I thank God for my now 7 year old son. His birth on 9-11-11 brings me great happiness on what had been a very tragic day.
I had retired from the Military in May, I was teaching Math at the local High School; actually sitting in for another Veteran who needed the day off.
I had the TV on in the classroom and kept it on and I burned, I mean my mouth was dry and my ears were hot. I needed to get back to Active Duty.
I couldn't do that because I was retired and I had lost most of all of my hearing. I did the next best thing and began working as a Contractor. I went back to the system I had spent decades on and began at the bottom and in a couple of years was later imbedded with a Combat Engineer unit deployed in Baghdad doing maintenance. I rode that horse in for 14 + years.
We still haven't delivered the complete ass kicking needed and we certainly haven't given it to the right people,....yet.
Let us never forget.
“Are you ready? Okay. Let's roll.”
Todd Beamer - Flight 93
9/11/01
"I pity thou, fools who dost not choose BCM" - King Arthur 517 A.D.
.OlllllllO.
Never forget the people who chose to jump rather than face a death from burning, never forget the massive debris clouds that covered city blocks, never forget the first responders who didn't make it out, and never forget the sacrifices since then in the Global War on Terror.
I didn't get a chance to post because we were traveling but we flew the morning of 9/11 this year. I didn't think much about it but we had to fly to Seattle from Denver to pick up a car we bought but the cheapest tickets were at 8:05am MST. As we were in line for security I was being annoyed as usual in all the idiots slowing down the works when, at 6:46am MST, an announcement was made over the PA of the entire airport that was louder than I had ever heard. It was calling for a moment of silence for all that lost their lives on 9/11 and everything just stopped. Everyone was quiet. No TSA moved. It was surreal. Then, at the end, the colors were displayed on the walkway overhead while Amazon Grace was played on bag pipes to end the moment of silence. My allergies acted up a bit. Suddenly my "problems" were put into perspective and I was no longer concerned with how long security was taken.
Rest Easy.
Never forget.
I'm not fat, I'm tactically padded.
Tactical Commander Fast Action Response Team (F.A.R.T.)
I flew on 9/11 this year, too. No displays or moments at any of the 3 airports I went through (including O'Hare), which kind of pissed me off. Most of us think TSA is a hassle (and you could debate how effective it is), but on that day it put it into perspective and I thanked them for what they were doing.
9/11 was my generation's "JFK" moment and it's one of the few days I can remember like it was yesterday.
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