Post by Lady B on Sept 11, 2007 0:56:59 GMT -5
I don't usually go for political or rabble-rousing issues but 9-11 is one of the landmarks in my life and I feel a need to pay tribute.
On that morning in September I was teaching a college-credit class in Graphic Design for some 20-odd junior and senior high-school students in a special charter-school program in Daytona Beach, Florida. These 16, 17, and 18 year-old students turned into adults that day, suddenly aware of the fleeting nature of life and the profound horror of unbridled hatred.
Hundreds of firefighters gave their lives in a futile attempt to save Innocent Victims of that unbridled hatred. As the daughter, granddaughter, niece, cousin, and grand-niece of firefighters I felt the profound loss of extended family members that day.
As I tried to calm my students and "answer" their frightened questions, part of me wanted to run screaming from that building. My daughter, the Senior Account Executive for an Event-Marketing company, was scheduled to be at the World Trade Center that fateful morning. Where was Eliza? Was she safe? Had I lost my daughter because a madman had declared war and decided that ordinary people should be his first victims?
Eventually the school was closed--we had to wait for all of the school buses to return to the building to get the students safely headed home. That scenario was repeated across the nation. Protect our children!
Finally I could escape to my car and managed to reach Eliza's home office in New Hampshire. And then her voice! Her boss had needed her that morning and she was not to travel to NYC until later in the day. (My personal miracle! Eliza was safe.)
One of my cousins worked in the WTC. She was on vacation that week.
Another cousin, a lawyer, worked in a building next to the WTC. She unexpectedly was called to a meeting uptown that morning.
Eliza's team of marketers had trouble finding a place to park the vans they needed for the campaign they were starting that morning. They had to park several blocks away from the WTC and were walking toward the Towers when the first jet struck. They were covered in debris and ash but all were safe. They would eventually make their way to the Coast Guard ferries and be taken across to New Jersey where they were met by emergency personnel and fire-hoses. Thousands of people had to be washed down to remove the ashes from their bodies.
Eliza and two of the owners of the company drove down to NYC later that day. They had been in contact with the company for whom they were to have done the promotional campaign--Campbell Soup. It was agreed that instead of marketing Chunky Soup, Eliza's team would serve soup to the would-be rescuers but in fact-the recovery-effort personnel. For the next 8 days, Eliza and her team of 6 young people, none older than 28, worked 12 hour shifts, round the clock, providing soup and hugs and comfort to the emergency personnel on the inside of the fenced area at what was now known as Ground Zero. These seven young people were never trained in disaster-preparedness. None had backgrounds in Mental Health Counseling. They were just seven ordinary young Americans doing what they could to alleviate pain, and sorrow, and horror. The American Red Cross and the Campbell Soup Company gave Eliza and her team of six marketers special commemorative plaques for their courage and hard work. They were never in the news. They never sought publicity. They never thought to give an interview or write a book. They simply did what so many other Americans did at that very tragic time. They reached out to other humans, regardless of age, sex, skin color, religion, lifestyle, or any of the other "classifications" the hate-mongers want us to embrace, and gave them bowls of hot soup, hugs and smiles, and all too often, young shoulders to cry on.
I am proud of my daughter and her team. I am proud of my students who behaved so well on that terrifying morning. I am proud of all the firefighters and other emergency personnel. I am proud of all the Americans and visitors to America that reached out to each other on that terrible morning and on the sad days that followed.
America is not without her flaws. America is not always right. But on that day and every day since I can truthfully say: I am proud, blessed, and privileged to be an American.
Lady B
On that morning in September I was teaching a college-credit class in Graphic Design for some 20-odd junior and senior high-school students in a special charter-school program in Daytona Beach, Florida. These 16, 17, and 18 year-old students turned into adults that day, suddenly aware of the fleeting nature of life and the profound horror of unbridled hatred.
Hundreds of firefighters gave their lives in a futile attempt to save Innocent Victims of that unbridled hatred. As the daughter, granddaughter, niece, cousin, and grand-niece of firefighters I felt the profound loss of extended family members that day.
As I tried to calm my students and "answer" their frightened questions, part of me wanted to run screaming from that building. My daughter, the Senior Account Executive for an Event-Marketing company, was scheduled to be at the World Trade Center that fateful morning. Where was Eliza? Was she safe? Had I lost my daughter because a madman had declared war and decided that ordinary people should be his first victims?
Eventually the school was closed--we had to wait for all of the school buses to return to the building to get the students safely headed home. That scenario was repeated across the nation. Protect our children!
Finally I could escape to my car and managed to reach Eliza's home office in New Hampshire. And then her voice! Her boss had needed her that morning and she was not to travel to NYC until later in the day. (My personal miracle! Eliza was safe.)
One of my cousins worked in the WTC. She was on vacation that week.
Another cousin, a lawyer, worked in a building next to the WTC. She unexpectedly was called to a meeting uptown that morning.
Eliza's team of marketers had trouble finding a place to park the vans they needed for the campaign they were starting that morning. They had to park several blocks away from the WTC and were walking toward the Towers when the first jet struck. They were covered in debris and ash but all were safe. They would eventually make their way to the Coast Guard ferries and be taken across to New Jersey where they were met by emergency personnel and fire-hoses. Thousands of people had to be washed down to remove the ashes from their bodies.
Eliza and two of the owners of the company drove down to NYC later that day. They had been in contact with the company for whom they were to have done the promotional campaign--Campbell Soup. It was agreed that instead of marketing Chunky Soup, Eliza's team would serve soup to the would-be rescuers but in fact-the recovery-effort personnel. For the next 8 days, Eliza and her team of 6 young people, none older than 28, worked 12 hour shifts, round the clock, providing soup and hugs and comfort to the emergency personnel on the inside of the fenced area at what was now known as Ground Zero. These seven young people were never trained in disaster-preparedness. None had backgrounds in Mental Health Counseling. They were just seven ordinary young Americans doing what they could to alleviate pain, and sorrow, and horror. The American Red Cross and the Campbell Soup Company gave Eliza and her team of six marketers special commemorative plaques for their courage and hard work. They were never in the news. They never sought publicity. They never thought to give an interview or write a book. They simply did what so many other Americans did at that very tragic time. They reached out to other humans, regardless of age, sex, skin color, religion, lifestyle, or any of the other "classifications" the hate-mongers want us to embrace, and gave them bowls of hot soup, hugs and smiles, and all too often, young shoulders to cry on.
I am proud of my daughter and her team. I am proud of my students who behaved so well on that terrifying morning. I am proud of all the firefighters and other emergency personnel. I am proud of all the Americans and visitors to America that reached out to each other on that terrible morning and on the sad days that followed.
America is not without her flaws. America is not always right. But on that day and every day since I can truthfully say: I am proud, blessed, and privileged to be an American.
Lady B
