.

Let us not waiver in our mission, and not falter in our professionalism.

As warriors in blue (and many other colors of uniforms and plain clothes) we must persevere and always continue to make ourselves better, stronger, more capable and more prepared to protect and to serve, and possibly to make the ultimate sacrifice so that those who have gone before us will not have died in vain, and those who come after us can pause and say: “They were the gladiators, the peacemakers, the ones who led the way toward peace, and did not flinch in the face of evil”

Link: www.copsalive.com/thoughts-for-september-11-2011/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+copsalive%2FeAFl+%28Cops+Alive+

[Youn0469]

I don't mean what I am about to post sound cold and callous by any stretch of my imagination. I know many great lives were lost on 9/11 and we will never quite be the same as a nation. I honor the sacrifice that so many willingly made that day in 2001. Please look at this as me asking questions, trying to better understand what happened to us as a nation.

I cannot understand why people feel physically emotional over an event like 9/11 without any real personal or physical connection??

I was sitting in my EMT class today and several people teared up at the sights of a tribute slideshow to the day. Now I can understand people who were actually there to display emotion and those personally affected by it, but I've never understood it when there is such a disconnect. I've never seen so many people become so rude and have a "god" complex when it comes to 9/11 as I did in my class today. Quite a few people took it seriously and personally like it was me that was attacking them. Are their tears for the lives lost or the feeling of vulnerability?

I've seen very similar attitudes when people talk about immigration. They fear it but not in the typical manner fear comes in. They shut it out and try to be better than it.

I know that in times of great social upheaval as in times of war or when we were attacked like on 9/11 and Pearl Harbor we feel threatened and we take our anger out. I still feel that to even this day there is an extreme amount of racism in our culture. We fear the unknown. I cannot recall how many racial epithets I have heard about how middle easterners are terrorists. Yet again, I just don't understand the need to senselessly blame another until proof beyond a reasonable doubt has been established.

I understand that 9/11 was a tragic day, thousands of people lost their lives that day and many became martyrs for a cause that they would have rather not become so.

All in all I am trying to understand the aftermath of 9/11 in the context of my life 2,000 plus miles away.

I'm just trying to make sense of this whole thing. As a nation we've accepted that a group of terrorists destroyed the trade center. There is a growing minority of people who think it was a conspiracy. Whether this was a capitalist conspiracy, a coverup by Bush or both is being debated. Personally, I don't know what's what. I have not been completely convinced of either sides remote possibility. I don't think we'll ever know the whole truth to this because of the sensitive nature of the whole event.

Like I said, I don't mean to be callous or cold, I just wish to understand this better.

[hcsodale]

CONSPIRACY? I don't think that the recordings from the plane cockpits or in the background of the calls being made by frightened passengers, (whose voices by the way have been identified by the decedents families) were made up by the government to fool the nation. The identified persons involved have been documented for their time, months and years in their preparation for that day.
I rank this conspiracy idea right up there with the "we never went to the moon" theory. This isn't the equivalent of a rumor gone rampant.

This event has changed not just our Nation, but the World. Every State, County and Municipality in our country alone has created policies and procedures for how to hopefully be more prepared for another such event. Just the TSA policies alone, changes how the rest of the world must conform or abstain from travel to or from our country.

Only a Conspiracy Theorist, would believe that 9/11 was a Government sanctioned conspiracy. One should not classify an entire culture by the acts of a few, but it is not unique to Middle Easterners. Every culture, race, ethnicity, whatever gets stereotyped by the actions of a few. That doesn't make it right, but it is there.

[TheBear]

Sept 13, 2011 14:07:57 GMT -5 Youn0469 said:

I don't mean what I am about to post sound cold and callous by any stretch of my imagination. I know many great lives were lost on 9/11 and we will never quite be the same as a nation. I honor the sacrifice that so many willingly made that day in 2001. Please look at this as me asking questions, trying to better understand what happened to us as a nation.

