11th September, 2001 - TEN YEARS ON

FDNY:

Mrs Chowdhury's husband, Mohammed, was at his place of employment, the Windows on the World restaurant, at the top of the WTC when the attack began. He was trapped above the point of impact.

Their son was born two days later.

Mr Chowdhury was one of 59 Muslims murdered in the attack.



Charles J. Mauro, 38, who lived in New Dorp, was at his job as a purchasing director for the Windows on the World restaurant when the World Trade Center tower was struck by a hijacked airliner.
His wife, Barbara Mauro, saw the smoke from the explosion from her job at nearby 1 Chase Plaza, and called her husband, who told her, "I'm looking for my people. Call my parents. I'll be OK."






More than seventy of the restaurant staff were murdered.

Out of Cantor's 960 employees in New York, 658 were murdered on 9/11.

The company's offices were on the 101 - 105 floors; no-one in the offices when the attack began survived.

Christine Lee Hanson was the youngest person to die as a result of the terrorist attacks of 9-11. She was flying to Disney World with her parents on United 175. Her father was on the phone with her grandfather, holding her in his arms as the plane impacted the World Trade Center. She was 3.

This is the moment ten years ago when the first plane struck.

Amen to so many brave people.

This is the moment ten years ago when the second plane struck.

This is the moment ten years ago when the third plane struck the Pentagon.

This is the moment ten years ago when Flight 93 crashed into the countryside near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.



The bravery of the passengers and crew saved countless lives.

http://news.sky.com/home/uk-news/article/16067080


UK Survivors And Families Remember 9/11
3Comments
12:58pm UK, Sunday September 11, 2011

British survivors of the September 11 attacks and families of the victims have attended ceremonies commemorating the 10th anniversary of the tragedy.
Relatives attended an early morning service at Grosvenor Chapel in London, which is known as the "American church".
It has links to the nearby US embassy and was a place of worship for American soldiers during the Second World War.
Survivor Courtney Cowart, who was nearly buried alive when the north tower of the World Trade Centre collapsed, was among the congregation.



A candle is lit at the memorial service in Grosvenor Chapel

She told how she had been overtaken by fear when she returned to the site for a memorial service days later.
"Entering the heart of darkness, I was terrified. We were dwarfed by immense wreckage looming around us. It was a landscape drained of all colour," she said.
Canon Jim Rosenthal, who led the service, said the 9/11 attacks knew "no race, creed, gender, age or status".

Relatives also attended a moving service at St Paul's Cathedral, where they were joined by American ambassador to the UK Louis Susman.
The ceremony featured a new anthem called "Grief is the price we pay for love" based on a message from the Queen sent to a memorial for British victims after the attacks.
The same words are inscribed on the memorial to the 67 British victims of the tragedy in Grosvenor Square.
Angela Ridge, whose brother Robert Eaton, 37, was killed and Jim Cudmore, whose father Neil, 38, died were among relatives leading the prayers.
Another service will take place tonight at Westminster Abbey.

Almost 3,000 people died in the atrocity and Britain suffered more losses than any other country, apart from the US itself.
The main event will be in the September 11 memorial garden next to the American Embassy in London this afternoon.
Bereaved British families will attend a remembrance ceremony where victims' names will be read out and a white rose laid for each one.
Relatives of about 10 UK victims have also travelled to New York for the events organised by the US authorities at Ground Zero.

Ahead of the commemorations, Foreign Secretary William Hague hailed the "courage and dignity" of the American people.
Mr Hague said the attacks and subsequent terrorist incidents had only served to bind nations more tightly together.
He claimed al Qaeda was at its weakest now than at any time since 9/11 and becoming "increasingly irrelevant".
"The true expression of what people in the Muslim world aspire to was seen not at Ground Zero in 2001, but in squares and streets across the Middle East and North Africa this year," he said.
"So while we remember the victims of 9/11, stand firm with our allies and remain tirelessly vigilant against future threats, we also face the future with confidence in our values and faith in human nature."
Mayor of London Boris Johnson added: "We can see that the toxic bigotry of al Qaida is in retreat, while commonsensical western values continue to thrive.
"It was a war between medieval and modern civilisation, and modern civilisation has won."

A sad moment for the US, also to all those who saw that happening, with friends and relatives involved in this tragedy.

