13 years ago at this very moment I was sitting in my office at Time Warner at 75 Rockefeller Plaza when someone ran into the room, I think it was Danny Khatib, and said it looks like a commuter plane just crashed into the Twin Towers. Alan Miles , David Eun - I dont remember if you were there too? Its all a blur. We ran upstairs to the roof and watched the second plane crash into the building. We ran downstairs and heard that a 3rd plane was heading towards the Pentagon. The rest of that day and the months that followed where full of chaos, sadness, and recovery. When people ask me what it was like in NYC after 9/11, I always say: Soot & Ashes. I just remember smelling soot and ashes in the air for weeks and weeks. It was horrific. And then I say fear: For weeks we walked everywhere, no matter how far, because there was a new random bomb threat on the subway almost each day. America took a beating that day. Freedom took a beating that day. Its hard to believe that 13 years have passed, and that my nieces and nephews have no recollection of that day, just lessons in history books of tragedy and war and more terror that followed. I grew up thinking that we lived in a post-war society, that wars like WWI and WWII and Vietnam were things of the past and and only stuff that happened in far off places and in history books. 9/11 shattered that when terror hit America -- in America -- hard. Whats going on in Russia/Ukraine today, in Israel/Gaza, in Syria/IRAQ, shatters the notion of a post-war society happening anytime soon as well. I hope future generations will actually live in a post-war society but today were still duking it out in defense of freedom, against rogue nations, against terror. Never forget. #TBT911 -- and hug someone today, and every day, and remember that were all just lucky to be here.
Posted on: Thu, 11 Sep 2014 12:44:24 +0000
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