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For America: Five Years Later, 9/11/2006


Tysyacha

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In honor of this day, I present to you Jackson Browne's anthem

"For America". Even though this song was released in 1986 on his

album "Lives in the Balance", it still holds great meaning for me

20 years later. May the souls who lived and died today find peace.

 

"For America"

 

As if I really didn't understand

That I was just another part of the plan,

I went on looking for the promise, believing in the Motherland.

From the comfort of a dreamer's bed

And the safety of my own head,

I went on speaking of the future while other people fought and bled.

 

A kid I was when I first left home,

Was looking for his freedom, and a life of his own.

But the freedom that he found wasn't quite as free

When the truth was known...

 

I have prayed for America.

I was made for America.

It's in my blood and in my bones.

By the dawn's early light,

By all I know is right,

We're gonna reap what we have sown.

 

As if freedom was a question of might!

As if loyalty was black and white!

You hear people say it all the time: "My country, wrong or right!"

I want to know what that's got to do

With what it takes to find out what's true,

With everyone from the President on down trying to keep it from you.

 

I think a lot about the dads and moms

Who send their sons to the Vietnams.

Do they really think their way of life has been protected

As the next war comes?

 

I have prayed for America.

I was made for America.

Her shining dream plays in my mind.

By the rockets' red glare,

A generation's blank stare,

We'd better wake Her up this time!

 

A kid I was when I first left home,

Was looking for his freedom, and a life of his own.

But the freedom that he found wasn't quite as free

When the truth was known...

 

I have prayed for America.

I was made for America.

I can't let go 'till She's come 'round!

Until the Land of the Free

Is awake and can see,

And until her conscience has been found!

 

I'll Never Forget

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Now I normally don't pay much attention to Myspace and the whole bulletin thing, I just use it as a way to keep in touch with my old highschool friends, but this thing one of my friends posted is just plain scary, especially the last part..

 

Weird 9/11 facts
1) New York City has 11 letters

2) Afghanistan has 11 letters.

3) Ramsin Yuseb (The terrorist who threatened to destroy the Twin Towers in 1993) has 11 letters.

4) George W Bush has 11 letters.

5) The two twin towers make an "11"



This could be a mere coincidence, but this gets more interesting:


1) New York is the 11th state.

2) The first plane crashing against the Twin Towers was flight number 11.

3) Flight 11 was carrying 92 passengers. 9 + 2 = 11

4) Flight 77 which also hit Twin Towers, was carrying 65 passengers.
6+5 = 11

5) The tragedy was on September 11, or 9/11 as it is now known. 9 + 1+ 1 = 11

6) The date is equal to the US emergency services telephone number 911.
9 + 1 + 1 = 11.

Sheer coincidence..?! Read on and make up your own mind:
1) The total number of victims inside all the hi-jacked planes was 254. >2 + 5 + 4 = 11.

2) September 11 is day number 254 of the calendar year.
Again 2 + 5 + 4 = 11.

3) The Madrid bombing took place on 3/11/2004. 3 + 1 + 1 + 2 + 4 = 11.

4) The tragedy of Madrid happened 911 days after the Twin Towers incident.



Sheer coincidence..?! Read on and make up your own mind:
Now this is where things get totally eerie:



The most recognised symbol for the US, after the Stars & Stripes, is the Eagle. The following verse is taken from the Quran, the Islamic holy book:

"For it is written that a son of Arabia would awaken a fearsome Eagle. The wrath of the Eagle would be felt throughout the lands of Allah and lo, while some of the people trembled in despair still more rejoiced: for the wrath of the Eagle cleansed the lands of Allah and there was peace."

That verse is number 9.11 of the Quran.



Still uncovinced about all of this..?! Try this and see how you feel afterwards, it made my hair stand on end:



Open Microsoft Word and do the following(TRY THIS FOR REAL)

1. Type in capitals Q33 NY. This is the flight number of the first
plane to hit one of the Twin Towers.

2. Highlight the Q33 NY

3. Change the font size to 48.

4. Change the actual font to the WINGDINGS 1

scary huh??

