Neptunus Lex

51 responses so far ↓

• 1 Curtis // Sep 11, 2008 at 12:59 am

  Lord, please bless them all.

• 2 Zane // Sep 11, 2008 at 2:16 am

  I just passed the cover of a 1979 jazz album, Horace Tapscott in New York City. There’s a tower on that cover that isn’t there anymore.

• 3 Mike Kozlowski // Sep 11, 2008 at 3:09 am

  …I remember, and always will. The trouble is that there are so many people who don’t want us to remember, because if we did, we might start looking way too hard at our priorities in this country. Can’t have that now, can we?

  Mike

• 4 virgil xenophon // Sep 11, 2008 at 3:48 am

  MIKE: Roger that.

• 5 Guy // Sep 11, 2008 at 4:17 am

  We must remember. We must continue to seek justice for this man and the thousands that died with him.

  Lord, may we never forget.

• 6 Kris, in New England // Sep 11, 2008 at 5:04 am

  I will always remember. Paradoxically, there are blessings for my family hidden in this day. My sister and brother-in-law were supposed to be on United Flight 175 on this day in 2001. Last minute changes in their vacation plans altered their departure date to September 12.

  While I will always grieve for the nearly 3,000 victims - including one I knew personally - I will also remember the blessings in my own family, that we were spared.

  In so doing I truly believe we are honoring the victims in the best way possible - by living our lives to the fullest, remembering the things that are most important: Family. Friends. Love. Respect.

• 7 Steve // Sep 11, 2008 at 5:20 am

  Seems too many have forgotten. That is one image that is permanently burned in my brain.

• 8 Byron Audler // Sep 11, 2008 at 6:04 am

  Never forgive. Never forget. Never forget those who lost their lives that day, and those who given their lives since that day making sure it won’t happen again.

• 9 House of Eratosthenes // Sep 11, 2008 at 6:10 am

  [...] 4. Neptunus Lex: Remember. [...]

• 10 Marv // Sep 11, 2008 at 7:09 am

  But some don’t remember.

  And some choose to ignore, or mold it to their political beliefs, like one of the Mike Gravel interviewer’s reference to a “purported” war on terror.

  I have a Marine son in this fight. Went in right after High school, after we had already gone into Iraq.

  People who put politics above country only make it more dangerous for him and those like him and make me more angry.

  It is up to us who do remember and who do know the score to keep reminding and to keep the faith for those in harm’s way.

• 11 John // Sep 11, 2008 at 7:16 am

  Mourn the victims, damn the perpetrators, and pray for the success of the sheepdogs and warriors among us who have prevented subsequent attacks.

  Special thanks for our wise leaders who have defied ignorant public opinion to do what is necessary to fight against the threat.

• 12 Balancing Act // Sep 11, 2008 at 7:29 am

  Bless them all, and all who are left behind to remember that horrible day.

• 13 Larry // Sep 11, 2008 at 7:38 am

  Sierra Hotel, Mike. And good to see another HPCA guy here!

  Today is a good day to fly your flag if you didn’t already remember.

• 14 jpr // Sep 11, 2008 at 8:16 am

  It is a sad day. And we have to do our part in our own way to make sure we never forget, and that something like that never happens again.

• 15 Buck // Sep 11, 2008 at 8:28 am

  I watched the 9/11 Pentagon Memorial dedication on C-SPAN this morning… it concluded about a half an hour ago. Moving and oh-so-appropriate today. DoD done good to get the Memorial complete and dedicated on this day. The speeches were excellent, too, especially Rumsfeld’s. Love him, like him, or hate him, the man demonstrated excellent character seven years ago on this day.

  Dubya’s looking old. Being The Prez takes a LOT out of a man, and so it appears with President Bush. I have the ULTIMATE amount of respect and admiration for what he’s done these past seven years, and I hope history vindicates him fully, as I suspect it will. Yeah: I’m a Dead-Ender… one of the 27%. The Few, The Respectful. To re-phrase a coin.

