A Moment To Reflect

[K2]

Let us pause for a moment and reflect on the sacrifices made ten years ago. Words can not describe the sorrow and loss that so many have felt... Tragedy struck the United States, and today is a day for the entire world to remember. I will not be writing a huge speech to post in the News Feed, but I would just like for us to reflect for a moment.

Where were you ten years ago?

[Admiral Regis Hermitage]

Please, on behalf of the SP Staff, join us in a moment of silence to remember the men, and women who lost their lives on September 11, 2001 and in the war that followed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wn_iz8z2AGw

Thank you...

-C/LTC C. K. Hanson (Fmr.)

[Queen Bright]

...We do not need two topics for this.. God.

Seriously. Who cares 10 freakin' years from the tragedy? Okay it was a tragedy. Okay MAYBE America did fall a bit because of it. But 10 years later we're now celebrating it? Had this been a monday or a weekday kids would even get out of school for this joke of a new holiday. That's just stupid and you're just giving publicity to the acts whoever the hell did it committed and 'immortalizing,' them in name every freakin' year since.

...Also I agree with what Gaser would say if he was here. It was a damn conspiracy, congrats for believing it.

[K2]

That's your opinion, and you're entitled to it, but 2,752 people DIED on that day, today is not about celebration or immortalizing the act that happened. It's about remembering the lives of those who were lost, and remembering who they were.

[Queen Bright]

They were just people. People die everyday. What makes these special? Nothing.

[Beware Ye Who Enter Here]

Youre right, people do die everyday. However, I'd like to point out to you, Hik, what if that was one of your loved ones who was on that plane, in those buildings or near ground 0 during the attack? How would you feel when you saw those reports and knew that they were on one of those planes on in those buildings or near there? How would you react when you realized that they were gone forever due to somebody elses extremism? No one who hasnt felt that feeling can describe what its like and we can hardly imagine the pain, terror and sorrow that these people went through. If you dont care about the deaths, at least try to be grateful that you didnt have to experience that pain. Try empathy, Hik. It works wonders.

[Admiral Regis Hermitage]

Look... No matter what you think, or say, it doesn't change the fact that a lot of innocent people died on that day, and in the Iraq war that followed.

And before you go on about your conspiracies, just stop and think...... Where the fuck is your proof? Nowhere... 9-11 is a very emotional event for me and my family, and it deserves the right to be remembered by us (American citizens). And hikaru, they weren't "Just people" they wete somebody's parent, child, sibling, partner, and friend. Show some goddamn respect!

[Queen Bright]

Show some goddamn respect!

No.

[Admiral Regis Hermitage]

What if it was you that had dies in the WTC, or the Pentagon, or on flight 93? What if it was you're parents, your cousin, your sister, brother, grandma, grandfather? And what if i just said, "No, fuck them... their just people."? What if you had seen the planes crash into those buildings? They deserve the respect shown to the dead, and for a lot of them the respect shown to hero

[Ragnar the Red]

No one's celebrating this. We celebrate at birthdays. We mourn at funerals.

And either way, people are still dieing from the 9-11 incident from health problems after breathing in debris from the crash. 9-11 continues it's toll, even today!
http://www.readersupportednews.org/news-section2/332-141/7201-first-responders-health-care-an-insult-to-heroism

[Capxeno]

I wasn't going to put the energy into writing this up yesterday. I was busy mourning those I had personally lost to 9/11, and I wasn't about to respond when I would have an emotional investment in my words. However, the reason this should be remember is because it shows that the American hubris of being untouchable was shattered. Since the Japanese ICBM (Inter-continental balloon missiles.), we had not lost a single person on our own soil. It was a sense of security that was part of the foundation of our collective unconsciousness as the American people.

9/11 put an end to the short era of hope that started with the fall of the Berlin wall, in one day we lost many times the number of civilians than we had lost in any foreign attack. ANY. Only 57 civilians died in pearl harbor, and the civil war was our own doing.  The conspiracy is merely a ego save meant to sue the myth of the hyper aware government to take the psychological power of those attacks away from the terrorist and victim alike, and put it in to a metaphorical archetype of the hyper aware government.

 Had it been our own people, we wouldn't have destroyed what was our economic power house. We still haven't fully recovered economically from the loss of the Twin towers. Only symbolic building would have been destroy, meaningful but ultimately not a major infrastructure.

Now where was I? I had messed with my mother's alarm clock the night before because I had not wanted to go to school. I had things on USEnet I wanted to do in the early morning. So when I got up early, turned on the tv to watch a couple things before booting up the computer. I had CNN in the picture in picture, and as it was reported I learned of the attacks. For a moment I had hoped it was just an accident, but when the second plane hit, there was only one thought of despair.

I was taken in a few hours late to school, and was told personally by the principle to keep quiet. None of the teachers were allowed to tell the students, nor didn't anyone in my class but me knew what was going on. I still remember the look in Sarah and Cohen's eyes when I tried to tell them, like it was some prank I was trying to pull.

I didn't know this at the time, but my class teacher's aid and her husband were on vacation. To NYC. That morning they had be eating breakfast in the restaurant that was on the top floor of one of the tower. That aid also went to my church and volunteered in the sunday school thing every week. She and her husband were people I had known all my life. Certainly wasn't the first time I lost someone I knew and cared about but it hurt just the same.


Don't bother with conspiracy or the terrorists. 9/11 is about remembering those lost. Nothing more.

[Nisorin]

While I believe Hikaru's way of going about it is terribly uncouth, rude, and possibly downright mean-spirited, she does carry a point. We're essentially celebrating the results of our own weakness. There are a great many school districts that are shutting schools down for a day. WE didn't win the so-called 'war against terrorism.' Look at the new security protocols we've put into place, many without thinking first. Terrorists, by name, seek to incite terror and cause chaos through that terror. Fact is people, the terrorists won. We let ourselves be intimidated by them, and we got knocked to the ground for it.

Yes, I do believe those who died should be mourned. But we already did that. A few times. A ten year anniversary like this is just wasting time and resources that we could be using to adequately secure both international borders and high-value targets in and outside the country. I dunno about you guys, but if I died in the 9/11 attacks I'd be Gibbs-slapping each and every one of you for wasting your time mourning when you could be doing what needs to be done to adequately prevent another such attack. For example, we never bothered figuring out WHY we were attacked. We just invaded a foreign country with very little intel about our foe. And look how that ended, ten years later. How many lives would have been spared if we just went in, did what we had to do, and got the hell out? I didn't lose anyone in the 9/11 attacks. I lost people to that idiot's war we threw ourselves into afterwards. Hell, we cut off the figurehead and we're still gettin' killed.

[Ragnar the Red]

One day doesn't seem like much to ask, especially since everyone gets Sunday off anyway. The fact is that remembering those lost in 9-11 and the subsequent war is not a waste, unless you're complaining that it's cutting into your free-time. That would be mean spirited anyway.

[Nisorin]

It doesn't cut into my free time, I'm saying we'd be better off using that time to prevent one from happening again, and I'd think most, if not all, those who died in the attack and subsequent war would agree with me.

[Ragnar the Red]

I would have some agreement had the anniversary not been on a Sunday. That throws the whole thing out of balance.