Think About it -- Perspectives From New York City

I’d been to New York City before. Only to the Airport, then out of the city as fast I could to destinations north.

This last week however, I stayed an extra day to intentionally experience New York City and the 9/11 memorial.

I headed south from Connecticut into New York, crossed over the Harlem River onto the Upper end of Manhattan, then south along the East River to the southern tip (Lower Manhattan). 

Signs warned drivers of “congestion pricing” scheduled to start soon. The ways a big city will take your money amaze me almost as much as how many huge buildings there really are. To a country boy, it felt like I couldn’t breathe. I can’t imagine living there.

I parked on Thames Street, crossed West Street, then north to the Memorial Plaza.

As I walked, I remembered those videos of people running down those very streets I was on, as the massive buildings collapsed behind them nearly 23 years ago. Then I experienced the memorial pools with all the victim names inscribed on them, around each of the 2 pools set into the footprints of the buildings themselves.

Most of those 2,983 names were of people who went about that day not expecting anything to happen, at least not to them.

I needed to find the name of one man who wasn’t caught by surprise. He died, but because he was saving others. Rick Rescorla has been the topic of discussions and writing here in the FBSN, and in other security circles since 9/11. I found his name on panel S-46 of the south pool. 

Think About it

I don’t know how anyone could be unmoved by visiting the memorial. I don’t know how people can continue to believe nothing will ever happen to them just because they are … (whatever reason they may list).

Those who manage the FBSN Facebook Page tell me they removed a drive-by eristic heckler’s post on that page claiming his faith in God was the only security he needed and questioning my relationship to Christ since I disagreed.

There are really people who believe that (many of them in social media, where they can impress themselves). There are no words to change them. They will hold that belief until the first (or the second) plane hits their towers. Some beyond even that.

Loved the NYC experience, happy to live in Kansas.