• 16 Steeljaw Scribe // Sep 11, 2008 at 8:36 am

  Buck:

  Just got in from the ceremony - there just aren’t enough words to put together coherently to describe it; wonderful, moving - all seem so, inadequate.
  Ran into family, friends, shipmates I hadn’t seen since that dark day and the subsequent weeks/months. All looked like they’ve aged a couple of decades in the intervening years and it was clear from where we were sitting the same was the case for Pres. Bush. Once we re-compose we’ll try and get a post up later today about it.
  - SJS

• 17 KP // Sep 11, 2008 at 8:58 am

  Always. And forever.

• 18 Edward // Sep 11, 2008 at 9:24 am

  Never forget.
  Never forgive.

  The USMC motto must also be that of the US

  “No Greater Friend; No Worse Enemy”

• 19 prowlerguy // Sep 11, 2008 at 9:27 am

  Just read this from the Drudge link. And certain parties from the left insist that we listen to the rest of the world because we are so uneducated and ignorant?

  http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-35417520080910

  Mind boggling.

• 20 Kris, in New England // Sep 11, 2008 at 9:28 am

  I have the ULTIMATE amount of respect and admiration for what he’s done these past seven years, and I hope history vindicates him fully, as I suspect it will.

  Buck - I’m in that same 27%. And I too believe that President Bush will be shown, in due time, to be a man of unique convictions at a time when we needed them.

• 21 HomefrontSix // Sep 11, 2008 at 9:43 am

  Always and forever.

• 22 secret asian man // Sep 11, 2008 at 9:45 am

  Funny, there’s no Google icon today…

• 23 Lee // Sep 11, 2008 at 9:47 am

  My sister was a Flight Attendant for United in 2001. She was going to switch with another Attendant for Flight 93. But, at the last minute her son fell ill and she had to cancel. She would have been on that flight and eventually in that field in Pennsylvania if not for the flu. She lost a lot of friends that day, and we lost a lot of Americans. God Bless them all. May we never forget.

• 24 Gmac // Sep 11, 2008 at 9:59 am

  You wouldn’t expect one from them, considering their world views on America.

  Never forgive, never forget. Sic semper tyrannus.

• 25 Jules Crittenden » Psalm 9/11 // Sep 11, 2008 at 10:10 am

  [...] Neptunus Lex, “Remember,” with the haunting art no one wants to see but everyone should. [...]

• 26 MissBirdlegs in AL // Sep 11, 2008 at 10:18 am

  Remember? Always! This picture always brings a hitch in my breath and my heart.

  I’m in that 27%, too, Buck & Kris. Respectfully…

• 27 Jim C // Sep 11, 2008 at 10:42 am

  Buck, Chris, and MissBirdlegs,

  Ditto here. I believe that President Bush will be completely vindicated in due time. Rumsfeld and his team as well. Were there things they could have done differently… yeah, but not having an operating crystal ball, they did the best they could.

  The job of President takes a lot out of a person in the best of circumstances. Much more so when you’re fighting a brutal necessary war, and sending young men and women off to protect their country knowing that some of them won’t come home in one piece, and some of them won’t come home at all. May God bless the President and his advisors. I believe they have done an exceptional job in an exceptionally difficult time.

  Jim C

• 28 Michelle // Sep 11, 2008 at 10:45 am

  To this day, it takes very little to bring back the same strong emotions and sensations as those experienced seven years ago. A fact that was reinforced quite dramatically when I attempted to describe and explain “9/11″ to my youngest last year.

  Quite frankly, I don’t know, I don’t understand, how anyone, anywhere could forget. Or how there could be any legitimate doubt on anyone’s part as to who was behind it.

• 29 dw // Sep 11, 2008 at 11:13 am

  27 percenter? Aye.

• 30 stormy03bravo // Sep 11, 2008 at 1:52 pm

  In the Jersey shore town that I live, you can’t not forget September 11th each time that you walk out and look across the water and see that the Towers aren’t there, but when people don’t see it everyday, the memory starts to fade away.

