The Jumpers of 9/11
One of the most enduring memories of 9/11 for me is that of the hundreds who jumped from the Towers rather than burn or suffocate. I distinctly remember the shock of seeing plummeting shapes resolve themselves into human beings as television cameras sharpened their zoom on them.
Those people, later dubbed “jumpers”, are a reason that 9/11 makes me red hot angry, even six years later. USA Today wrote an article about the “jumpers” a year later. Here is an excerpt:
USA TODAY estimates that at least 200 people jumped to their deaths that morning, far more than can be seen in the photographs taken that morning. Nearly all were from the north tower, which was hit first and collapsed last. Fewer than a dozen were from the south tower.
The jumping started shortly after the first jet hit at 8:46 a.m. People jumped continuously during the 102 minutes that the north tower stood. Two people jumped as the north tower began to fall at 10:28 a.m., witnesses said.
For those who jumped, the fall lasted 10 seconds. They struck the ground at just less than 150 miles per hour — not fast enough to cause unconsciousness while falling, but fast enough to ensure instant death on impact. People jumped from all four sides of the north tower. They jumped alone, in pairs and in groups.
…
Intense smoke and heat, rather than flames, pushed people into this horrific choice. Flight 11 struck the 94th through 98th floors of the north tower, shooting heat and smoke up elevator shafts and stairways in the center of the building. Within minutes, it would have been very difficult to breathe. That drove people to the windows 1,100 to 1,300 feet above ground.
Those people were alive and most likely conscious when they struck the pavement at about 150 MPH. Tom Junod wrote about one of those poor desperate people in a seminal article in Esquire magazine. That article is worth your time today, if you read or see nothing else about that day six years ago. They were killed by people who ended up disappointed that only 3000 died on that day instead of the tens of thousands they wanted to kill.
Think about that. As much celebration as we saw from the barbarians in the days after 9/11, we know they were sad that they didn’t kill many, many more. If the Islamists had their way on 9/11, those 200 jumpers would have been a thousand, or two thousand. There would have been a human rain of death. The streets of Lower Manhattan would have run red with the blood of their murder victims, the very thing they have wished for openly.
Yet, the images of these people deciding to die on the pavement instead of gasping out an open window are photos we are not generally permitted to see. Our betters in the MSM have decided that we should not look back and remember 9/11 as it happened lest we rise up and go on an “anti-Muslim” rampage. They do not trust us. They gladly print a bogus story about a Koran in a toilet – a story that fueled riots all over the world and led to murder. They run over 40 front-page stories about Abu Ghraib in the New York Times without a moment’s hesitation knowing full well that each story leads to more death and mayhem. But us here in America? We’re the ones to be feared. We’re the ones who would launch the pogrom.
Excuse my language but that’s utter bullshit. There was no “anti-Muslim backlash” on 9/12 or 9/13 or 10/1 or any day thereafter of the kind we were told would certainly happen. There were no mass Muslim lynchings. Muslims were not rounded up into detention centers and held until their fidelity to America could be assured. None of that happened even though we were smack in the middle of a war declared on us by Muslims where Muslims had killed thousands and thousands of Americans over twenty years or more. Our good will was not credited to us, even by our own countrymen. We were the rabid dogs who did not have enough self-control to see the images of people murdered by Islamists bent on destroying everything we know and love and enslaving us under their special brand of tyranny.
That makes me very angry as well. It was not enough that we had to endure the gut punches of 9/11 one after the other all day long. We then had to endure the finger-waggers and apologists for murder who treated us like the maniacs and were worried that we would be the ones to slip the leash and savage the poor helpless Muslims.
They’re still doing that right now. They’ve gone past painting us all as a barely-constrained mob and have stooped to calling our soldiers liars, and murderers, and sadistic sociopathic torturers. Meanwhile, Islamists – the real murderers and torturers – continue to plot our deaths and gather more of the world under their oppressive banner.
