{"id":420,"date":"2010-09-11T04:00:43","date_gmt":"2010-09-11T08:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joeclarksblog.wordpress.com\/?p=420"},"modified":"2010-09-11T04:00:43","modified_gmt":"2010-09-11T08:00:43","slug":"911","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/?p=420","title":{"rendered":"9\/11"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I was younger, I listened as older people uttered the phrase, \u201cI will never forget where I was on December 7th<\/sup>.\u201d \u00a0Whenever you heard someone say that, there was no question about which December 7th<\/sup> to which they referred.\u00a0 Everyone knew it was 1941; it was about Pearl Harbor Day.\u00a0 At the time, I could not relate to how they were so sure of where they were and what they were doing at the moment they received word of the Japanese attack.<\/p>\n

And then September 11, 2001 happened.<\/p>\n

I was in the shower and Ardis was about to leave for work when I heard her trying to say something through the bathroom door.\u00a0 \u201cI am almost done; I\u2019ll be out in a minute.\u201d \u00a0I heard the door open.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn airplane just hit one of the Twin Towers in New York City,\u201d I remember her saying.\u00a0 My next thought was, What idiot just clipped a Tower with his Cessna or Piper?<\/em>\u00a0 I finished up and grabbed a towel wrapping it around myself on the way into the living room.<\/p>\n

As I stood there dripping water all over, I looked at the television and went numb.\u00a0 I could not believe what I was seeing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is no accident,\u201d I said, looking at the screen.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course it is,\u201d Ardis replied.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo.\u00a0 It is not.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do you know?\u201d Ardis asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook at the size of that hole.\u00a0 That was a really large airplane.\u201d \u00a0Ardis looked at me and then back to the television.\u00a0 Then I added, \u201cLook at the weather.\u00a0 It\u2019s a beautiful day – the visibility is better than 25 miles.\u00a0 You can see it right there on TV.\u00a0 No pilot in his right mind would allow his airplane to strike a building like that.\u00a0 This was deliberate.\u201d<\/p>\n

She started to protest, insisting it was an accident.\u00a0 She accused me of slipping into the mode of my military mind and seeing things which might not be.\u00a0 About this time, Katie Couric began accusing air traffic controllers of vectoring airplanes into the buildings.<\/p>\n

I was shaking my head saying no and started to explain what I knew about the situation just from what I could see on television.\u00a0 Right then, the second airplane flew into the field of view striking the other tower.<\/p>\n

In the flash of an instant, more airline passengers lost their lives.\u00a0 My thoughts flew half way around the world to the Indian Ocean into discussions and briefings we had aboard the ship.<\/p>\n

When terrorists hit the Twin Towers in 1993, I thought that would be the end of it when they captured the bad guys.\u00a0 I should\u2019ve known.\u00a0 On October 12, 2000 when al-Qaeda struck the USS Cole in port at Aden, Yemen killing 17 U.S. sailors, I should have known<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I now know why I will always remember the moment of the attack on the Twin Towers.\u00a0 Most who learned of the attack on Pearl Harbor heard it over the radio well after the fact.\u00a0 Many of us today watched the attack live on television in detailed color.\u00a0 We will always remember those images.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

To the 17 sailors and the more than 2700 civilians, rest easy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fair winds and following seas.<\/em><\/p>\n

-30-<\/p>\n

\u00a9 2010 J. Clark<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was younger, I listened as older people uttered the phrase, \u201cI will never forget where I was on December 7th.\u201d \u00a0Whenever you heard someone say that, there was no question about which December 7th to which they referred.\u00a0 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,9],"tags":[108,257,266,342,1122,1350,2085,2234,2387,2541,2746,2747,3191,3726,3851,4071,4130],"class_list":["post-420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-in-general","category-personal","tag-108","tag-accusing-air-traffic-controllers","tag-aden-yemen","tag-al-qaeda","tag-december-7-1941","tag-fair-winds-and-following-seas","tag-killing-17-u-s-sailors","tag-looking-at-the-television","tag-military-intelligence","tag-new-york-city","tag-pearl-harbor","tag-pearl-harbor-day","tag-september-11-2001","tag-the-japanese-attack-on-pearl-harbor","tag-the-second-airplane","tag-twin-towers","tag-uss-cole"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}