September 11th , 2003

SEPTEMBER 11th 2001 - MEMORIAL

by Eric 'Renderking' Fisk

Tales From a White Hart

Everyone remembers where they were on that day, no one will ever forget what happened.  Everyone has a story to tell about their experiences on September 11th, 2001.  Before be begun our 9/11 memorial project, we asked several TIE.c readers to do essays about 9/11 and how that day effected them.  Here are the essays, written by Indy Fans, by Americans, by Patriots:

Heidi Minnesota Jones Tiger July Kevin Rex Aaron

September 11th, 2001 – Two Years Later

For every single American alive today, the date September 11^th 2001 carries two sets of memories, the horrific events that happened after the jets were hijacked by Islamic fundamentalists and where they were when the news broke. Every American has been affected by those events. It was the one event in our recent history that we all experienced and that has changed our lives in some way.

Childhood End...

The start of autumn obviously means the end of summer. For many folks it means putting away the relics of the festival solstice season, hidden to make way for the academic term. It is the closing of camps and cabins, the pulling ashore of docks and pontoons, mooring of the larger boats as the canoes get the last moments of use, their owners paddling down the lakes and rivers and viewing the changing foliage.

Now, early September also reminds many people of the events that happened in New York, Washington DC and Pennsylvania. It is time to look back at those events from two years ago and address the issues we have yet to address.

A Personal Odyssey

September was my favorite month of the year to hike. The leaves had yet begun to change but the air was full of the crispness of fall. Walking through the woods was always mind clearing and enabled me to focus on the trail and not on the bugs or oppressive heat of summer. Hikes for me were always about my own final frontiers and boldly going where at least I had not gone before. Hikes that lasted most of the day and spilled into the night were often the best… the ones that lasted so long that the work-a-day world falls a way and all that remains is you, the trail and the thoughts of a boundless future.

In the past few weeks I have been unable to think about that boundless future. My thoughts return to that September morning when the world changed and the future changed and what was to have been a nation’s era of exploration turned into a nation’s fight for survival against an ideology of hate.

On the actual day of September 11th, 2001 I had to divert from my usual routine of the highway to the place I was working in Woburn. Because my wife was having car troubles I had to follow the same path of back roads through the pristine areas between Littleton and Bedford, Massachusetts.

Just as I was coming out of the woods where Route 225 cuts through from Carlisle into Bedford I heard the news break on the radio.  A plane “accidentally” crashed into one of the World Trade Centers. One of the men who alternated days doing the sports had called in from home, mere blocks from the WTC, to report what he heard.  The radio host said it was loud enough to shake the apartment. At first, that was all it was and that was all it appeared to be… an accident.

I pulled into the car dealership and I went inside to look for my wife. I wasn’t going to give the incident another thought. I was going to find my wife and just get on with my day. We had other things to think about… our dog was struck by a car a few days earlier.  The afternoon of September 11th, wasn’t going to mean anything special to anyone but us. We had to bring our dog home who was now missing her right rear leg.

I went to the counter to ask if anyone had seen my wife. When the guy behind the counter asked me “what’s going on” casually, I told him that someone accidentally flew into one of the World Trade Center buildings in New York. He dropped everything and went to the television they use to show promotional videos. Just as he was adjusting the rabbit ears on the top of the set to get one of the local broadcast stations, the second plane flew into the second tower. Everyone had gathered around to see the horror. Words were hard to make out… terrorism, hijacking, other planes not reporting in. Someone heard something on the news.  Someone heard something on the cell-phone. It was a period of absolute confusion.

After finding my wife had been picked up by one of her fellow co-workers, I decided to get back and report to my job. Once back in the car I drove to work as quickly as I could. I remember that CNN had taken over the news broadcast on the radio. I don’t remember a word that was spoken. I just remember the sound of the woman’s voice, masking her own panic.

