What I remember - 9-11!

This is my 9-11 post from 2015!  I am repeating it again - as it is my only statement on this tragic day!  This is what we must remember. To remember only the sanitized patriotic images that float around the internet does a disservice to those who suffered and died!

This is what I remember!

9-11

Every anniversary of this terrible day the TV, the blog-sphere and social media is flooded with 9-11 remembrances.

I support remembrances.  We must remember.

What I don't support are the images that emotionalize, sanitize or minimize the truth of that attack.  Beautiful waving national flags, a tearful statute of liberty with the smoky towers behind her, the struggles of the heroes to save lives ... those images do not show the terror, the desperation and the horror experienced by the innocent lives trapped in those burning buildings.  To remember that day with vanilla patriotic images fades the stark truth.  It separates us carefully and gently from the actual ugly event.

I don't think we should do that.

This is the image

 we should hold in our minds.

Remember

 this man!

Remember

 that some people jumped to certain death

 rather than stay in the inferno of those buildings.

Remember

 that as our innocent citizens fell from the building

  they knew with certainty that these were their last seconds of life on earth ...
approximately 10 seconds ...

Remember

 that those on the ground below

 will never forget the terrible thudding sounds of bodies hitting pavement

one after another - over and over - about 200 times.

If this post makes you upset, uncomfortable, angry, or sad, then I have achieved my goal.

We must never forget the real images.

This is how we do honor to those who died in that attack.

Remember.

Post Script:

• My last blog post on 9-11 was September 2012. The title was Jumpers.
• From the reading I have done - it appears that the New York chief medical examiner's office does not consider these people "jumpers."  Jumping indicates a choice and would imply suicide.  These people did not have a choice probably because of the force of the explosion, the fire behind them and the lack of breathable air.  Because of these conditions the deaths were ruled homicide.  It is a small but merciful distinction.   They most certainly were murdered.