Today, General Petraeus is testifying before a Senate Committee. He is basically begging the Senate not to surrender to the killers, not to leave a nation of 24 million people to the predations of Iran, al-Qaeda and their Islamist brethren. He is delivering a clear message that we can win, if we resolve simply not to surrender. He is saying the same thing that the President has been haltingly and inexpertly saying for five years. The message is simple. We can win this war if we just decide that we will not quit. It will not be solely our strength of arms that will eventually defeat Islamism. Victory will require us to be as clever as we have in other wars. It will require us to push our political, economic, and cultural strength into the fight as diligently as we have used our soldiers. But we can win, if we just refuse to give up.
On 9/11/2001, some 200 people died on the streets around the World Trade Center because we were not serious about fighting a war that had long been fought against us. We can no longer claim ignorance about our enemy nor what they seek. It is time – long past time, actually – that we fight back with every tool we have and with all our strength. If we remember nothing else about 9/11 after today, it should be that our enemies are real and that they will not hesitate to kill thousands more of us if we give them the opportunity. That opportunity should never arise again.
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Category: General
In the film that the French brothers shot in the lobby of one of the towers, every few moments there's a loud crashing sound. Eventually you realize that those are the people hitting the ground. It's a rather disconcerting realization.
What happened on 9/11 was dreadful. The world united against an unspeakable act against innocent people. Even countries & people who would not normally have any particular fondness or connection for the U.S saw the attacks as just plain mass murder – which they were.
6 years on nothing has changed – what happened was simply awful & will scar humanity forever.
The patriotism that is evoked understandably on each anniversary since is understandable. The slightly awkward thing though is that it was the overwhelming patriotism that runs right the way to/from the highest office in the land & that in turn influences how the U.S treats other countries both economically & militarily. Sadly, this over keen view that the U.S is the land of the free & champion of liberty is viewed around the world as further evidence of a once universally liked & popular country now regarded as a can-do-no-wrong (by itself) entity that acts in a "do as I say – not as I do" manner.
Failure to find Bin Laden lead to military strike against Afghanistan where he was believed to be in hiding. Subsequently, George W's unhealthy obsession with his father's unfinished business with Saddam Hussain led to an invasion of Iraq supposedly to stop Weapons of Mass Destruction (remember them?) being deployed. Failure to find any weapons of mass destruction necessitated the shifting of the reason for the invasion instead to overthrow of Saddam Hussain – no bad thing!
The land of the free exercises censorship on the media by banning publication or showing of bodies of brave servicemen & women being returned home for fear of reviving memories of Vietnam.
Please – if nothing else comes of this – I beg all Americans to consider how the rest of the world (& yes there is a rest of the world outside the U.S) regards what was once an understandable National pride in what the U.S had developed into from a pioneer country just 200+ years ago, but now is seen unfortunately as the U.S imposing its will (wise or otherwise) through economic and if necessary military power.
The U.S is a great country & its people also. It is only the perception outside the U.S that is the problem so once George W leaves office please God the next President will impose some sort of balance on how other countries are regarded & dealt with by the U.S.
Gerry, I sense your sincerity, but I must say that your historical accuracy is seriously lacking. I'm not saying this to make you angry, but in the hopes that you will honestly attempt to learn the history of this great country – not only the bad but also the very, very good. I also hope that your historical study will go back farther than six years.
Hi Jimmie,
I am not angry at all at your comments – its good to exchange views from other perspectives.
I always had an interest in history & all things American since I was a young boy (I'm 46 now) & living in Ireland which adds to the pro-American thing generally. What I said isn't I am afraid my own isolated opinion though. Maybe in the U.S its difficult to see how you are viewed by other countries & I acknowledge its hard to see why things are the way they are inside the U.S from here.
Mostly the U.S has had a pretty good international reputation – even the Nixon affair in the '70's was taken as a one-off individual who acted & believed he was above the law. The issue currently is George W's idealism & his determinaton that now he's top of the pile, nobody will make him feel like he has to or should change his mind on anything – no matter what.
