Never Forget! Never Again! - We will Always Remember!

Never forget! Never Again! Powerful words I grew up with. In school we were taught about the Holocaust. Our teachers and parents drove those words home each and every time we discussed the Holocaust, we as a Jewish nation and people in general will never forget what happened during the holocaust and we all vowed to never let that happen again to a people, to a nation, no matter what religion or skin color, never again, we will never forget.

Fast forward to September 11, 2001, it was an ordinary day, I was at my desk overlooking the bull down on Broadway, going about my business, just starting the day really, I just finished my normal breakfast with my friend T in her office and went back to my desk to begin the work day. A normal day, that well, didn’t turn out so normal, a day I will never forget a day I will always remember!

We didn’t see it as much as we felt and heard it, a rumbling sound, the type your stomach makes when you are famished, a growling rumbling type of sound, with the building shaking, not just a tremor. Then our TVs in the bull pen, I sat in, started to report a small plane had hit the World Trade Center, soon pictures started to appear on those same TVs and I thought to myself, that’s a pretty big hole to be a small plane, something didn’t feel right and just then a larger plan flew right into the tower. I can’t remember if I saw it happen on the tv or if it was just the repetitive picture they showed over and over again, but I remember our building shake much more this time, I remember the growling and rumbling was much louder. I remember the silence immediately after, it was like the birds stopped chirping, the busses and cars stopped moving, the trains stopped rumbling underneath us, the world seemed to stand still, the earth seemed to stop rotating around the sun.

The silence in our office was spooky, no phones going off in the background, no one clacking on their keyboards, no orders coming in, not one person said a word, we were in shock, in disbelief. ?We all realized at once the world as we knew it would change, that we were under attack. We didn’t understand then that terrorists took control of a plane and made it into a weapon and we didn't understand that it wouldn't be two but four planes. We didn’t understand than the depravity of what?occurred that frightful morning, 20 years ago tomorrow, but we will never forget.

That silence was deafening - ?what does that even mean?

I could hear my heart beat, I could hear the breath of my coworkers, the shuffle of feet on the floors, the creaks in that old Standard Oil building we called home for 8 hours plus a day.

T never one to be at a lost for words, was speechless, Nick our boss, was Standing next to us in the Bull pen staring at TV screen along with us, not even yelling at us to stop F$&ing around and get back to work.

I am not sure how long we all stood there watching the TV, trying not to cry, trying to understand what was happening, then all of a sudden the first tower fell, we saw it on TV, before we felt it, we heard it, before we saw day turn into night. When you looked out our windows you can see that something in the universe had changed, that the world was crying, for daytime became night time in an instant, slowly night turned back into day and you could see paper flying by our windows, dust on the ground and dust flurries (like snow flurries) falling from the sky.

There was a feeling of dread amongst all of us knowing what just happened, that a building full of people, some whom we knew just collapsed.

I remember trying to call my parents to let them know I was ok, but the lines were down, they were overloaded with love ones saying their final goodbyes, with emergency personal trying to coordinate a rescue effort, of desperate wives calling their husbands, of husbands calling their wives, of children trying to reach their parents, this was truly a day we would never forget.

Then all of a sudden the second building came down, the rumble of the collapse may have been louder than the first time, our building shook more than before, and I ran to my window to look down below at the street. I never should have done that because what I saw will haunt me for the rest of my life. People running for their lives, they looked like ants, as a gray cloud of smoke and dust came tumbling down Broadway, quickly over running them, as they ran, that gray cloud overtaking them, enveloping them within it, than like before day turned into dusk and then into darkness as an ominous cloud fell over Wall Street and the United States.

I am not sure what happened after that but I remember walking up Broadway, I remember that smell, it was the smell of death, of darkness, of two collapsed buildings with countless heroes still trapped inside, past what was then the World Trade Center, now called Ground Zero or the pile, We streamed up past Houston, a group of shell shocked disheveled people, strangers who didn’t know each other, but walked side by side in silence. We were all in shock, walking zombies, covered in dust. Our faces worn with sadness and tears, we had all aged years in a matter of hours, our lives were turned upside down, friends lost. But we will remember the humanity, not the stars of those that saw us streaming uptown, but those shop keepers who ran with cold water giving us sustenance, not accepting a dime, just because we were all one that day, we weren't strangers, we were family, we were Americans, we all would never forget, we will always remember the kindness.

In the ensuing years our lives would eventually get back to normal, we all moved on, we lost many that day, our hearts are with those families. ?In those ensuring years of war we lost countless young boys and girls who were brave and joined our military to defend our country, to defend our freedoms and our way of life. Their lives will never be forgotten for what they sacrificed for our country for each one of us. We will never forget, we will remember and we will hold this day as a special day within our hearts and within our prayers.

This is a special time of year for the Jewish people, it is the time between Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) and Yom Kippur (the Jewish Day of repentance) it is a holy time of year in which we reflect on the past year and pray to be inscribed in the book of life. I pray that all of you remember those that we lost that frightful day, remember the brave men and woman who fought for our freedoms for our way of life, remember those brave men and woman who ran into those Towers to save countless lives, only to lose their own, to those Husbands and wives and to those children that lost their loved ones to the terrorist and to the war that followed. I pray that going forward our children never have to experience what we went through, to never have to experience hate and fear.

I want to wish all of those who are observing the Jewish holidays a very happy and healthy new year, a safe and meaningful fast and that you may be inscribed in the book of life. To those, my friends, who are not Jewish, I wish you a blessed year, that we may never experience what happened 20 years ago, but that we never forget that frightful day, that we remember those that we have lost and pray to never let this happen again.

Never forget those that were lost on that frightful day. ?Never Again!?