Quicksand Fans

As a survivor from the 101st floor, south tower - walked all the way down - I feel time to start the memorial thread again. I specifically remember 19 good friends and colleagues at Aon Consulting, and overall Aon lost 176 people. Once again the year spins around to a mounful time. My 11th is a period of memory in the morning from 8:45 to 10:29 am - get through the day - evening, 2 good stiff drinks with my wife and then we watch, she suffers, THE GREAT RACE.

The First Team is still on watch

Hard Corps -The Warrior Song

Hard to believe it's been 13 years. I keep meaning to take a trip up to NYC one weekend and see the memorial and the museum.

Thirteen years indeed... NEVER FORGET... NEVER FORGIVE!!!

Must be some kind of flaw or weakness in me- even though I was nowhere near NYC that day, if I think too much about it (especially today) I get flashbacks. Part of me is still there- I see the people I was with, hear their voices, see their faces. The worst moments were when we remembered we had coworkers working in the towers (three of them didn't make it out) and when the second plane hit. That was when we realized it wasn't a tragic accident, but an act of unspeakable evil. I still remember one coworker. She hung up the phone, and she was white and shaking. A friend of hers got a call from her husband- he was in NY, and managed somehow to get a call through to tell her he was alive. She asked him what was happening, and in a distant, emotionless voice he told her "It's raining bodies." I think that's what really got to me. Burn alive, or jump from the 100th floor. In a way, the towers collapsing was a blessing for a lot of those trapped above the impacts.

I haven't made it down to Ground Zero yet. I did visit the 9/11 display at the New York State Museum in Albany. I couldn't stay long. Call it imagination or mental illness, but you can just smell/feel/sense/whatever all the terror of that day in every artifact. The crushed fire truck was the hardest- I had to stop and pay my respects, but as a former firefighter it hit me like a sledgehammer in the guts.

Okay, I need to get away from this thread now before I get sucked back into the past again.

It would be remiss to not mention this guy

Rick Rescorla