What causes difficulty here is the apparent hypocracy of the whole 'defenders of liberty & freedom' that is mentioned so often. This from a country that despite "All men are created equal" only within the last 40 years allowed black people civil rights. CIA rendition flights, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, media censorship etc all make recent history rather negative reading sadly for a great country.
Please don't take my comments as anti-American (although I acknowledge they may be seen that way) – its a fervent hope that the over-zealous pursuit of the current President's self-delusional view of the world is watered down to more rational scale when he leaves office. When Reagan was President the fear was he'd press the launch button by mistake, with George W in office the fear is he will press the button in anger. The Cuba missile crisis was a close thing – with George W the 'push the button' possibility is regarded as more likely even if not nuclear, he is seemingly itching for a fight as he searches for a way to assure taxpayers that the trillions of dollars spent on the greatest military on the planet is worth it. 9/11 came as a huge shock that such a powerful country could be so vulnerable.
I regret what happened – any right minded person would & the only 'positive' is that the hijackers saved the U.S the time & expense of a show-trial & executed themselves in their act. May God have mercy on the innocent victims of their crimes.
Gerry
Jimmie-U r either very young or very stupid or both.
How many years were we in VietNam?? We lost.
How many years were we in Korea?? We left.
How many years was Russia in Afganistan?They lost and left.
How many dead Americans do u want to leave in Iraq,Afganistan????
To conquer Islam??What r u out of your mind?
A religion u want to conquer??
Go read a fucking book and learn something.
I suggest History.
Your Either from the "Left Coast" or not American.WE ARE still in S. Korea.(History 101)Islam is the plague of the 21st century.ISLAM means SUBMIT.No room for excuses there, submit or die.I make no excuses for the politicians, imo they all have a crooked agenda.BTW i'm 42 & probably know more about religion & history than you.The only way we can shake this plague of Radical Islam is to eradicate
it.
Yeah. You have me all figured out. I'm a deposed Nigerian prince. Which reminds me, could you do me a little favor?
You see – scratch even the surface & you get profanity & abuse.
As for history – I would suggest a little inward reflection on what you "Americans" did to the only true 'Americans' i.e. Native American Indians at the hands of the settlers! An early example of attempted Genocide.
And you people wonder why you are "misunderstood" and/or "unloved" by the rest of the world – and YES – there actually IS a rest of the world out there.
Like Greece, Portugal, Spain, Ireland, Germany,ALL going broke, but they think they got it ALL figured out!
Exactly, Gerry, and we got that profanity and abuse from your side of the argument.
Okay. I accept that American attempted genocide against American Indians. I accept that we kept our fellow man in chains for far too long.
What, exactly do we do with that? Shall we beat ourselves with it like a penitent's flail? Or shall we note that well over half a million Americans died to end the scourge of slavery and that we are the only country that ever threatened to end its very existence over the matter?
What seems far more important is that we recognized the abhorrence of our actions and did everything we could to correct them. That did not happen in a year, or two, or ten, but it's something we resolved to do. We changed our course because our collective morality showed us that there are some things which are right and some things which are wrong, and we were doing wrong.
I would think that to be a pretty darned good example to the world. Then again, there isn't a lot of love for a flawed paragon anywhere, is there?
Well all I can say Jimmy is read my posts through again – I have not once used profanity or been abusive although I have admitted that my comments might be viewed as anti-american, but never profane nor abusive.
Re. the American civil war, certainly there was massive loss of life but your phraseology is precisely the sort of breast-beating 'we are great' that irritates other countries' peoples & governments so. The civil war was a battle of two sides – one opposed to slavery & the other equally opposed to its abolition. You choose to side with the moral good & good for you – I'd expect most people to side with their country's positive. The thing is though that over-zelous/devout fondness of the illusion that the U.S is "all things good" when in fact there are many examples of negative actions & policies too. There ARE many positive & good things the U.S has brought to the world & with the exception of the past few years overall the U.S is/was regarded as a force for good.