I cannot understand what is it with people who feel physically emotional over an event like 9/11 without any real personal or physical connection?? (CLIP...)

Are their tears for the lives lost or the feeling of vulnerability? (CLIP...)

I've seen very similar attitudes when people talk about immigration. They fear it but not in the typical manner fear comes in. They shut it out and try to be better than it. (CLIP...)

I understand that 9/11 was a tragic day, thousands of people lost their lives that day and many became martyrs for a cause that they would have rather not become so.

All in all I am trying to understand the aftermath of 9/11. (CLIP...)

Was this a big government screw up or a conspiracy? I don't think we'll ever know the truth to this. (<--- YIKES! ... CLIP...)

OH MY. Far too many complex issues to address here. To me, it is very much like asking to understand the issues of World Peace.

However, regarding people tearing up (and what feelings may have contributed to the cause of them doing so,) I posit this: It is a matter of human compassion. It is the extent and depth to which one is able to identify compassionately with empathy to the crushing pain and loss experienced by the survivors. It is altruism - which I suggest is an essential component LEOs and EMTs must possess - that unites us in mutual humanity.

You are correct in that the greatest fear of all is the fear of the unknown. And, I submit that HATE comes from FEAR which comes from IGNORANCE. Introspectively, the ability to be able to feel empathetically, to tap into one's own extremely complex well of life experiences, attachments, love, insecurities - and the triggers which activate them - all precipitated the emotions and tears you observed.

To me - and this is just my view - the very best LEOs, the very best EMTs, the very best of all who are in the Protect and Serve professions, develop these skills throughout their careers. The challenge is to maintain a healthy and healthful balance (there IS a difference!) in these qualities in one's personal life and career journey. It is a continuing lifetime effort. I invite you to do a Google search on "Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs." The apex of the pyramid, Self Actualization, is a life-long goal for all. Some attain it; some do not.

Just my views.

Bear
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[bluepride]

I'm glad you guys posted on this. I couldn't believe what I was reading yesterday and signed off my computer. Josh, you're a great guy but you must've been having a bad day, needed sleep or something else. Usually you're posts are pretty good and intelligent. Speaking as someone older than you, all I can say is that for all your intelligence that you show most of the time, this time your lack of life experience and naivety showed through, glaringly.

I'm surprised. I didn't expect that from you. Imagine you saw bodies drop from the 88th floor and explode and splatter on the ground. Or had friends or family who were literally vaporized without so much as a shred of a fingernail to be recovered. Imagine the full sized caskets containing only a fingertip. Imagine if this happened in your town. 9/11 happened to every living soul in the USA, to every blade of grass and to every speck of soil. Those who don't realize that have some serious thinking to do. And those who did it and those who applaud it don't deserve to live. I always said that the area where those terrorists came from should've been blown off the earth on Sept 12,2001 or 13th at the very latest. I still feel that way.

I'm just surprised at you, kiddo. You're better than that!

[Youn0469]

Bear, thanks, as always for your insightful words from your years of study on the subject of grief, death and dying. These really are the emotions I try to understand better. I know that there is a certain feebleness to trying to understand human emotions as they are so complex and dynamic in nature. More over I am trying to understand the unique emotions brought on by a disaster such as 9/11, which had impacts on a global scale, and the various stories surrounding it. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the whole event. I'm trying to figure out why people here in MN would act the way they did. I can understand and sympathize with those who lost someone on that day, but I'm trying to understand the feelings of those who were not there and didn't have a direct connection to the victims. Maybe there is something in life I have not experienced that others have and enables them to be more sympathetic. I don't know, but I feel it is worth exploring my spirituality and my conscience.