Driving in was a blur. All I remember was that was the first time I parked on the top level of the garage that gave me the best view of Boston from Woburn. Once in the “Cube Farm” where my group belonged there were crowds of people milling about sharing what they heard. I’ll never forget the guy who would later become my supervisor, Chris, and his reaction: be calm, take it easy and we’ll see what happens. If it affects us, we’ll do something then. He laughed when he saw our serious reaction. “I bet it was you… you and your crazy hat-wears must have had something to do with this.” he said to break the tension.

Nobody was able to do anything. The focus was now on the Pentagon that had been struck and one of the five sides was completely destroyed. The woman who was in the cube next to mine was hysterical because her Uncle was a Sergeant who worked in that section of the building.

Maybe even more horrific was the plane that struck a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.  The few words that came out indicated that the passengers fought to take back the hijacked airliner. People were standing by the windows trying to see what they could.  News came across that all planes that were in flight were ordered to land at the nearest airport.

Many of us were alternating between getting what information we could off the Internet and watching the live coverage at any one of the various televisions throughout the building. I was chatting on line with friends. The only thing that we knew for sure was chaos and death.

I was downstairs, walking through the lobby, when I heard the first murmurs that we were going to be forced to leave early. Two the security guards were talking. The local airport at Hanscom had “two or three planes” that were unaccounted for. All high profile buildings were being asked to evacuate, even though people were going to be leaving on their own soon enough. A few moments later I reached the exercise room where every television was set on a news network displaying the second tower crash to the ground.  There were voices saying “we’re next… it’s going to hit Boston next.”

Within the next 15 minutes my group was in a conference room and the woman who was in charge “encouraged” us to leave and go home for the day. Just as I was shutting down, one of my fellow co-workers told me to watch myself. His brother was a state trooper and he got word that the roads and highways going into New Hampshire had been “closed”. Identification and drivers registration were being checked. The planes that had been navigated into the World Trade buildings had taken off from Logan Airport.  There was concern that who ever aided the hijackers might race to the border and escape to Canada.

I kept an eye towards the skyline as I drove to pick my wife up from where she works. As I write this, the one thing I remember the most is how I got out of the car and just held her. We got into my car and drove off towards the animal hospital to pick up Lizzy. We kept saying that the only thing that mattered was her.

The drive was a blur. On the interstate from Bedford to Springfield Massachusetts, cars were pulled over by the state police. As we were driving, I told Carol about all the rumors I had heard. I told her about the checkpoints at the state line and we wondered if there would be any waiting for us on our way home.

We arrived at the animal hospital.  News reports stated that there was fighting in a city in Afghanistan. A man who was waiting to leave with his pet speculated that we were already starting to strike back at those who did this to us. It wasn’t until later that it was revealed that it was not a country but a rouge group with in several countries that had perpetrated this act of terrorism, and that some members of whom were hiding right here in the United States. The fighting in Afghanistan had nothing to do with us. It was an uprising against the Taliban… a dictatorship and extreme fascist regime that we ignored and most Americans had never heard of before that day, the same organization that attacked us.

It wasn’t until we got back in the car that we heard from the President. As we were taking the back roads across the border and into our home state of New Hampshire, I was sitting in the back seat with our dog, trying to comfort her.  Listening to the President, we heard the names of these villains for the first time. We heard about the devastation, and a promise from him that he would do anything in his power to make sure this would never happen again. The promise seemed thin…

Once home we quickly discovered every radio station was covering this news story, simultaneously re-broadcasting news from CNN, Fox or the original three networks. The whole country seemed to be at war, and nothing was ever going to be the same. With the radio in our room playing news non-stop and the death toll rising, I asked my wife how could anything ever go back to the way it was? How could anyone forget what happened and how could life ever be normal again...

Songs of a Distant Earth

The days and nights that followed the world seemed to change, but not the way I expected... Every news story was about the terrorist attacks and the people who it affected directly. Every movement, every speech and every press release the government made was covered by every news outlet in what I could only describe has hyper coverage. In turn what had been considered news worthy couldn’t get coverage again. The congressman and his missing intern that was pasted on every newspaper cover story couldn’t even get covered on the side of a milk carton or required a microscope to be found elsewhere.

