9/11, Twenty Years Later

[North Buffalo]

Hard for me to watch remembrances of that day... I was working for the Senate Leadership that day and after watching NYC for what seemed like hours I had work to do on the Senate Floor... upon coming back I decided to take a front stairway up in the US Capitol to gaze down the mall.  It was beautiful day... Immediately noticed black smoke billowing out of the Pentagon and a white trailer near the White House thinking that isnt good... Rush back to my desk in the Hart Bldg where my the girlfriend now wife was calling me as she had just felt the explosion from her office in Arlington Red Cross Blood services and saw the fireball from her windows and that another plane in the air headed for me... grabbed 2 people and rushed out in my truck taking back roads to 295 in MD down to the Wilson Bridge. Cars we coming to a complete stop looking both ways and then flying over the bridge... We went and hung out a local steakhouse and then my apt where we watched f16s fly treetop over 495 shaking to apt every 15-20 min... at the restaurant we me two guys who walked all the way from DC because 14th street bridge was shut down... A month later I got hit by Anthrax... Oct 19...

 

That fall I will never forget and my head pivots every time I hear a low flying jet.  

One of our press secretaries was running late due to a sick kid... wasnt listening to the radio... had no idea the goings on but saw the plane go right over the Capital and thought someone's going to be trouble... plane must have looped and hit far side of Pentagon... The reason so few were killed that day in the Pentagon was that it was moving day... they were reinforcing that side and had just finished half of it... I know this because a coworkers brother was an officer and had just moved into the the reinforced section... he was blow against the wall according to his brother but survived.... Sorry if I cant watch the ceremonies... too hard.... know some folks who did not make it as well...

[Palm Trees And Taxes]

On 9/11/2021 at 2:52 PM, Marvin, Sabres Fan said:

The last day when everyone thought of me as an American because I was born here was 10 September 2001.  Since then, I daily see people looking at me with suspicion and fear.  My wife was called a terrorist sympathiser at work.  I had death threats put in my mailbox.

I had season tickets to the Sabres and Bills.  Midway through the first quarter of the next Bills game, a security guard came down to me and a friend.  He told us to signal for an escort if we wanted to get up.  I had been on TV during the pregame and several death threats had been phoned into the Bills' main line.  He pointed me to at least 10 guards at the top of the stairs.

At the first Sabres game after 9/11/2001, there was a fight near my section.  The next game, there was extra security.  A guard met me at the entrance to the arena and escorted me to my seat.  I found out that three men had intended to grab me and throw me out of the upper bowl into the lower bowl.  The ushers and men in the area defended me as a real Sabres fan.  Then the fight started.  The three people who had threatened me were charged with attempted murder.  The people who defended me were not charged.  The were extra guards in sections 312-314 the entire season.

When Bush 43 ordered the invasion of Afghanistan, I found out an old friend was working in Kandahar with the civilian population.  When I told me Dad, he told me that his father's family's farm village from before India's partition was near there.  He had me tell my friend how anyone can escape through the mountains into Pakistan if they were captured.  Sikh temples throughout Pakistan were ready to house Allied escapees.

I will be honest.  When I heard a plane had hit the World Trade Center, I thought it had to be fake.  When I saw the carnage, I knew it had to be Bin Laden -- three years before in a news magazine, there was an interview with him entitled, "This Guy Is Dangerous."  I also knew that my life was going to get worse.  My Dad and I talked about me learning Urdu and Arabic so that we could go to Waziristan to kill Bin Laden ourselves.

Interestingly, Buffalo was the top 300 city with the fewest anti-Muslim incidents for the few weeks after 9/11.  In the years since then, Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims, Baha'is, and others moved to the area from other parts of the country.  All of the congregations of our local houses of worship doubled or even tripled within a year.  People in several local immigrant communities were told that Buffalo was a good place to live because of this.

Reading your story made me angry inside, and angry against anyone that would look at you that way and also that your wife had to deal with being called a terrorist sympathizer, and the death threats, just made me so sad and angry towards these monsters that you and your family dealt with that. I pray for you and your family that those issues have subsided.

Someone like myself who was born and raised in New Jersey, saw the Towers smoke with my own two eyes, and lost a close friend from our town (he was 31 and in the North Tower, Floor 92) and the pain and devastation that followed for me and to a much greater extent, his family and close friends and our town, at that time and now I could never ever dream is mistreating someone just because they 'look like one of the terrorists'. Never. In fact I in many ways ensured I treated people with more respect and care after 911, because everyone of every gender, race, religion needed that at that time, and still does.