The story of the Survivor Tree:




Robert Zappala (l.) and Richie Cabo nursed the 'survivor tree'… (Parks Department)

9/11 ‘Survivor Tree’ Spreads its Branches Over the World Trade Center Once Again

December 22, 2010 1:42pm | By Julie Shapiro, DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

By Julie Shapiro
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
LOWER MANHATTAN — A tree that just barely survived the collapse of the Twin Towers on 9/11 returned to the World Trade Center site Wednesday as a symbol of renewal.
"It is a testament to our ability to endure," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said as he replanted the now-flourishing callery pear near its onetime home.
The tree’s survival, just like the city’s recovery from the attacks, was not a sure thing nine years ago.
On 9/11, the falling towers crushed the tree’s branches, and the ensuing conflagration scorched its stump.
Workers sifting through the debris did not unearth the charred remnants of the tree until weeks after the attacks, long after they had given up hope of finding anything alive in the rubble.
"In those dark days, we felt we couldn’t disregard any sign of life," Bloomberg said.
The Parks Department brought the 8-foot stump up to the Arthur Ross Nursery in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx and painstakingly coaxed it back to health with fertilizer and careful pruning.
"It looked like a wounded soldier," said Richie Cabo, manager of the nursery. "When I first saw it, I thought it was unlikely it would survive."
By the spring of 2002, though, green shoots poked through the trunk, and Cabo knew the "Survivor Tree" would make it.
"It represents all of us," Cabo said.

The tree faced a major setback last March, when it was uprooted during a storm.
But the tree recovered yet again and grew to a height of 30 feet in time for its return to lower Manhattan.
At Wednesday’s replanting ceremony, Keating Crown, 32, a worker at AON Corporation who escaped from the 100th floor of the South Tower before it collapsed, said the tree would remind visitors to the memorial of the thousands of survivors whose lives were forever changed by the attack.
"It reminds us all of the capacity of the human spirit to persevere," he said.
The Survivor Tree joins over 120 swamp white oak trees already planted at the World Trade Center site. The trees will begin shading visitors next fall, when the 9/11 memorial is scheduled to open to the public for the first time.

The music of 9/11:




Paul Simon sings The Sound Of Silence at today's Memorial Service:

http://gawker.com/5839085/watch-paul-simon-perform-sound-of-silence-at-the-911-memorial

Some pictures from the Memorial Service:







Visitors taking rubbings of the names of loved ones on the memorial.

More at:


http://uk.news.yahoo.com/photos/9-11-memorial-anniversary-1315745030-slideshow/visitors-north-memorial-pond-rubbings-names-those-lost-photo-135719246.html

Thank you very much for posting all those wonderful photos and articles today, Bonny.

The story of the tree was both unusual and sweet.

Yes, the tree is somehow - a powerful symbol. I was very moved by the ceremonies today; the Ground Zero memorial took my breath away.

The memorial is amazing, isn't it, Bonny? It's so tasteful.

Mind you, I'm sure we would all prefer that there was no need for one.......

This is a fascinating site:

https://sites.google.com/site/911stories/johnschroederofengine10%3Aa911chronology%E2%80%93r

It is a total debunking of all the Truther conspiraloons who have latched onto the tragedy of 9/11. Warning - some of the descriptions of what happened to casualties are pretty graphic and disturbing, but it is well worth reading.

The ridiculous beliefs of the 9/11 Truthers are strangely similar to those of the self-appointed McCann Truthseekers.

Look at this opening paragraph:

Conspiracists seem to forget that 9/11 first responders didn't immediately go home and start memorizing 9/11 trivia. They seem to think that, years later, all memories should be perfect, all chronologies exact, and all descriptions that include analogies, similes, and metaphors are meant to be taken literally. In the BBC program "9/11: The Conspiracy Files," there is a truly sad scene in which the reporter has to explain to Dylan Avery what a simile is, because Avery is desperately clinging to a few out-of-context statements to try to shore up his house of cards, and by doing so, he accuses investigators and witnesses of being liars.

The surviving 9/11 first responders went through hell. Their lives were turned upside-down, and afterwards they were busy healing, caring for their families and the families of the fallen, searching through the rubble, attending funerals, dealing with work reassignments, new equipment, new probies, medical issues, legal issues, promotion, retirement, and trying to resume somewhat normal lives.

That is exactly what the Truthseekers do, with their endless, If it had been me, I would of [sic] and Why didn't they.

I came across the site because I recall having a blazing row with some conspiraloon elsewhere, who didn't seem to know about shockwaves, aviation fuel - anything, really.

This particular conspiraloon insisted that WTC 7 had been undamaged, and was brought down for commercial reasons.

I was reminded of that yesterday when I saw a clip of film in which WTC 7 was not only clearly damaged, but also on fire.

All of which was confirmed by people who were ACTUALLY THERE, as opposed to some conspiraloon mouthing off in the safety of the internet.

It must be some kind of mental illness, that these people cannot process information, or even take in what is right in front of their noses?

[Update 9:04 a.m. ET] The Afghan Interior Ministry said four suicide attackers entered the building site from which the attack on the U.S. Embassy and ISAF headquarters is being carried out. Two of them were killed and two were "resisting."

Well, that is two of the suicide attackers got their wish, then, Tony.

What is the Muslim equivalent of Hell? Because that is where I suspect a lot of the Taliban and Al Quaeda are headed, for corrupting their faith as an excuse for mass murder.

I suppose it would be poetic justice for them to spend eternity trapped with the likes of Bennett and the Koran-burners, who corrupt their faith.