HCSOdale, I never said to buy into a conspiracy. I think about things like this. I consider multiple sides of the story. Yes, I don't doubt that the phone calls that many family members got before their loved ones died were real. That is very tragic. I'm more or less questioning as to why would others feel as if it were a cover up. I guess I am trying to understand the grieving process of those who lost their fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters and so on. Would I ask the same questions as they are if I were in their position?? Possibly so. I have often asked many questions in how my childhood played out. Did my father just become an alcoholic because he liked to drink and the affect? Did he have a life altering experience like the death of his father when he was 19 that contributed to his alcoholism and the subsequent family violence? I guess I am trying to put myself in the shoes of the people who lost their loved ones because, in a way, I can sympathize with them.

Bluepride, I am saddened by you right now. You claim that I have no life experience. How very wrong you are. You know very little of me, you have NO idea of what I have had to struggle with in my life. The abuse, confusion, not being able to trust and rely on others easily. Up until a few years ago I was very closed off to everything spiritually, socially and mentally. I was barely even existent during my formative teenage years. I have had a life that would befit a horror movie or a very dark comedy. After reflecting a bit on mine and your comments I am able to somewhat understand the emotions you describe in your post because of my personal past and life experiences.

Yes, I was angry that day. I was mad that I was being treated the way I was during that little slideshow. The only thing I was doing was talking to the person next to me trying to figure out how many people died that day, how many were EMS, Police and Fire. We were both respectful and kept our voices to a whisper. I see no need for others to bark at people like that. BUT in no way was not "having a bad day." I have had far worse days that have shaken me to my very core. Imagine if you were 9 years old and getting assaulted by your father and then watching him try to kill your mother in a drunken rage. For me, every day is a good day because I am alive and making my life better with every breath.

Make no mistake, I have life experience. Tell me how many other 22 year olds do you know who make more money in a year than either of his parents? How many 22 year olds do you know have held a full time job since high school, have been financially independent since they were 18, and are supporting their own way through college???

Tommy, I was merely trying to explore the topic of the emotions surrounding the day and give some reasons as to why people might feel that way. I'm trying to understand this now. I did not have the luxury of that when I was younger because I was too worried about whether or not I was going to be able to eat that night. I'm trying to explore the human emotion surrounding 9/11 and why it is that way.

In no way do I think what happened was to be "applauded". It is a f'in waste and shame what happened. I feel terrible for the lives that were lost. I hope that I can be as ballsy as some when the time comes for me to respond to an emergency of that proportion. I hope that I don't freeze, second guess myself or cower in a corner. If I were there I would probably have the same reaction as you, but I wasn't there. I was 2,000 plus miles away. So how could I possibly feel the same as those who were there that day?? That's really what this is about. How can those, such as myself, who were tucked away in the midwest, truly feel the same as those who were there on the front lines? We can only really be sympathetic, I don't think that anyone who was not there that day could be empathetic to the devastation. And trust me, if there were any way for me to change what happened I would. I grew up with an alcoholic father seldom present, I could only imagine what those children were feeling and I would not want any one to go through the loss of a parent. I had no father pretty much from age 9 to 17, and even then, he was not the same. In no way am I saying that the situations of mine and a 9/11 victims family are exactly similar. They have their similarities to which I sympathize, they also have there difference. I had to live with the fact that my dad was not there to support me, my brother and my sister and he could have been there if he took his disease seriously. We are similar in that we became one parent families, my mom, after years being an at home mom, re-entered the workforce making under 30k a year struggling to support two kids.

When I look at 9/11 I look at it as a loss of family members of friends and loved ones. I don't look at it as an attack on America (Macro), even though it can be, and is, considered as such. I look at how 3,000 loved ones were lost. I look at it on the micro level and I try to figure out why that had to happen and try to sympathize as much as I can. I know I've angered some and made others upset, but I am trying to wrap my head around it all. It is a lot to take in.

[TheBear]

Josh wrote: "Bear, thanks, as always for your insightful words from your years of study on the subject of grief, death and dying. These really are the emotions I try to understand better." (CLIP....)
I'm trying to figure out why people here in MN would act the way they did. I can understand and sympathize with those who lost someone on that day, but I'm trying to understand the feelings of those who were not there and didn't have a direct connection to the victims. Maybe there is something in life I have not experienced that others have and enables them to be more sympathetic."