  Definitely a lot to remember about that day:
  - Seeing the Towers when I left for work and only seeing the cloud that stretched from Manhattan all the way across to the Jersey shore (along with the unforgettable smell the next morning at sunrise).
  - Trying to find out whether my mom’s plane had taken off yet from Philly to take her back to Texas - and not being able to get in touch until late in the afternoon due to the disruption to phone service in the NY/NJ area.
  - Watching people along the beach in front of my house start to get upset at the sunset glow that night on the Empire State Building, which made people think that maybe other buildings were on fire.
  - Realizing how lucky one relative was in that he had just been transferred from his Pentagon duty station along that wing about 6 to 8 weeks prior.
  - Going back to work on the 12th on an empty Garden State Parkway and seeing the empty hospital beds that were set up in our conference room (the hospital that I worked at at the time was part of the emergency management plan in the event of a high casualty event).
  - Being at a small, family get together where someone had brought their friend and his family. This friend had gotten out of the Towers and had the lost stare of many of those who escaped.
  - And watching the empty skies. I grew up under the flight path for McGuire AFB when they still had fighters so I’ve always watched the skies for planes and still do. But, the time after September 11th without commercial flights made for empty skies in a place with three busy, major airports of which my little patch of sand is in the flight path.

  Not sure how people forget the importance of this day, but I did see some of those this morning that remembered - having their moment of silence at the small memorial along our beach front or when the local VFW brought out the bagpipes this morning and played them to commemorate each of the Towers being struck.

  Sorry about being longwinded but the fingers/brain didn’t want to stop typing.

• 31 XBradTC // Sep 11, 2008 at 1:56 pm

  I weep for the fallen and their loved one. My chest swells with pride becuase of those who step forward to defend hearth, home and liberty. May God bless and keep you.

  My stomach churns because of those so quick to dismiss this infamy. May God forgive you.

• 32 Indy // Sep 11, 2008 at 3:16 pm

  Stormy03bravo,

  Nice post.

  Do you remember how glorious that morning was?

  That deep, deep blue sky, the warm and crisp air which marked such a change to the appalling humidity we had all that summer, and the yummy sunshine which tingled the skin instead of burning it?

  I do. It was the Perfect Morning, straight from the manual.

  Since that day, I’ve wondered how many workers in the towers were armed with their first coffee for the day, staring out the windows and lost in fanciful thoughts of being out and about, just taking in that delicious weather.

  Maybe ruefully wishing they’d called in sick, just to get one decent day before the first autumnal cold came down from the north.

  To be lost in that reverie, with one hand around a coffee cup and the other in a trouser pocket, and then wonder why that approaching plane is so low, well, that image has hardwired itself into my imagination.

  My office is no more than three or four minutes walk from The Pit, yet I’ve never crossed Broadway to have a look.

  No point.

  A hole in the ground, dug by the foulest bastards imaginable, is no substitute for the humanity in the towers that day.

  And I prefer to think of decent people at work on a Tuesday, and how their most perfect morning was destroyed, forever.

  To those Neplex folks outside New York, don’t ever expect much of an answer to questions about that morning, except for the weather.

  If you were here, you’d understand.

  It was unforgettable.

  A day to be alive, not dead.

• 33 FlipptyJibbet // Sep 11, 2008 at 3:35 pm

  “President Bush will be completely vindicated in due time.”

  Never forget.
  Never forgive.

  August 6, 2001, presidential daily briefing entitled Bin Laden determined to strike in US.

  Never forget.
  Never forgive.

• 34 stormy03bravo // Sep 11, 2008 at 3:41 pm

  Indy-
  It truly was beautiful that morning, and I remember the incredulousness of the radio broadcasters when they first said that a “light plane” had hit the Towers….they wondered how on a day with no clouds and only the purest of blue skies that somebody couldn’t see the Towers in front of them.

  For those of you outside of the NYC area, the morning of Sept. 11th had the postcard perfect blue skies that people around here take notice of - no clouds, no smog, nothing but pure deep blue. The kind of day that you get out in the countryside and in the metro area only a couple of times per season.

  While I make it over into the city a couple of times per year, I’ve only been to the site once. I had to take a certification test about three blocks away. It was tough to go to.

