Millions come to Ground Zero

[pieter]

Pilgrims or tourists, millions come to Ground Zero
Sat Sep 9, 2006 10:05am ET

By Claudia Parsons

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Tour guide Ann Van Hine is rewarded with tears, not tips, and frequently reduces visitors to an awed silence when she tells them how her husband, a firefighter, died at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

"Sometimes I feel bad because I look at people's faces as I'm telling my story and it's like I've just blown them away," Van Hine said after leading 25 tourists from as far afield as Italy and Australia on a tour around the perimeter of the gaping hole known as Ground Zero.

She says younger visitors often chat freely with her before the tour, but afterwards, "They don't know what to say to me."

As she is about to climb a steep flight of stairs to a walkway over the highway west of the site, Van Hine asks visitors to imagine climbing stairs loaded up with firefighting equipment. "The firefighters got up to about the 70th floor, so it would have been like doing what we're doing 35 times."

She and her husband, Richard Bruce Van Hine, had two daughters aged 14 and 17 at the time of the attacks that killed 2,992 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

"Ten days after, I asked my girls where they thought Daddy was and they said they thought Daddy was in heaven," she said, adding that she visited Ground Zero on September 28, 2001.

"It looked like war," she said, standing with her back to the 16-acre site. "There were still fires burning, there was this gray dust everywhere. Some part of me I think expected to see a computer monitor or a desk or something. There was nothing."

Source: today.reuters.com/news/home.aspx

[rdywenur]

Pieter,

I can still remember that day vididly. I remember calling my ex to tell him about it. He lived on the West coast and was probably still in bed at that time. I thought it was one of the buildings he worked on. He was from the Bronx and was an an ironworker and worked on many of the tall buildings in the city. His best friend lost his son to 9/11. He was a fireman for the NYFD. His parents still grieve his death. I had friends that lived near the UN and for months complained of the air and were getting sick. It something that we shall never get over.

Recently a friend sent me these photos which are amazing. I've seen many since but not like these.


www.zombietime.com/wtc_9-13-2001/

[pieter]

Rdywenur,

For me 9-11 was in the afternoon, because of the time differance, and it came as a big shock,
because not seeing the images and only hearing rumours at my work, made the feeling of
panick and helplessness (you could not do anything from the other side of the ocean) larger.
I heard stories that everywhere in the USA planes were falling on cities, and had an apocalyptic
vision of planes falling on New York, Washington, LA, Miami and etc.
That was because I had no tv or radio back than at the place where I worked there,
the rumor circuit was working. I had a phone in my office, and was so exited and agitated that
I could not continue working and so started calling my friends and family who were hundreds
of kilometers away in other parts of the country.
They reported to me what they were seeing on the television, that the towers were collapsing
and after that that a plane had hit the Pentagon too, that was after that I think.
At 18.00 hours I was home (minus 7 that would have been 11.00 hours in New York),
and sat in front of the television the rest of that evening, the Dutch chanals had been
reporting Non-stop in that time. The reporter of the Dutch commercial chanal lived less
than one mile from the WTC, and he went there immediately.
I have to tell you that at that time it did not feel as if NY or Washington was abroad,
we suddenly felt like Americans too, we were as heart as you are. It was an attack on the West,
an attack on the city I love, even if I have never been there. I got a NY state of mind.

In my photobook collextion the thickest and probably the most impressive one is about 9-11,
photographs token by many people during and after the event, and there are images in it
like the link you placed here. But they are impressing though.
The days after 9-11 I bought many magazines with the human tragedies and photographs
of that day and after that. It was probably the most impressive and shocking moment of
my life, because it came so suddenly and was so extreme.

You knew that there had realy changed something definatively, the free and safe USA
was not a safe haven anymore, and terror could strike anywhere.

In the Netherlands we know that it can happen any day now, at our airport Schiphol,
in the subways of the cities, on the large train stations, at our tourist attractions,
during large public events, or by suddenly attacks on civilian targets.

I am sorry fro the friend of your ex, there were a lot of personal stories her on
television about Firefighters who lost comrades, and familes who lost their
loved ones. I saw one of the firefighters who went for the first time to Europe
for the premiere of the movie about his story. He was the last one who
was taken out of the rubble after 12 hours, laying under 6 meters of rubble.
He said that it was real hell down there, when the building collapsed on him
and his colleages. I hope that he can relax in Europe with his family.

Pieter

[nancy]

[piwo]

For me, I was on an airplane that morning: 6:00 AM flight from San Francisco to STL, then to Jacksonville FL. We got 40 minutes out when we were turned around and sent back to San Fran. It was a hectic time, using the airphones to call family, who knew I was in the air, getting reports from them and passing them along to the other passengers. By the time we landed, both buildings, and the Pentagon had been hit. We didn't know what to expect when we finally landed.

My wife called the High school and grade school my girls went to to tell them I was OK, since they all knew what was going on and of course were worried. Went back to the hotel and stayed there till they allowed flights on Friday. It was a long day and week alone, with no one to just hug....

It's a day I won't forget, and I was never in harms way.......

[pieter]

Beautiful picture nancy, with that American eagle looking straight at ya.
The American marines should through such leaflets at the Al Qaida and
Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, so that before they die they remember
why thy are kicked out of Afghanistan or killed!

Piwo, thanks for your dramatic story, I must have been a hard week for ya,
I can imagine what you have must been gone through.

Pieter

[bescheid]

Nancy

Now that is a message! My involentary reaction was{oooohhh}.

Charles

[bescheid]

piwo

What a loused day you had, and to be in air at that particular time!

