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Thursday, October 11, 2001

A thought struck me today as I was getting ready for work: it is amazing how quickly the tactics used to cause the World Trade Center and Pentagon atrocities were adapted to and nullified.

The passengers on United Flight 93, the one that crashed in Pennsylvania, were no different from those on the other three doomed airliners save for one crucial element: they knew what the terrorists intended to do with their plane. The cell phone calls they made to their loved ones provided them with news of the attacks that had already been committed. Armed with that knowledge and a resolve we can only imagine, they were able wrest control of the craft from the men who planned to use it as a missile, and foil those intentions.

The actions of people doing what had to be done made this grand scheme quickly obsolete. Years in the planning, the gambit had an effective useful life of about forty-five minutes upon implementation.

It's thoughts like these that allow me to sleep peacefully most nights.



Many words and images have moved me in the month since the terrorist attacks. There's one picture that's haunted me since very near the beginning of this. I want to share that picture and what it means to me, but I just don't have the words yet. Soon, I hope.

In the meantime, I can offer the words of another. On this week's season opener of A Prairie Home Companion, Garrison Keillor read the poem I Think Continually of Those Who Were Truly Great by Stephen Spender, to sum up his thoughts on the attacks and their aftermath. In a gentle yet confident way the poem (particularly the last stanza) evokes the memory of the brave men and women who ran into the World Trade Center to save whoever they could.
Posted @ 5:01 PM



 


Am we talking to myselves?

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