Hi Josh,

More than Dying and Death, my training is in a larger area of Grief Loss. Loss of one's livelihood, one's job, is a significant Loss. Loss of one's home is a significant Loss. Thus, Grief is the body's response to Loss (death, job, marriage... a LOSS.) The intensity of Grief is directly related to the depth of attachment and/or significance of the loss.

Further, a person's ability to identify with, to empathize - to viscerally feel - someone else's Loss determines the intensity of one's own Grief emotions. That is, how directly and how intensely another person's loss taps into one's own experience with loss.

For example, my son's death was the most difficult and painful Grief experience I've ever had. The pain multiplied. It wasn't just my loss. I hurt for what my son lost. He lost his potential. He lost his future. He lost the indescribable love I discovered when I had him by losing the potential of someday having his own son.

So, Josh, those in your class who were tearful over the 9-11 death of persons they did not know or have any connection to was an empathetic connection to their own life losses. They identified; they connected the 9-11 survivor's loss - and maybe the loss of potential for those who died. Your tearful classmates connected others' losses to the reactivation of their own painful loss experiences.

Respectfully,
Bear
__________________

[hcsodale]

Josh, I never said or implied you bought into a conspiracy theory, but the statement that you aren't sure. I feel from my exposure to the incident from 1,000 miles away and the decade of information that has continued to bring in new facts, that a coverup or conspiracy about the incident itself, is not a reasonable consideration. I try to be open minded about many things, but sometimes, there isn't anything to consider. Only MY perspective of it. No animosity meant.

[bluepride]

Josh, Josh, Josh.... I never meant to smack you around or insult you or anything like that. I was reacting to what I read. The way others react to what they read. You're right. I only know what you let us know about you. As you only know what we let you know about us. And that's fine. What I do know about you is all good. Your experiences in life are yours and it's absolutely great that you've persevered through things you experienced as a younger guy. You and a lot of others have experienced family abuse and you rose above it as well as other things that none of us would wish on anyone. I salute you for that. You are very much your own man. That is so admirable in a time when there are a lot of sheeple out there. My concern (not to keep re-hashing it) was that you thought that what happened in New York, Washington D.C. and Shanksville Pennsylvania didn't affect you. Even though you were a kid when it happened it really did, because it was directed at you and everyone else in the country no matter the location or age. I just thought that you thought that because of the locations that it wasn't connected to you. But.... maybe I'm wrong on that.

Bear and Dale and myself were just adding our observations. And their contributions to this topic are golden. I hope no one thinks we're piling onto you. That's not good to do and no one has the right to do that to you. Just as it's wrong to do it to me too!

I think the point here is that no matter where the attacks happened, they affected all of us as they should have. And we should never forget what happened and stay vigilant so that something like that doesn't happen again. I think everyone here is proud of what you've done in your life and want you have a long and healthy one so that you continue to shine!

[burner]

I've just been reading the recent batch of postings and have come to the conclusion that this is one of the wonderful things about BluePride. BP is not just a place for posting fluff and nonsense but actually a place where serious topics can be discussed, commented upon and debated. And in doing so, we all learn something.

My only contribution to this latest dialogue is this: I believe age is more contributive to one's depth of feeling about 9/11 than is distance from the attacks themselves.

I was alive when Pearl Harbor was attacked, and I know how my parents and others related to it even long after the war was over. I can recognize it as the horrific thing it was, on an objective level, but I was too young at the time ever to be able to experience its horror on an emotional level - or relate to the feelings shared by those who were adults on December 7, 1941. As a consequence I can understand how Josh, who was only 12 at the time our nation was attacked on 9/11, may have difficulty understanding on a gut level the emotional turmoil he witnessed in others.

I find nothing wrong in his expressing his personal feelings, his questions, and initiating a dialogue on the subject. In fact I believe, in so doing, he contributed to what makes BluePride the great thing that it is.

[bluepride]