My annual September 11th message - now 20 years on.

[duke74]

This year I am linking to a LinkedIn article I wrote.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/refle...-chain-mba-cpa

On mobile device so couldn’t create the hyperlink. Sorry.

[MartyClark]

This year I am linking to a LinkedIn article I wrote.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/refle...-chain-mba-cpa

On mobile device so couldn’t create the hyperlink. Sorry.

Thanks for posting and linking your article. It was a terrible day for the country and even more terrible for those families who lost loved ones. The pain continues with many of the first responders reporting serious physical problems including early Altzheimer Disease.

I'm still trying to figure out what our proper response should have been to this. Without venturing too far into public policy issues (I hope), the neo conservatives view that democracy was waiting to blossom in Afghanistan and Iraq seemed far fetched at the time.

Twenty years later, we leave Afghanistan. That's a long commitment for the U.S. I'm not sure what it accomplished in the long run. Maybe we bought some short term stability. Maybe the "draining the swamp" theory worked, I'm not at all sure.

Anyhow, God bless those families who lost loved ones in 9/11 or the subsequent battles in Iraq and Afghanistan.

[OldPhiKap]

This year I am linking to a LinkedIn article I wrote.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/refle...-chain-mba-cpa

On mobile device so couldn’t create the hyperlink. Sorry.

Excellent.

[CameronDuke]

This year I am linking to a LinkedIn article I wrote.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/refle...-chain-mba-cpa

On mobile device so couldn’t create the hyperlink. Sorry.

Thank you for sharing. America’s darkest day (in my lifetime).

It is hard to believe it has been 20 years …

[weezie]

Thank you, duke74.

Anyone who has been watching Spike Lee's HBO series on 9-11 has got to be impressed with the depth of research.
This weekend will be a quiet time of remembrance and soul searching.

[duke74]

Bumping on this solemn day.

See my link below.

In short, I was in London for meetings and then presentations in Zurich. Couldn’t get back home until the Saturday, and then only was able to get a flight into Pittsburgh.

My office had been in the 100th floor of 1 WTC (now called the “north tower”) until the 1993 bombing, after which we moved across West Street to the World Financial Center. If we hadn’t, and if I hadn’t been in London, I would not be writing this now.

Son was in his senior year at Duke. He decided right then and there to come home for law school the following year.

I went back to school shortly thereafter for a masters in international relations-having realized that there were threats and risks out there that I could not have imagined. And needed intellectually to learn about.

My wife became very active as a civilian volunteer with the NYPD, running city-wide organizations to foster police-community relations.

My world changed significantly, as did my family’s-not even taking into account those we know who lost their lives or lost their loved ones. And the suffering continues as the effects of being at ground zero still impact the health of the first responders and recovery teams.

Never forget…never forgive.

[fidel]

I was also overseas - Zurich as well - and will never forget the way everything came to a halt when people started hearing about what happened. Scary and sad.

I will also never forget the way virtually everyone I came in contact with for the next weeks came up to me extending condolences and concerns. All nationalities, races, religions.

My thoughts always go to those who lost their lives that day and the ensuing conflicts. And I hope we never forget the volunteers who exposed themselves to all sorts of ugly contamination.

[budwom]

As a kid, my father and I would walk past the construction site as the Towers were being built...an amazing sight to see, the foundation was a new type, like a giant tub, to keep out the surrounding water. Who could imagine what was to happen 30 years later?

[CrazyNotCrazie]

I grew up in suburban NJ. My dad worked in NJ but was on a high floor of one of the towers at a meeting with Cantor Fitzgerald when the bombing happened in 1993 - he had to walk down about 100 flights of stairs. I have lived in or near NYC most of my life but was away at grad school in 2001. In late August, 2001, before I returned to school I spent a week with my aunt who lived a few blocks from the WTC (in Battery Park City). During that week friends from Atlanta and San Francisco visited and we went to the top of the WTC. Fortunately, my aunt was out of the country on 9/11, and no one I knew personally died. I moved to NY in 2002 and have lived here ever since.

Echoing duke74's poignant reflections, yesterday I drove back from a visit with family in Pittsburgh with my family. We drove past Shanksville, where the brave passengers crashed the plane into an empty field, saving countless lives. We drive by several times a year but I have not stopped to visit the site - I would like to do so when my kids are a little older. As we approached New York, we came over a hill and had a beautiful view of the skyline on a day that was eerily similar to 9/11/01. There has been a lot of new construction in Manhattan in the last 20 years, most of it unattractive, but I still notice the absence of the Twin Towers, even with the Freedom Tower now in the same location.

Today we went to a waterfront park in Brooklyn with a beautiful view of Manhattan. Again, the weather was similar to 9/11 but a bit warmer and cloudier. The tall building in this picture is the new Freedom Tower. This morning it felt like there was a solemn quiet around the city, but the normal energy of the city seemed to return in the afternoon.

Freedom Tower.jpg

As I was typing this while watching the Yankees/Mets game, they just played the incredible Budweiser 9/11 commercial with the Clydesdales that has only run a few times. It is incredibly moving.

[Ultrarunner]

This year I am linking to a LinkedIn article I wrote.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/refle...-chain-mba-cpa

On mobile device so couldn’t create the hyperlink. Sorry.

Thank you very much for writing such a wonderful piece from such a poignant perspective.

[duke74]

As I was typing this while watching the Yankees/Mets game, they just played the incredible Budweiser 9/11 commercial with the Clydesdales that has only run a few times. It is incredibly moving.

CNC, I believe that the ad was only run once. Tears well up every time I see it.

Here it is. https://youtu.be/LyP0JsyvYnA

[CrazyNotCrazie]

CNC, I believe that the ad was only run once. Tears well up every time I see it.

Here it is. https://youtu.be/LyP0JsyvYnA

Thanks for posting the link. It looks like it ran in 2002 during the Super Bowl then again in 2011 (10th anniversary) before today.

https://nypost.com/2021/09/11/budwei...rsary-of-9-11/

[Jeffrey]

This year I am linking to a LinkedIn article I wrote.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/refle...-chain-mba-cpa

On mobile device so couldn’t create the hyperlink. Sorry.

Always one of my all-time favorite DBR threads. Thank you, very much, for always posting a great tribute Herb!

[duke74]

Always one of my all-time favorite DBR threads. Thank you, very much, for always posting a great tribute Herb!

Thanks for the kind words, Jeffrey. It feels like more of an obligation to post each year - and a necessity as we get further and further away from 2001.