9/11
Entry posted by xxmikexx
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It's only the 10th, but while driving back from Safeway the urge -- the need -- the demand that I write, and write today, struck with high impact. I was furious that day in 2001, fighting mad -- so mad that I called the Israeli Embassy in San Francisco to offer my services in any capacity they might see fit. But I couldn't get through. Their switchboard was jammed, and by the next day I had calmed down a little.
I suddenly understood what the attack on Pearl Harbor had meant to the people of the USA of that time. I'm fighting mad today, all over again, even though today is only 9/10 and not 9/11.
It had taken six of these seven years for the nightmares to stop. Are they now going to start again? Is that why I have to write about this stuff? So I won't have to dream about it?
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Yes ... There it is ... Right on time and 3,000 feet below lower than we are. Hell's Gate, the junction of the East River and the Harlem River, just as in the simulator. I'll roll the aircraft into a gentle descending left turn. After all, I don't want to upset the passengers any more than they're already upset. We still have 25 miles and four minutes to go. Let's not give them any ideas ...
There we are, lined up on Fifth Avenue. I don't know anything about New York, but in the sim I was easily able to identify Central Park off in the distance to the southwest, and Fifth Avenue runs right along its eastern edge. Passing a sports stadium I continue my descent, now tracking straight down Fifth. But I'm going to level off at 1500 feet before I reach the Empire State building so I can't possibly hit it -- because that's not the plan for the day.
... ... There it is, the big antenna mast on top of the building. Here it comes, there it goes, just below me off the right wing. Get the nose down now, way down, because I have to get down to 700 feet before I can do the will of ... ... No. No time for that now ...
As I near Union Square I pull the nose up sharply to stop my descent. I can hear the shrieks of the passengers as they experience a G-force that is supposed to be felt only in roller coasters, not in airliners. But I don't care about them. Actually, I do care. I don't want them to panic but I do want them to suffer. Because they deserve it. They all deserve it. The people in the North Tower, the people in the South Tower, they all deserve it. So do the people in the Pentagon, and in the White House.
Full power now, jam the throttles all the way forward as we pass the next-to-last waypoint, the arch at the north entrance to Washington Square Park. Even from the cockpit I can hear the terrible whine of the turbines as the blades go supersonic. What must the children and college students in the park be thinking? Have they ever seen anything like this before? Will they now acknowledge the righteous might of ... ... No. No time for that now either.
There is only time to wrack the aircraft around in a tight right turn and then to roll it steeply left again, pulling it around the AT&T headquarters building, the final waypoint, in a climbing left turn that takes me directly to the North Tower exactly as we planned, my nose at the level of the 85th floor, aimed upwards, my wings steeply banked so as to involve as many floors as possible in the fires of vengeance that will now cons
Edited by xxmikexx
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