In the eight years since the devastation of September 11, 2001, many of us have told our stories. Some of us were directly effected – lost a loved one, watched the chaos firsthand, lost our businesses – others, like me, sat riveted to the television, not willing to believe.
As you have seen, I am involved in the 2996 Project – a commemoration of those 2996 innocent souls who were lost that day. I strongly urge you to take a moment to visit the blogs taking part. Take several moments, in fact, because 2996 people take some time to appreciate. The scale of carnage that day had never before been seen on North American soil, and I pray it never is again.
Here are some examples of those bloggers who have committed to writing a 2996 tribute:
Jimmie Bise, from The Sundries Shack:
Kui Fai Kwok.
Raymond was, by every piece of information on him I could find, a perfectly ordinary American success story. He was the son of immigrants who went to college and landed a good job at a good company. He had a loving wife, a new daughter, was taking care of his parents, and was living the American dream. His biggest wish, his wife said, was to have more children.
That all ended, though when the Islamists brutally and happily murdered him. Kui Fai “Raymond” Kwok was not a soldier and he had nothing to do with the complaints of Osama bin Laden and his bloodthirsty comrades. He was just an ordinary American, but that was more than enough to earn the Islamists’ undying hatred.
Angela Susan Perez.
Time goes by, memories, especially bad memories, get shelved and put away. But for some people, they cannot forget their loss. Nor do they want to. For families and friends of those lost on 9/11, forgetting is more awful than remembering. And so they look at the picture, they see the holes where the buildings were and they remember. They get married and their mother cannot see the day of joy. They have children who have no grandma. They need a shoulder to cry on, but mom is gone.
Patrick, of Political Byline
Melissa C. Doi.
Thousands of New Yorkers yesterday retreated to the privacy of their offices, studies, or bedrooms to click onto the Internet and listen to the last words of a woman they never met. They were the words of Melissa Doi, who was trapped on the 83rd floor of the south tower of the World Trade Center when, at 9:17 a.m. on September 11, 2001, she reached a 911 emergency operator. Doi’s was the only civilian voice heard in the batch of 911 tapes released yesterday. Her pleas were made public because her voice had already been introduced as evidence in the trial earlier this year of Zacarias Moussaoui. Yesterday, her voice testified to something else — to the way in which the unique spirit of New Yorkers allowed glimmers of light to shine through even on that darkest of sunny summer days.
Louis J. Nacke II. ~ one of the heroes of Flight 93
Louis was aboard United Flight 93, which went down in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. It went down there, and not it’s potential target (Washington, DC) because men like him tried to take back the aircraft. I would like to introduce you to a man of great strength and character, who most of us will never know, but none of us will ever forget. Rest in peace, Lou. We have the watch.
Mildred Rose Naiman.
While she needed the help of a wheelchair at the airport, she still managed to visit her family twice a year. The Sunday before her fatal flight, a family member had asked if she was afraid of flying; her granddaughter, Hope, remembers her reply: “No, I’ve gone everywhere already–to Germany, the Bahamas. I’m not afraid to fly.”
Incredibly, on July 24, 2004, the New York Post reported that the medical examiner’s office had identified her remains. Many 9-11 victims are still unaccounted for. I hope her family gained some sense of closure with this discovery and was able to finally put her body to rest.
Charles Burlingame III ~ Pilot of Flight 77
Friends and family remembered him as a man who was unabashedly patriotic, who embraced military life even after he retired from active and reserve duty. He remained active in the reserve, working until 1996 as a liaison in the Pentagon (where he had worked for most of his 17 years as a Naval Reserve officer). When his plane went down Tuesday, it ripped through a section of the building that includes the Navy Reserve offices.
Mark Burlingame said his brother was in the Navy Reserve and had worked in the same area of the Pentagon where the airliner crashed.
