Never Forget

Nine years after 9/11 where are we at? The World Trade Center hasn't been rebuilt, the country is balkanized and bankrupt. We have a President that has more regard for Islam then the United States. We have had a dozen subsequent small scale attacks and our major defense has been dumb luck. We have subcontracted our Space Program to the Chinese, along with our debt and manufacturing capability. Our southern border is a super highway and illegal aliens have a better chance of being hit by lightning than being deported. I think 9/11 was a turning point in the decline of the Western Culture and the rise of Islam.

I never liked the Twin Towers. One summer I worked doing dry-wall in the new General Motors building on 59th Street. I thought that 50 story building was tall enough. The next summer I worked a few weeks at the Twin Towers site. It always seemed like a "Tower of Babel" to me. It took the better part of an hour to get up to your work floor. At 3:30 the shift was over and it would be after 4 before I could get down to the ground taking four stairs at a time (I was nineteen). It reminded me of Oral Roberts' ridiculous high rise hospital that was a logistical nightmare. The higher you go the more floor space is used up by elevators, stairs and conduits. The highest I got in the towers was the 86th floor, that was high enough for me.

Another thing different about the building was that plaster, cement, and wire lathe weren't used on the stairwells and elevator banks. It was the first time sheet-rock was used in a NYC commercial building to enclose these areas. Our company also did wire lathe and sprayed fire proofing.
I got to visit a site of a fire in one of the company's former jobs. The amazing thing was that even this small fire caused the steel beams to buckle and twist. Anyone that doesn't think steel melts never ignored their car's engine temp gauge or fired a machine gun.

After the M.G.M. Grand fire anytime I hear their an alarm that announces, "An emergency exists in this building, Stay where you are and wait for further instructions" I get up and leave. I don't care if the waiter just put a steak in front of me.

I was in the 7th grade waiting to get into home-room when I heard that JFK was shot. I was working in Petersburg W.V. when the World Trade Center was attacked. The difference was that on 9/11 I realized the country would never be the same.