Well written, Gerard

I will never forget.

I will never forgive.

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http://11sep.info - what was 22 years ago before attack

Superbly observed. Would that the rest of our fellow Americans were able to so clearly see the need for clear-eyed, hard-hearted action, if for no other reason than to make the butcher's bill far too high for others to contemplate such an act against us.

Thanks Gerard. You have put into words so well the way that I felt then and still feel today. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like the resolve is holding. We should have seized the day with an aweful vengeance, while the wound was fresh.

Thank you for (re)posting this. I'd moved far away from hometown Manhattan before That Day. What had been special ground is now sacred ground, the line in the sand cutting through lower Manhattan -- by force, not by choice. If you're of a mind, please click over to my modest tribute this year. Regards.

Very well written. But it didn't happen, did it? What happened instead was the family of the culprit of this atrocity - which, it should be remembered, is part of the extended Saudi royal family - because of their business links with America's President of the time, being whisked out of America while all other air traffic was grounded. What happened instead was an invasion of a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, causing a number of casualties that makes those of 9/11 look trivial.

What should have happened? The bin Laden family, instead of being whisked out, should have been locked up - and bin Laden should have been searched for, in force, in his hiding place in Afghanistan. Instead, a country with no connection to the culprits except a shared religion was invaded to finish the job Bush Sr. should have finished fifteen years ago.

Because of this, the wind in the Heights will happen again - but this time it will be the winds of the Manhattan firestorm.

A moving piece, Gerard. Thank you.

Unfortunately in the years since we have had to put up with the lunacy of the psychotic left of which Fletcher Christian is a member of.

What BDS blinded fools like Fletcher tend to forget that his heroes Bill and Hillary Clinton were offered Osama on a silver platter by the Sudanese and they refused the offer. Bill had the chance to stop all of this and he didn't.

Clinton did choose to lob the Monica missiles at Sudan and Afghanistan (a country with no connection to the culprits except a shared religion as Fletch said) at a later date. The only thing "gained" by that act was that Pakistan got a free cruise missile to tear apart and copy.

This essay was even more poignant this time around...for those of us who remember 9/11.

Ennis, you mistake me. A member of the psychotic left I am not. I also think that the Clintons were slimeballs - not only that, but ineffective slimeballs. And by the time of 9/11, in any case the failure to get Osama when they could was history. Where I perhaps differ from you is that I think that Bush is also a slimeball - a stupid, venal one at that - and equally ineffective.

But why should I find that surprising? All politicians are slimeballs. All politicians - not just American ones - are more interested in keeping their noses in the trough than in the welfare of their country. Once, perhaps, it was different. To use the same title, that used to be an honourable one, for a Bush and for a Lincoln makes me sick.

So what do I mean? I mean this. OBL is merely the most famous proponent of the worst, most evil form of the most evil of religions. He is a member of the royal family of the country where that form (Wahabism) started, and if any country was culpable it was that one.

So the invasion should have been of Saudi Arabia, and before it started the bin Laden family should indeed have been sent back - in pieces, wrapped in bacon.

I was watching the futures market on 9/11 and when it fell off sharply, turned on CNBC to see why. The first plane had hit and I thought it was a very bad accident. The talking heads were talking but the camera stayed on the towers, then the second plane hit. My brain refused the thought that this was an attack, for several minutes. Then anger. I can still feel it all, even seven years later.

That was a very nice description of memories from that event. Your forethought to write was great. I wish I had done something similar for my own memories.

I remember about a month or so later hearing a report that a teacher in Washington State told her class that Bin Laden was the George Washington of the Middle East. I remember then thinking how difficult it would be for America in the coming years. I couldn't fathom any rational person suggesting that a mass murderer resembled GW in any way.

Anyway it looks like my prediction has become fact. The left used the the aftermath to turn us into the bad guys, have taken control, and seem to be doing their best to put us out of business.

ACORN and SEIU are the new corporate/government powers.

I was in midtown that day. The spouse of a colleague was literally on the floor below where the first plane hit and he (and everyone on his floor) somehow survived (it took quite awhile that day to find out). Your descriptions and feelings are descriptions and feelings I shared. Even your comments about President Bush. Only a week before September 11 I'd commented to my wife that I hoped Bush was as lucky as Clinton as far as disasters went because Bush was the least qualified president we'd had since Warren Harding.

There are things I'd change about the Bush administration but I've agreed with how they responded to September 11. I didn't vote for him in 2000 but I'm grateful that Al Gore wasn't president on September 11 because we'd still be wringing our hands at a negotiating table with the Taliban today and more bad events would have happened. Of course that's pure speculation but it's how I feel. And because of that I worry a lot about the current Carter-like administration and hope I'm wrong.

Perhaps you stood next to my mother that day, Gerard.
She lives on Pierrepont St(for the last 40 years).
After these eight years her voice is still hoarse from breathing the smoke that hung as a pall over the Heights for so long.
I tried to get her to come up to Maine, but she couldn't bear to leave - she went to the firehouse across from P.S. 8 every day and cried, went to their funerals.

It makes me so angry that we haven't rebuilt on the site.

I might well have since I too lived in the last block of Pierrepont Street.

Really! We moved there in 1969 and she's lived there ever since. Right across from the Apellate Courthouse(on Monroe Pl.).

Nice neighborhood.

I still cannot understand why we did not take more action than we did. Everyone is afraid of killing civilians over in the Muslim world. Yet, we see every day that more and more of the civilian population are getting in on the action of poking Big Satan with a stick. I think that we need to dust off all the huge old carpet bombers and have a liquidation of our non-smart bomb stockpiles. If they want a war then I say lets give them one, not this pussy-footing around that we are, and have been doing for several presidencies. We need to let them know that we do not negotiate with terrorists and those who support them. Don't just go after their leaders - more will rise to take their place: go after their base; the people, and crush them utterly. Then those who live, and their children, and their children's children will know to mess with someone else because we won't take any more shit from them.