20 years later I live in California, and I went to a 911 memorial on Saturday, and when I saw my friends picture, all those memories rush back, all the sadness, disbelief, some anger, confusion. One never gets over something like that, you just learn how to to deal with it better.

 

[bob_sauve28]

On 9/11/2021 at 5:52 PM, Marvin, Sabres Fan said:

The last day when everyone thought of me as an American because I was born here was 10 September 2001.  Since then, I daily see people looking at me with suspicion and fear.  My wife was called a terrorist sympathiser at work.  I had death threats put in my mailbox.

I had season tickets to the Sabres and Bills.  Midway through the first quarter of the next Bills game, a security guard came down to me and a friend.  He told us to signal for an escort if we wanted to get up.  I had been on TV during the pregame and several death threats had been phoned into the Bills' main line.  He pointed me to at least 10 guards at the top of the stairs.

At the first Sabres game after 9/11/2001, there was a fight near my section.  The next game, there was extra security.  A guard met me at the entrance to the arena and escorted me to my seat.  I found out that three men had intended to grab me and throw me out of the upper bowl into the lower bowl.  The ushers and men in the area defended me as a real Sabres fan.  Then the fight started.  The three people who had threatened me were charged with attempted murder.  The people who defended me were not charged.  The were extra guards in sections 312-314 the entire season.

When Bush 43 ordered the invasion of Afghanistan, I found out an old friend was working in Kandahar with the civilian population.  When I told me Dad, he told me that his father's family's farm village from before India's partition was near there.  He had me tell my friend how anyone can escape through the mountains into Pakistan if they were captured.  Sikh temples throughout Pakistan were ready to house Allied escapees.

I will be honest.  When I heard a plane had hit the World Trade Center, I thought it had to be fake.  When I saw the carnage, I knew it had to be Bin Laden -- three years before in a news magazine, there was an interview with him entitled, "This Guy Is Dangerous."  I also knew that my life was going to get worse.  My Dad and I talked about me learning Urdu and Arabic so that we could go to Waziristan to kill Bin Laden ourselves.

Interestingly, Buffalo was the top 300 city with the fewest anti-Muslim incidents for the few weeks after 9/11.  In the years since then, Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims, Baha'is, and others moved to the area from other parts of the country.  All of the congregations of our local houses of worship doubled or even tripled within a year.  People in several local immigrant communities were told that Buffalo was a good place to live because of this.

This is just awful. 

 

Glad Buffalo rose to the occasion! Buffalo Strong! 

[grinreaper]

On 9/13/2021 at 12:19 PM, LGR4GM said:

Are you comparing the current government of the US to the Vichy French? Being anti-government alone does not make you a patriot, in makes you an anarchist. 

Are the anti-government partisans currently operating in the US patriots?

You are confusing being anti-government with anti too much government or in some cases anti-government policies. This is what happens when people are less than precise in their proclamations. As far as comparing the Vichy French with the U.S. government, that is being done by you. Anti-government is neither good nor bad. that term needs to be dissected further to determine its meaning. 

On 9/13/2021 at 12:19 PM, LGR4GM said:

Are you comparing the current government of the US to the Vichy French? Being anti-government alone does not make you a patriot, in makes you an anarchist. 

Are the anti-government partisans currently operating in the US patriots?

You are confusing being anti-government with anti too much government or in some cases anti-government policies. This is what happens when people are less than precise in their proclamations. As far as comparing the Vichy French with the U.S. government, that is being done by you. Anti-government is neither good nor bad. that term needs to be dissected further to determine its meaning. 

[Marvin]

Thank you, everyone, for your support.  I want to give everyone my current interpretation of my situation, but it is becomes overtly political no matter how hard I try not to.  Thus, I will post later in the politics forum.

[Gatorman0519]

I think we can look back to 9/11 and also mark it as the beginning of a serious descent into conspiracy theories and their continuing destabilizing effect they are having on our nation. 

[SwampD]

3 hours ago, Gatorman0519 said:

I think we can look back to 9/11 and also mark it as the beginning of a serious descent into conspiracy theories and their continuing destabilizing effect they are having on our nation. 

It's also when they started televising the nation anthem at sporting events (With a few exceptions, SB,...)

[Hoss]

5 minutes ago, SwampD said:

It's also when they started televising the nation anthem at sporting events (With a few exceptions, SB,...)

Wasn’t until 2009 that the NFL started having players on the field for the anthem regularly. A very slow burn into the forced patriotism of today.