I hope I am ok with posting this (Dave/Maestro) I just wanted to write this down somewhere... I have just got back from a backpacking trip around America and ended it in New York. Obviously it is getting very close to a certain anniversary. I have no relation whatsoever with it but I visited ground zero about four years a go but unfortunately didn't get the chance to visit the memorial fountains this time around. However, I did get talking to a retired fireman who was there. i found it rather harrowing to begin with but after hearing what this man had to say i found it even more real and all the more harrowing. I was only 10 when it happened so couldn't fully understand what had happened so i am grateful that i visited it four/five years a go and heard first hand experience. So for the first time in 11 years in two days time I will be able to properly remember the losses of that day and I am proud to be able to.
Hi Wonky, Have you read the book "Last man Down"?.It's by FDNY Commander Richard "Pitch" Picciotto and was a number 1 best seller.It tells the story of how his crew were the last to get out of the towers. Absolutely brilliant read.
No problems at all Wonky. It was a terrible attrocity and those that died, and those that suffered should be remembered.
Went there in 2006 and even though it was busy around the site, the sight of all the shrines placed there by loved ones was quite moving. The atrocity was one of the most memorable moments in history and by its very happening has led to the death and injury of money brave young lads from these islands.
On the other hand, the good thing to come out of it was that the U.S. Senate banned Noraid, the group who raised millions of dollars for the I.R.A., like they said at the time " One mans fundraiser is another mans terrorist".
...or at least it provided a decent enough reason/smokescreen for the Fundamentalist Christians of the western world to go and bomb the **** out of a few countries of little brown people, creating multi-billion dollar rebuilding contracts for corporate constructions companies whilst siphoning off their oil reserves Not taking anything from the tragedies suffered by those innocent people who lost loved ones on that sad day by the way, it was indeed an awful event that I will never, ever forget, and was an awful reminder of what humans can do to each other. I just perhaps have a slightly more cynical view on good old 'America the Brave, Land of the Free' and all that bollocks than some people do. I spent a month in Viet Nam a few years back, the most beautiful country I have been to so far (and I've been to a lot!) and the people who live there are amongst the friendliest and kindest I have ever some across. Having read lots about and witnessed with my own eyes some of the complete and utter mindless devastation the good old US of A inflicted upon such a proud and dignified race of people in the name of **** all made me think about things in an entirely different light, and also made me ashamed to be an ally of theirs.
Its not cynicsm mate its realism. To quote the great Billie Holiday's God Bless the Child "Them that's got shall get Them that's not shall lose" Ask all the black Americans still without proper homes in New Orleans and ask them if they still have white people in temporary accommodation.
