America's North Shore Journal

I still get angry. I still want revenge. I still wish I could have been one of those running towards the burning towers. I mourn them all, heroes, cowards and just plain folks. Some went down fighting. Some died without ever knowing they had been murdered. It’s nearly impossible to write about September 11. The words are buried by all the emotions. In some ways, late in my life, the events of 9/11 have become the defining events of my life. It is my Pearl Harbor. Before that day, I knew that we had enemies in Islam. I knew about all the attacks and terror and death that Islam had brought in the preceding generation. I knew it like you know a fairy tale. By heart, but it’s just not real. Then the towers fell, … Read entire article »

In August 2006 I wrote: An anniversary is approaching and my PTSD is twitching. I get it every year around September 11. Problems sleeping. Heightened anxiety. Wanting to have the scanner on all the time yet not being able to bear the reports I hear. The arrests in England last week started the process. It brought back a lot of the feelings I had that first September 11. It ain’t gonna get any better. I remember standing there in my airmask, watching the flames blow straight out from Ernie’s trailer for thirty feet or more. We knew right away that someone was inside. When they finally cut through the outside wall into the bedroom and we knew that Ernie and his grandson were dead… I think about taking Midnight and Smokey and Shadow to the … Read entire article »

In August 2003 I wrote: September 11, 2001 dawned for me like many had that summer, sunny and warm. I was out of work for nearly a year, working a 4 hour per day temp job at the time. About 9 or so my boss came in and asked if I had a news station on my radio in the bookkeeping office. His daughter had called and said that a plane had hit a skyscraper in Manhattan. I turned the radio to WHAM, the local 50,000 watt Clear Channel talk station and sat in horror for the next three hours. I suppose I did something that morning, but I have no recollection. I called my wife at work and told her, and told her that I would be going straight to … Read entire article »