I was sitting in an office buried in paper work trying to figure out a workable excuse how to escape undetected for if only a few minutes for a coffee. Across one of the television news was a shaky report of a possible airplane colliding with a building in New York.

I was thinking {how in heck could airtraffic control let that happen} the rest is history.

Charles

[pieter]

He Folks,

This is on the morning of 9-11, 8 'o clock, I just heard an amazing story on the Dutch television RTL-news, New York. The guy from the Commercial television I told you.
He was a New Yorker himself, and so it was a very emotional day for him, since his city was attacked. He said actually it was easier for him to coap with it than many people who worked in buidlings next to the world trade centre and could not do a thing that day.
Being a journalist that day was his way of dealing with that terrible fact.
He is now in Europe (travels between Ny & Europe). He said this morning that he does not believe in a conspiracy theory about 9-11, and said that the found Conspiracy theories very American.

The story I heard this morning on the radio

Maxx Westerman was interviewed about an interview he did himself with Dutch parents of a woman who worked in the South tower, who live in Spain.
On that dreadful day of 9-11 they were called by their daughter from New York,
she was working that day. She said, mom and dad, the North tower is hit, turn on
your television and watch CNN. At the exact moment that they turned on their
tv the South-tower was hit by the second plane. They lost contact with their
daughter. The South tower was the first tower that collapsed.
Later they found out that their daughter had been e-mailing a lot of people.
This is one of the many testamonies of the people that died that day.

Pieter

www.rtl.nl/

[suzanne]

I don't think anyone will forget where he/she was that day.

My memory of 9/11: I was in the office that day when the office assistant (who is from NY) came running in, all panicked, saying that she saw on Internet news that a plane had flown into the WTC. A (jackass) colleague ordered her to calm down, saying that "planes crash into buildings - it's not like it's the end of the world" (!) Within the next half hour or so, it became clear that this was pretty much like the end of the world....

I was pregnant with my son at the time, and wondered what kind of a world I was bringing a child into.

[jimpres]

Nancy,

Right on we won't forget.

Jim

[sciwriter]

mexico.usembassy.gov/mexico/eA060911remember_Universal.html


September 11: Two Nations Remember - US Embassy Mexico City



Published in Spanish by Mexican daily El Universal
September 11, 2006
September 11 is a day of mourning and reflection in the United
States. Five years ago, on a day that horrified the world, a
group of terrorists took advantage of our open society by
hijacking four commercial airplanes and using them to murder
nearly three thousand innocent people.

The diversity of the September 11 victims is truly
astonishing. They came from over seventy countries and
represented all of the major religious faiths. Though the
majority of the dead were American citizens, hundreds of
foreign tourists and businesspeople also perished. Killing
businessmen, firemen, policemen, and maintenance workers shows
us that the terrorists’ lust for murder was not in any way
tempered by consideration for the victims or the plight of
their families.

In the immediate aftermath of this horrible crime, President
Bush committed the United States to fight terrorists on their
home territory, preventing them from carrying out plans to
commit even more savage crimes. In due course, U.S. troops and
their Afghan allies engaged and defeated the Taliban
government in Afghanistan. In so doing, we removed a regime
that existed only to imprison its own people and relegate them
to a life of medieval barbarity, while giving the al Qaeda
terrorists free reign to plan and carry out mass murder from
its soil.

Not content with murdering thousands of people in the United
States, al Qaeda terrorists and their affiliates sought out
and found other victims. Since 2001, hundreds have died from
the savage shootings and bombings that have killed commuters
in Madrid and London, oil workers in Saudi Arabia, diplomats
and their families in Pakistan, guests at a wedding in Jordan,
tourists in Tunisia, and ordinary people in Casablanca,
Baghdad, and Bali.

The al Qaeda terrorists who plotted the destruction of the
World Trade Center had other nefarious goals. They envisioned
a wave of xenophobic anger to engulf the United States,
targeting foreigners and Muslims. They sought to drive
foreigners from the Middle East. They expected the global
economy to collapse. And they were certain no foreign country
would freeze their bank accounts, close down their front
companies, attack their bases, and hunt down their members.

They were wrong.

Our fight against global terrorism has seen great successes.
The multiple arrests in August of would-be aircraft suicide
bombers by law enforcement officers in Britain are just one
example of smart police work and international cooperation.
Indeed, many of our investigations can not be made public for
fear of alerting the terrorists and their allies to the extent
and nature of the measures that have over the last five years
prevented them from successfully committing another terrorist
outrage targeting innocent lives in the United States.

America continues to embody the hopes and dreams of the
millions of immigrants who have flocked to our country in the
wake of the September 11 attacks. Though we must now employ
stricter controls than in the past, the United States welcomes
legitimate tourists, students, and commerce like no other
country in the world. Our economy remains the world’s most
robust, and our foreign policy aim is to help countries
achieve democratization where tyranny has ruled unchallenged
for centuries. We know that where there are free people and
free economies, terrorists will not survive.

President Bush has committed the United States to a long-term
fight against global terrorism, a fight we must win. We enjoy
the friendship and cooperation of dozens of countries in this
vital effort. Mexico has been a steadfast ally in this
effort—not to serve U.S. interests—but to serve the interests
of the Mexican people who do not wish to see terrorist attacks
on their own or any other soil again.

We may never know precisely how many Mexicans died on
September 11. Some sources put the number at fifteen, others
estimate many more. We do know that a good number of Mexicans
were hard at work in the World Trade Center that day to
support their families in the United States and in Mexico. We
can honor their memory by supporting our common efforts to
make the United States and Mexico safe from those who wish to
do us harm.