9/11 - We Will Never Forget

Every generation has at least one momentous occasion when the world stopped, attention was snapped and what you were doing at that moment will stay with you forever.  In the 60's, it was the assassinations of JFK and MLK.  In 2001, it was 9/11.  You would be hard pressed to find anyone that cannot recall what they were doing when that second plane hit the second tower and we realized that it was not a horrible accident but we were under attack and planes full of people were the weapons of destruction.

Swapping stories of where we were that day becomes compulsory sometimes - as if by talking about it, repeating it, we can release some of the horror of that morning.  I was just dropping my son off at preschool when the first plane struck.  My thought at the time was simply - Oh no, someone really messed up.  When I got back in the car, a radio announcer who had a direct view of the World Trade Center was excitedly describing the scene.
Then he screamed and my blood curdled - he just kept screaming - "There is another plane, another plane, oh my God, another plane just hit the second tower!"
I knew at that moment that this was not an accident.  I worked at the hospital across the street from my son's school so within minutes, I was in my office and everyone was trying to figure out what was going on.  Well, you all know the rest of the story.  It was the longest morning of my life - I cannot begin to comprehend what all of those who were directly impacted went through or have gone through since then.  All I can do is say that my prayers and tears were for all of you.

How does a nation, a world heal from that kind of disaster?
We remember.



We remember what happened to our People and our Country that day.  We remember the horror and then the grief.  We remember those that died that day.  We remember their families who have had to deal with the loss every day since 9/11/2001.

Last year, I found Project 2996!  The goal of the 2996 project is to find that many bloggers that will post a tribute on 9/11 for one or more of the victims.  They have been doing this since 1996.  This is a way to remember and to remember that they were people and not simply statistics.
So, please visit the site and join the project - and Remember.
This page will remain always as well as there will be a post on 9/11.


Tribute for Nina Patrice Bell - World Trade Center 

Nina Patrice Bell - daughter of an Air Force fighter pilot

World Trade Center
Nina Bell was every inch a fighter pilot's daughter — slender, athletic and looking even taller than her 5 feet, 8 inches. Born in the Netherlands, the first stop in a nomadic Air Force childhood, she grew up confident, smart, "the It girl," as a friend once put it. A bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Colorado at Boulder led her to become a manager of information systems and, most recently, into project management.
But to her friends and family, there was also the side that was not all business. Ms. Bell's notebook had a bumper sticker that read, "Mean People Suck." With her brother, Lowell Bell, 40, she kept up a private banter, sometimes based on the dim Canadian duo, the Mackenzie brothers, from the 1970's television show, "Second City TV." "Hey, hoser," she would call him.
This September, Ms. Bell, 39, had settled in Manhattan, in a new apartment on the Upper East Side and in a new job as a project manager with Marsh & McLennan. In an e-mail message to her friend Lorraine Davis on Monday, Sept. 10, at 2 p.m., Ms. Bell wrote, "I am so very happy."
Profile published in THE NEW YORK TIMES on December 22, 2001.
Tribute for Tawanna Griffin - World Trade Center

Tawanna Griffin - Family Meant Everything

World Trade Center
Tawanna and Bobby Griffin met in the kitchen of a Wendy's restaurant in East New York, Brooklyn, where they had after-school jobs in high school. Romance blossomed over the deep fryers, and their life together began soon after.
Theirs was a tight bond, said Mr. Griffin's sister Juanita Inniss, who saw it in the little things the Griffins did together, like the daily ritual of Mrs. Griffin's predawn trip to work. She had to be at Cantor Fitzgerald, where she worked as a cashier in the company cafeteria, by 6 a.m., so at 5 a.m., without fail, Mr. Griffin, a plainclothes security guard who worked evenings, got up and drove his wife the eight blocks to her subway stop.
When she got home, Mrs. Griffin, who was 30, doted on their 5-year-old son, Bobby Jr., and when the weekend came, home was the only place she really wanted to be.
Profile published in THE NEW YORK TIMES on October 12, 2001.
Tribute to Mildred Naiman - Flight #11

Mildred Naiman - Thumbed her nose at age

American Flight 11
At 81, Mildred Naiman kept the pedal to the metal. "She had a little bit of a lead foot," said her daughter-in-law Carol Naiman. "She had been stopped for speeding and was totally insulted the officer would give an old woman a ticket."
Despite the number of birthdays that had passed, she lived her life at full tilt. She called her apartment in an Andover, Mass., community for the elderly her bachelorette pad, and she kept her friends there busy, organizing shopping excursions, dinners out and weekend trips. She headed to California twice a year to visit her sons, usually taking American Airlines Flight 11, as she did on Sept. 11. "You'd sort of have to see her between her little excursions," Carol Naiman said.
All this despite two knee replacements, cataracts and a variety of other health problems. "If something was wrong with her," said her son Russ Naiman, "she'd go to the doctor and say, "Fix me up; I've got a lot of traveling to do.' "
Profile published in THE NEW YORK TIMES on January 6, 2002.
Mildred Naiman, 81, of Andover, Mass., felt bad about flying American Airlines Flight 11 to California on Tuesday to see two of her sons and their families. She didn't want to miss her son Richard's 58th birthday that same day.
But Richard told her: "Mom, it's OK. You can call me from California," recalled Hope Naiman, 28, Mildred Naiman's granddaughter.
Despite knee replacement surgeries that forced her to be pushed through Boston's Logan Airport in a wheelchair, the feisty grandmother refused to stop her regular trips to see her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
During a family gathering on Sunday, a relative had asked Naiman if she was nervous about flying. "No, I've gone everywhere already--to Germany, the Bahamas," her granddaughter recalled her saying. "I'm not afraid to fly."
Profile courtesy of THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE.
Tribute to Karen Kincaid - Flight #77

Karen A. Kincaid

American Flight 77
Karen A. Kincaid, a 40-year-old partner in a Washington, D.C., law firm, was traveling to a conference in Los Angeles.
Profile courtesy of THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE.
Karen Kincaid, 40, from Washington D.C. A native of Iowa, she was a lawyer with the Washington firm of Wiley Rein & Fielding, specializing in communications legislation. She was on her way to Los Angeles to attend a conference on the wireless communications industry. With her husband of five years, Peter Batacan, also a lawyer working for another firm, Kincaid was training to take part in the upcoming Marine Corps Marathon scheduled for October 28.
Go to Project 2996 and Put a Tribute up on your blog.  Remember.