  Indy, I bet you remember how when we had the massive blackout a couple years later, the first thought on everyone’s mind was that it happened again. And people had those same first thoughts when the plane flown by the Yankees pitcher hit the apartment building on the East River. The events of September 11th will imprint the psyche of the region for a long time, regardless of everything else. I hope that my 2 year old daughter and soon to be born son never have to live through an event like this that will always have that imprint on how you see things. For those that live in this region, who are used to seeing planes flying into the 3 major airports and some of the busier smaller airports like Teterboro, those planes that seem to be a little low on approach always catch a second or third glance and that little bit of a cringe in the back of your head.

  The immediacy of everything that day is something that really can’t be explained. It’s the unexpectedness at the time of what happened that truly made it so surreal.

  One last bit about that day - the beachfront area in which I live has parking spots facing towards the beach and the water. As the afternoon went on, the police had to shut down the street. Not necessarily because it was overwhelmed with traffic - it was the fact that when people got in their cars to leave, they still couldn’t take their eyes off the scene and would back up into the cars driving up and down the street.

• 35 Fast Nav // Sep 11, 2008 at 3:59 pm

  The fact that the top headline on CNN is about Kanye West getting into a fight rather than the memorials is sad.

  Great testimonials from all of you. Thanks for your time and God Bless.

• 36 Advokaat // Sep 11, 2008 at 5:53 pm

  “May God have mercy on our enemies, because I don’t intend to.” - George S. Patton

• 37 Padraig // Sep 11, 2008 at 6:58 pm

  stormy03bravo

  The emptiness of the Parkway was strange.

  I remember watching the events from the tip of Sandy Hook wondering about relatives and friends. Most came home, some did not. I remember sitting on my step later that day watching as some of the people came home and the one wife that sat on her step with the phone and slowly the group around her grew as the realization set in.

• 38 Mongo // Sep 11, 2008 at 7:13 pm

  I remember the day. I remember the moment when I first learned of the attack. I remember the feelings…the sadness over the lives lost, the rage over the cowardice of the terrorists, the desire to reach out and make contact with family and friends.

  When the Boss said that we were in this for the long haul and that it would take a while, I knew then that a lot of folks would either forget that part of the speech or just not get it.

  I agree that history will ultimately remember G.W. Bush for having done it right. He does look tired, but then I can’t begin to imagine how I’d feel in his place after 7-1/2 years of unrelenting persecution. He’d be welcome at my table anytime…

  I’m glad that pigs and lipstick could get the day off for something more important.

  Semper Fi.

• 39 Pitts // Sep 11, 2008 at 9:11 pm

  The core management team of my employer, but for an innocuous decision, was almost wiped out that day. I’ve never gotten over the white-hot rage I felt at the eighth-century fanatics who would perpetrate such an atrocity on my adopted country and its citizens, and I will always be grateful to the President and military who persevered in handing them two decisive defeats in Afghanistan and Iraq.

• 40 PeterGunn // Sep 11, 2008 at 10:37 pm

  I’d venture to say that all of the people in Bush’s 27% are behind him 100%. We’re behind him all the way, just as history will be.

• 41 Nose // Sep 12, 2008 at 5:07 am

  Ok Flippity -

  You are POTUS on August 6 and that comes across your desk as part of your PDB. Please enlighten me, what would you have done?

  Because while I’m not privy to the PDB, I’ll make an educated guess that that was just one of three or four threats against the US in that briefing on that day.

  If Clinton had done his job instead of his intern, UBL would not have even been alive on Aug 6, 2001.

  Your name is cute, but your ignorance is starting to grow tiresome.

• 42 Scott // Sep 12, 2008 at 5:38 am

  Nose –

  You are expecting cogent thought, from someone psychologically incapable of delivering it, kinda like this guy.

  The foolish inconsistency of jibbirish spouters is that on one hand, they fault the President for not acting on vague, indefinite threats. But at the same time, they condemn the idea, once we were attacked, that never again would we allow that — “provocative”, “cowboy diplomacy”, “aggressive”. Sane individuals recognize you can’t have it both ways. Trolls…..? Well, they troll.

