If memory serves me correctly, the trains coming into Atocha from Guadalajara, the autonomous region northeast of Madrid were also attacked by Islamic Terrorists – approx. 2004 however, I would have to check the dates.
A Paratrooper friend of our´s in the Military (Nato) was on one of the 3 trains helping those passengers get off before entering the exploded station.
So, The Usa, The U.K. and Spain´s history should be studied as part of World History in Secondary or High School.
I believe children who are very young would become terribly frightened with these massive horrors and could not handle these horrendous disasters.
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Harters
(John Hartley - a culinary patriot eating & cooking in Northwest England)
124
Aussi en France. Je suis Charlie.
Where does it end? Let’s also remember the 1995 bombing in Oklahoma City. The 60 people (including 30 Britons) murdered in Tunisia in two terror attacks in 2015. The 202 people (including 23 Britons) murdered in the Bali bombing in 2002. The 77 people (many of them children) murdered in Norway by a right wing extremist in 2011.
What an awful world we live in. They would have us forget our democracies, our laws and our tolerances. They cannot succeed.
We left the city for the weekend as I have no interest in all the commemoration going on. I was there. I remember the feeling of the impact when the first plane hit. I was working in the trade center when the car bombing happened so my first thought was another bomb had gone off. When I see people holding signs that say never forget, I say to myself they have no idea. There are things I saw that I so want to forget but I can’t.
Well, there’s inconvenience at the airport, and then there’s having to smell a burning wreck for weeks and see thousands of missing persons fliers every time you go outside. These things tend to stay with you.
Yes, so many terror attacks - important not to forget the ones in Europe (as mentioned,) Africa, and elsewhere. There was a bad one in Bali. The attack in Brussels seriously injured the president’s son of a company I worked for, so brought it closer to home. He did however, survive, and recover, but with some physical limitations.
Although I live across the country from NYC, this day is a somber one - I am remembering those whose lives were taken, and those who gave their lives in service to others, as well as all left behind to cope with their losses.
Thought I should provide an update on our good friend who was hospitalized while waiting for surgery. The procedures went very well to bypass an artery, which is called in lay terms, the widow maker, as well as the repair of an aortic aneurysm. He’s recovering amazingly well, and it’s such a relief! The docs credit his enviable fitness as key to his enduring surgery, and bouncing back so quickly, relatively speaking. So…breathing big sighs of relief - he’s such a good guy, and married to my bestie in town.
I make myself watch some of the name ceremony every year, because I need the emotional outlet and a safe space to weep.
I took my nephews to the 9/11 Memorial a few years ago to try to help them understand. I’ll do it again when they are older.
My parents were here the year the museum opened, so I took them. But I had to go away and sit by myself for a while because it was emotionally overwhelming.
I have decided I cannot go to the 9/11 Memorial with visitors - the tourism of people there is triggering. Not just there either. But anyway.
Some years the day will pass. Tonight I looked at the twin beams all evening because I was facing south at dinner.
My brother lived at 301 E22nd for a decade (I wanna say 1997-2007). He’d already left for his job in Midtown that beautiful, terrible morning and my parents and I in RI couldn’t reach him for the entire day. He and I visited London as soon as commercial flights were cleared, I suppose to reinforce our gratitude to be Americans…my parents didn’t sacrifice for us to live in fear.
The pandemic is of course horrible, but in a different way that I can’t quite express correctly.
Tell your brother Hi Neighbor! That was my building. I lived in Apt. 9C from 1995 - 2004. I was between jobs and sleeping in, and a friend called to tell me about the first plane. I spent the day running up and down the stairs, checking CNN in my apartment and then returning to the roof.
The pandemic is something I think I can - at least partly - protect myself from. And it didn’t suddenly make me aware of the level of animosity some people feel toward Americans. So those are some differences, according to me.
I am so sorry to hear this terrible news about your cousin-in-law. How tragic. Sorry too for your trauma on the anniversary of 9-11- I can’t imagine being a resident of NYC during the time it happened. I will say I’ve always admired the way the denizens of NYC handled things. Many lessons to be learned in a lot of different ways, for something so awful.
The last terrorist attack we had was in 2019. Easter bombing carried out by the ISIS killed 269 people majority while praying in the Church. The funniest thing is the terrorists’ reason was the Christchurch shooting that happened thousands of miles away. Crazy uneducated idiots.
For me people visiting a place like that for true condemnation of the crime and for mourning/paying respect is acceptable. But posing for selfies with “V” and all other “selfie styles” is unacceptable.
Perhaps it depends on how we choose to interpret it? I am of the belief many of the victims would prefer people not come just to cry or to be filled with anger or regret. Those taking selfies do so beneath the veil of freedom and in fellowship among the other visitors who were drawn there. But I agree one should always remain respectful of the event, loss of life; and to lasting experience felt by the family, friends, nation, and world.
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Harters
(John Hartley - a culinary patriot eating & cooking in Northwest England)
139
The city at the centre of our metro area, Manchester, has been hit by bombs on three occasions. Twice by Irish terrorists - first time it blew out some windows in my office building. Second time I was almost in the city centre when it went off. Mercifully, no-one was killed in either explosion.
Then we come to the 2017 suicide bomb at the end of an Ariana Grande concert which killed 23 and injured over 1000. And, in an example that this sickness is not confined to one community, it was only this week that there was an arson attack on the mosque where the bomber worshipped. Luckily there was very minimal damage because of prompt action by a couple of passers-by.
There have been so many atrocities that I had forgotten the Sri Lanka bombing. It struck home at the time as our late Sri Lankan friend was also a practicing Christian. My regrets, LMS.
The link of that crime to the murders in NZ, remind me that our security services have recently warned that the risk in the UK from right wing extremists is now greater (or as great) as that from jihadists.
3 days ago my sister was admitted to the hospital with a stomach/lower back pain. Guessed it could be a kidney stone, and turned out it was only an infection. Since I took her in the ambulance in the dead of the night I borrowed a friend’s bike to come back home in the morning. Things looking good now. I hate to step in to a hospital during this pandemic.
Thanks Harters. In the current world one cannot keep count of terrorist attacks, there are so many, and in many forms. I thought people would understand as the world develops, but it’s the other way round it seems.
That is unbelievable - he and his roommate were in 10E. Funniest story I have from my parents and I visiting him on one occasion… there was obviously a neighbor who liked to partake in weed-smoking at all hours. My parents and I came for one last visit one Sunday morning on our way home and in the hallway, my dad said (in the best Asian immigrant voice you can imagine) “there is some stinky newspaper out here” (because, like me, weed to dad apparently also smells like stinky newsprint). My brother just said “yeah. I’ll talk to the neighbor about that,” while he and I tried not to lose it laughing.