What amazed me the most from the September 11^th aftermath was the unity. Flags almost seemed to come from nowhere and were being flown in every home. Driving to work each day there were more and more flags being flown, who ever couldn’t find flags because they were sold out at every shop where hanging what the could find; bunting, icons of Uncle Sam and other 4^th of July paraphernalia, home made signs with patriotic slogans.

Churches were filled past capacity. Sermons addressed the issue of where was God in all this. In a nation that seemed to turn from God turned back to him in our greatest hour of need for answers.

There was a sudden void, a sudden mystery that demanded to be solved and for a brief moment in time we were all looking for those answers. There was less bickering among ourselves, the message that we should have taken from September 11^th sunk in… we’re frail, we’re fragile… we could go at any time.

We were all asked to burn candles in our windows or outside somewhere on one of the following nights, and when I drove home I was amazed at how everyone complied. My greatest moment of pride came when I came up over the hill to see my wife who had every one of our expensive scented candles in those glass jars lit and sitting on the rail of our porch. The only thing that came close to lifting my heart that high was the outpouring of support that American’s gave to the survivors… money was rolling into Charitable organizations like never before, only to be overshadowed by the controversy later of who was to receive what and who qualified for aid.

We had all been changed. We were all affected and for a brief moment in time we were united by our grief. It was a beautiful contrast to the horror we all shared.

A Fall of Moon Dust

Since September 11th, 2001, a lot has changed personally. The way I look at life has reversed and much of how I live it has been forever altered. Things that once meant a lot to me have lost their importance while things that I took for granted are now high on my list of things that count. Being with family more is a higher priority and doing things that I’ve always put off have become memories of accomplishments.

Two of my favorite activates, procrastination and wondering “what if” are now distant memories.

The Hammer of God

Over the course of the past two years, as we’ve been fighting the war on terror overseas as we are debating with ourselves over what’s fair and justified as there are heated discussions with the UN about the “authority” to do. Meanwhile, we have been subjected to more then a handful of color-coded terror warning with nothing happening afterwards. Why are these warnings issued, and why are they lifted? The public needs to know. If there are new arrests, we need to know.

There are little signs in our day-to-day lives that prove that we are on the road to recovery and making attempts at preventing another terrorist attacks. We hear of terror-cells being broken up in our own nation, the most infamous is the one in Buffalo New York. We have done a lot of work of dismantling the terrorist training camps in other countries and we’re in the midst of a regime change war in Iraq who was suspected of aiding terrorists.

But what’s actually being accomplished here in the United States? Due to the testosterone deficient “Civil liberties” organizations, we’re not doing enough. What ever is going to happen is going to happen. Because we’re too concerned about “Feelings” over our own safety, the terrorists are going to strike when they feel like it. My gut tells me that as long as we’re vigilant and we’re not complacent they’ll be held at bay. The moment we behave in a pre-September 11^th 2001 attitude, we forget and relax as if the worst is over is when we’ll be prime for another large-scale attack.

Our biggest battleground in the war against terror is still our own boarders. First, there is a statistic that states there are over 2,000 illegal immigrants who are ordered to be deported and they cannot be found while there are hundreds of “undocumented immigrants” racing across the boarder everyday. Second- there are other holes with in our internal security too numerous to be mentioned… the preverbal “tip of the iceberg” is the cargo containers that are shipped into this container and only two out of every 100 hundred is inspected.

To honor the memory of those who died on September 11^th, 2001, and to those who may potentially perish in the next large-scale domestic attack… we need stronger measures. We need to put as much effort in ending terrorism here with in AND on our boarders as we’ve done in the “War on Terror” in the Middle East.

Reach For Tomorrow

In memory of the 2998 victims of the tragic events of 9/11, we would like to direct your attention to the September 11th Victims List which includes bios and photos of the 2998 fallen from the WTC, Pentagon, and Pennsylvania terrorist attacks.