• 43 geo6 // Sep 12, 2008 at 7:16 am

  Ever read C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters? Methinks that Flippty has been assigned to this blog. The name seems to fit the pattern…

• 44 Skippy-san // Sep 12, 2008 at 7:34 am

  The last chapter of the Screwtape Letters-”Screwtape proposes a toast” - is worth reading during this current political season.

  I love that book-as I do most of C.S. Lewis works. There is a good history of his relationship with JRR Tolkien I read a while back but cannot remember the name.

• 45 Kris, in New England // Sep 12, 2008 at 8:44 am

  Since that day, I’ve wondered how many workers in the towers were armed with their first coffee for the day, staring out the windows and lost in fanciful thoughts…

  Indy - I knew just such a person. He was staring out his office window in the South Tower, watching debris fall from the North Tower - wondering aloud to his assistant what that was all about. She grabbed him by the neck of his dress shirt, turned him around and hollered - we’re leaving.

  So they left from the 60th floor. He and his assistant walked down the stairs as she was too scared to use the elevators. It took them 45 minutes - he knows that because they were in the stairwell when he felt the South Tower quake from Flight 175 and they barely got out before the collapse.

  They emerged from the Tower 5 minutes before it started to collapse. They were blown to the ground from the force of the collapse, even though they ran like hell to get away from it.

  I met him when we worked together in Springfield, MA - about as far away from NYC as you can get and still remain in the NorthEast (he lived in CT).

• 46 Kris, in New England // Sep 12, 2008 at 8:49 am

  It is amazing to me that even on a day of what should have been reverential thought and sharing of memories - people like Flippty insist on spewing their BDS all over the place.

  Look up appropriate in the dictionary, please.

• 47 Scott // Sep 12, 2008 at 9:27 am

  Bud Flanagan was the former CINCLANT fleet (back when we could call them CINCs), retired and was working for Cantor Fitzgerald in One WTC . On 9/11, his wife did something most unusual — offered to make him breakfast, which put him about an hour late. On his way to the office, he could see the gaping hole from the first impact. He could also tell, that his floor was above the impact, and therefore his staff was trapped by the fire. He was nearly in the door of his building, headed to help them, when the second airliner hit the other building. Except for that breakfast, ……..

• 48 ASM826 // Sep 12, 2008 at 8:37 pm

  I am asking you to hold Christine Lee Hansen in your memory. She is the youngest person to die as a result of the terrorist attacks of 9-11. She was flying to Disney World with her parents on United 175. Her father was on the phone with her grandfather, holding her in his arms as the plane impacted the World Trade Center. She was 3.

  http://www.petehansonandfamily.com/

  Semper Fidelis,
  Semper Memoria

• 49 MaxDamage // Sep 13, 2008 at 1:34 am

  That guy, falling… I just can’t grasp it. It’s so far beyond anything I can imagine…. What a choice — burn to death, hoping smoke inhalation takes you before the heat kills you, or jump to escape the flames to a certain death and several seconds to think about it?

  That’s not a choice. That’s trying to live a few seconds more, those few seconds it takes to fall that number of feet to the ground.

  The dead, in the gas chambers at Dachau and Treblinka, they were found in piles, a pyramid that reached almost to the source of the gas. We’ll do anything to live a couple more seconds, to continue to live…

  Is it so wrong, or even immoral, to wish death upon those who perpetrated these acts?

  If so, I guess I can live with that. Some folks didn’t.

  Never forgive, never forget.

  - Max

• 50 MaxDamage // Sep 13, 2008 at 11:44 pm

  In about 6 hours I shall attend church. It’s been 7 years since the 911 attacks and still the rage burns. I want to find one of them, those who did this to my country, and I want to kill them. The part up until the actual killing I’m kind of open to negotiation on, but the outcome must not be in doubt — dead men to not do it again, that’s my goal.

  Bet my pastor doesn’t see this question coming…

  - Max

• 51 craig mclaughlin // Sep 14, 2008 at 12:02 am

  “I want to find one of them, those who did this to my country, and I want to kill them.”

  sing it, brutha…

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