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Now I normally don't pay much attention to Myspace and the whole bulletin thing, I just use it as a way to keep in touch with my old highschool friends, but this thing one of my friends posted is just plain scary, especially the last part..
...Okay. Some of that stuff is kind of interesting. I'm thinkin' the Balfour Declaration is even more interesting though. It's culturally relevant to the people who're behind these attacks (O NOES THAT'S HOLY LAND, etc, etc) and the U.S ignored it when it happened.
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It is sad that approx. 3,000 people died, may they rest in peace.

 

But.

 

It was approx. 3,000, not approx. 300,000.

 

Furthermore, they were murdered. They weren't martyrs to a noble cause, or defending their country.

 

While I respect that their deaths were a shock, and that it was a cold-blooded and brutal murder, I do not see why this must constantly be raked over again and again.

 

Furthermore, there have been two-minute-silences for these people. Yes, they died, yes it was bad, but at the same time, this effectively equates their deaths with the willing sacrifices of men in the Great War... :-/

 

Would it not be better to let the dead rest in peace?

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Would it not be better to let the dead rest in peace?

 

It's nearly impossible to do that because of the tremendous emotional impact 9/11 had for all of us Americans, and the physical impact it had for a large number of people.

 

I remember waking up that day to the news on the radio that a plane had crashed into the WTC. I thought it was some cosmic accident, and turned on the TV, in time to see plane #2 crash. At that moment, I knew we were being attacked. Then the Pentagon got hit. Then Flight 93 crashed and the towers collapsed. It was a stunning attack and the entire thing happened in about 2-3 hours, and at that point, we still didn't know if more attacks would come. We sat on pins and needles wondering who was going to be hit next. We felt like that way for a number of days after--we didn't know the extent of the plot, how they did what they did, if they had other cells doing the same thing, and so on. Fear on a national scale is impossible to ignore.

 

I have family in NYC and I couldn't get through to them for 3 days to find out if they were OK (they were). All I can tell you was that I and everyone around me were absolutely stunned and heartsick. I live not too far from Chicago, and I worried about whether planes were going to crash into the Sears tower or some other Chicago skyscraper. Jimbo was in Germany with his Army reserve unit and had travelled just 3 days earlier on United. We didn't know for a week how he was going to even get home with the flights all shut down.

 

I can't explain how the nation was gripped in terror that day. We've not had attacks in this country like that. I went to work that day, and nearly had to pull over to the side of the road when I heard about the tower collapse because the shock was that bad. Someone brought a TV in so we could watch the news, and that's all we did all day--we just could not believe what was happening and how anyone could do something so devastatingly evil. No one came to our office that day, and it was probably better that way--we were so horrified it would have been hard to do our jobs.

 

This is a day where we honor those who died, because we don't want to forget them or what their deaths mean to us all.

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Furthermore, they were murdered. They weren't martyrs to a noble cause, or defending their country.

 

If I may make a point, DI, the passengers on the plane bound to crash into the White House stopped it. After nearly 3,000 deaths that provoked a war, this is not something that can or should be forgotten easily.

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A war that has cost over 90,000 lives, if you can declare war on a noun...

 

Yes the passengers on flight 93 stopped it, and 40 of them died in the process and they *were* martyrs.

 

My point is not that the losses shouldn't be mourned, but that perhaps the *scale* of mourning is a little disproportionate to the number of lives lost.

 

Maybe its that from Northern Ireland we saw death and destruction on a large scale regularly, but I just feel that the constant rehashing of this subject is frankly a little OTT.

 

True, in Northern Ireland there were generally warnings, but there was supposedly knowledge of what would happen on the 11th of September 2001 in the CIA/FBI or whathaveyou...

 

I'm not saying don't mourn the dead or remember it, I'm just saying that it's not November the 11th.

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R.I.P.

 

I'd like to contribute an excerpt (the part I remember) poem about death.

 

Everyone knows it,

no one sees it.

Everyone can help,

no one does.

 

[...]

 

An old human, only 19 years.

A little child under the stone.

 

Written by a mourning teen in "Vær der for meg", a highly recommended Norwegian collection of stories from proffesionals and grieving teens.

 

PS: Is it really necessary to post "spooky stories", pictures of the horrific event, and politics in a commemoration thread:confused:?

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