DoubleTap45
10th September 2010, 21:40
I was in a lab on the 11th floor of our tallest building which faces where the Towers WERE. I missed the first impact but the second almost caused me to drop a mouse into the bleach solution we keep handy for our forceps. No, he didn't go swimming. I went downstairs to the main floor (we're part of a teaching hospital/college complex) and got shanghaied along with any other lab rat caught out of his cage with scrubs and a white coat on.
We pulled and set up about 300 gurneys before some guy from upstairs told us to just go back to work. We were all confused thinking there'd be a huge overflow of casualties from the city hospitals. That's when they told us there wouldn't BE any bodies. After work I drove down Third Ave. to 161st to the drug clinic where my mother worked. Most of her patients had gotten their meth and ran down to help at Ground Zero. JUNKIES! The lowest form of human being you can think of and they were pawing through hot rubble to try and find survivors.
On the way to the clinic I could see that huge angry black cloud. I dialed my cousin's cell and he told me he'd left Merrill Lynch early. He's their I.T. wizard and FELT the impact from his office. My other cousin downtown was the Lt. at Engine 54/4 Truck in midtown near the theater district. He was going OFF duty with his whole company when the call came in. He was ordered by Borough Command to stay put and coordinate because he knew the computer routing system better than anyone else they could find.
The trucks roared off with all his guys PLUS the relief who had just arrived. They all disappeared into that insatiable maw in the ground. After I found Mom I drove her back uptown and left her with my father who was already lighting candles in the yard. I ran to a local bank for some weekend cash in case the seismic force messed up the bank routing systems. While in the parking lot I suddenly became aware of a funereal silence. Except for a few gulls and pigeons NOTHING flew. The only things IN the air had twin rudders and Navy markings. A carrier strike force in the Atlantic had all but burned out their boilers getting close enough to launch F-18s to fly CAP over the City. Anything airborne that didn't have feathers would have a lot of company very soon.
I remember wanting to dust off the W-80's an feed a few to somebody. ANYBODY. :mad: On TV a young Marine, just discharged, was begging to re-up and go overseas. He said through tears, "They came into MY house and killed MY people! I hope they DO send me over there!". I remember down at the pit scant days later when a grizzled old firefighter handed his bullhorn to Dubya. THAT was when Bush found his voice. Obama is a fraud. Nobody likes or wants him but the hard Left and the Unions. Bush was the safest one in the pit because he was surrounded by 1,000 guys who'd have taken a bullet for that man right then.
I think my best memory of that day was down at the hole. Some kid from Lawn Guyland had just started probation with his volunteer fire dept. He didn't wait for orders or stand around with his thumb up his behind either.
He threw his gear into a battered old pickup and drove toward the crowd. Driving in when anyone with a brain was running OUT! He got his leg broke trying to free some poor slob from under a huge chunk of debris. As they doped him and the ambulance was approaching a reporter asked if they could notify his parents. This kid (later I.D.'d as an only child) told him "Mom and Dad KNOW where I am. I'm with my brothers."
As two very big burly firefighters, trying to keep a dry eye, gently carried this kid to the ambulance I realized something that stayed with me. They may cow and break Washington. They make fools of feckless elites like Nanny Bloomberg, but they will NEVER break Americans like him! :appld:
Ray
We pulled and set up about 300 gurneys before some guy from upstairs told us to just go back to work. We were all confused thinking there'd be a huge overflow of casualties from the city hospitals. That's when they told us there wouldn't BE any bodies. After work I drove down Third Ave. to 161st to the drug clinic where my mother worked. Most of her patients had gotten their meth and ran down to help at Ground Zero. JUNKIES! The lowest form of human being you can think of and they were pawing through hot rubble to try and find survivors.
On the way to the clinic I could see that huge angry black cloud. I dialed my cousin's cell and he told me he'd left Merrill Lynch early. He's their I.T. wizard and FELT the impact from his office. My other cousin downtown was the Lt. at Engine 54/4 Truck in midtown near the theater district. He was going OFF duty with his whole company when the call came in. He was ordered by Borough Command to stay put and coordinate because he knew the computer routing system better than anyone else they could find.
The trucks roared off with all his guys PLUS the relief who had just arrived. They all disappeared into that insatiable maw in the ground. After I found Mom I drove her back uptown and left her with my father who was already lighting candles in the yard. I ran to a local bank for some weekend cash in case the seismic force messed up the bank routing systems. While in the parking lot I suddenly became aware of a funereal silence. Except for a few gulls and pigeons NOTHING flew. The only things IN the air had twin rudders and Navy markings. A carrier strike force in the Atlantic had all but burned out their boilers getting close enough to launch F-18s to fly CAP over the City. Anything airborne that didn't have feathers would have a lot of company very soon.
I remember wanting to dust off the W-80's an feed a few to somebody. ANYBODY. :mad: On TV a young Marine, just discharged, was begging to re-up and go overseas. He said through tears, "They came into MY house and killed MY people! I hope they DO send me over there!". I remember down at the pit scant days later when a grizzled old firefighter handed his bullhorn to Dubya. THAT was when Bush found his voice. Obama is a fraud. Nobody likes or wants him but the hard Left and the Unions. Bush was the safest one in the pit because he was surrounded by 1,000 guys who'd have taken a bullet for that man right then.
I think my best memory of that day was down at the hole. Some kid from Lawn Guyland had just started probation with his volunteer fire dept. He didn't wait for orders or stand around with his thumb up his behind either.
He threw his gear into a battered old pickup and drove toward the crowd. Driving in when anyone with a brain was running OUT! He got his leg broke trying to free some poor slob from under a huge chunk of debris. As they doped him and the ambulance was approaching a reporter asked if they could notify his parents. This kid (later I.D.'d as an only child) told him "Mom and Dad KNOW where I am. I'm with my brothers."
As two very big burly firefighters, trying to keep a dry eye, gently carried this kid to the ambulance I realized something that stayed with me. They may cow and break Washington. They make fools of feckless elites like Nanny Bloomberg, but they will NEVER break Americans like him! :appld:
Ray