I got out of bed at 7:30 AM.
Once I got to the den, I look at the window: clear blue September sky,leaves changing colors falling on the green lawn here in the countryside. This morning reminded me of Tuesday morning Sept 11th of 20 years ago, a normal working morning.
For those of us who lived September 11th, the horrific memory doesn't leave you. The video image, the photographs are as visceral, uncomofortable as they were twenty years ago. Yet the such memories don't leave you, the video of the second plane striking the North Tower stays with you. The collaspe of the South and North Tower which happen 20 years ago in real time, real space. The collaspe itself is as horrifice as the strike against the towers. Where 3,000 lives had been lost and remarkably 2,000 lives from the towers were saved by those who went back in the tower,gutsy security employees who rushed people out and onto the streets. At the Pentagon civilian and military who rushed back in to carry out the burning wedge. It's those images that people don't forget.
Hence the motto and hastag you see on Twitter: #NeverForget.
Outside of Manhattan,New York City and Washington DC, there are a lot us who haven't forgotten Sept 11th. When that first plane hit the first tower violently even I wasn't sure what what was going on at first. Then 9:03am, on television in real time, real space the world was jarred and for lot of us who were at work at various time zones, our own small world came to a crashing halt. As I would later learn the whole world in real time, real space thier own world too came to crashing halt.
In a matter of 102 minutes, like some short surreal film, four planes had been hijacked and used as missles by Al Qaeda. What most ppl don't know preplanning of several years it took pull off of what we know and live as September 11th. The tragic maginitude of the attack,the falling towers and new yorkers running from the smoke, someone remembers something no matter where they are of what happened within that 102 minutes.
In my own historical reasearch, I came across the paranormal as well. One of Brits who was visiting the World Trade Center,a few days before had a preminition of his death on Sept 11th, I wouldn't be surprise there are many more stories like this. On the ground in New York City during the maelstrom many people believed they saw the Mothman. I saw the photograph and that photo is questionable at best. Another fact some have reported ghosts, others reported hearing voices at Ground Zero. There have been tales of ghosts as well at the crash site of Flight 93.
Theses are the facts you come across in the larger broad history of September 11th. Sometime in the post security new normal of 9/11 had became a 9/11 historian honestly by accident. It started with the photobooks,then graduatly I moved into the personal accounts of September 11 which are as much of history as photos and videos are. At the time I wanted to learn more what happen on September 11th. To those of you who were young or born after 2000, September 11th is bigger than you can comprehend and those of us lived that morning we got to know what happen. Yet to those who lived in New York City it hits them up close and personal. They will tell you so.
Let me conclude to those in acdemia who want to whitewash September 11th.
There are lot of us who are alive and still remember. We not just remember where we were and what were doing, some of us know the actual facts of September 11th which might you perhaps closed your mind too. I know what Monday September 10th like so maybe those who wish to whitewash and play with historical fact, well you have a lot to learn yourself about September 11th and some of us just will ask you that question: WHERE WERE YOU TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 11TH,2001. Facts are facts of what happen you can't erase. I guarantee you someone will confront you with that Inconvient Fact of history.
And whitewashers, history has ways revealing embarrassing secrets like Pandora opening her box.
What happen on Sept 11th twenty years ago you'll will not change for the facts of what happened are written in stone like the facts of the D Day Invasion during the latter days of World War Two.
20 Years later...beyond I leave with the hastag:
#NEVER FORGET