What hacks people off though are examples of supposed 'heroism' of for example the dramatic 'rescue' of the captured female soldier in Iraq a couple of years back (Jessica Lynch?) It was even supposed to be made into a movie but eventually the soldier herself admitted it was grossly exaggerated & largely made up as she was receiving medical attention & actually walked out of the hospital she was being treated in – quite a different story to the tale released for public consumption.
What drew me to make my initial post in the first place was the notion that the 9/11 jumpers as they have become known as were in some way some sort of cowards – this is just appalling!!! It took huge courage to jump – it really angers me that any 'jumper' identified or otherwise is labelled in anything less than what they are – martyrs to over-zealous believers of in this case a religion. My point was that sometimes, the U.S portrays itself as something whuter than white when in fact underneath the propganda & media 'spin' there is a less wholesome story. One reason why countries seem to 'hate' the U.S is nothing to do with U.S citizens, it is a reality-check of what actually happens compared to what the official-speak puts out to the world.
I apologise if my comments cause offence or hurt – they are certainly not intended to.
I do not agree with much of what you say, but I am enraged about you statement "The land of the free exercises censorship on the media by banning publication or showing of bodies of brave servicemen & women being returned home for fear of reviving memories of Vietnam "The land of the free exercises censorship on the media by banning publication or showing of bodies of brave servicemen & women being returned home for fear of reviving memories of Vietnam" You don't care about the so called censorship of the media. You care that your point can't be reinforced by pictures. Each one of those soldiers had family. Family that is grieving. The deserve the respect not to have those pictures pasted on the web or television for someone to put some spin on them. My husband was killed in a plane which crashed in Gander, Newfoundland when he and 248 other soldiers were returning from a peacekeeping mission in the Sinai. I still have nightmares because of the press wanting the "shock" factor and printed a picture of the bodies of the soldiers laying out in a large hanger. The families deserve to be respected and not to have their grief exploted as you would have it.
Lorie is responding to Gerry's comment of 9/12/07; that's what she quoted.
Lorie, I’m not sure what you’re talking about. I didn’t say a thing about Vietnam in my post. Are you sure you read the right post here?
Ah, okay. Thanks.
I would simply like to say that the individuals who took fate into their own hand on 911 are nothing short of "sincerely definded martyrs" in my mind. To take the decision out of the hand of those despicable hate filled cowardly Saudi Arabian muslims and decide ones' own fate was the most couragous decision I have ever seen made. Waking up in Louisville Kentucky to my phone ringing off the hook to be informed that a our nations life as we knew it was over was overshadowed as I personally saw on live television as someone took fate into their own hand from the north tower gave me goosebumps and tears. If there really is a heaven, and God has any sense of reward for those stepping up to the plate in the final moments of their lives, those 200 individuals all have highways in heaven named after them. My condolences and prayers will always go out to all of you who lost someone on that fateful day.
i dont think veitnam is the issue we should be talking about we should be talking about what the alkida is going to do now that there laeder is gone
i was on liberty street when suddenly i saw a flesh of meat laying on the pavement i didnt know where it came from until i turned and looked at a deformed body, u cant even identify it form the condition. Why would those people jump ? why did the windows were broken? to be honest the real terrorist are the USA goverment itself. U might think that i am just talking crap , well to be honest i had 4 friends that worked on the north tower at 90 floor all of the passed away i soon found out that 2 of them jumped out and their photo was among the published in AMERICA TODAY date 9/12/2001.
I feel sorry for how deluded some are concerning this event. It was an absolute horror, but the anger is misdirected. Most of the hijackers were Saudi Arabian or from the UAE. None were from Afghanistan or Iraq. None had contact with Al Qaeda. It was directed there because of the huge HUGE amounts of oil and gas on their soil that America was in dire need of and we have pillaged. There are a lot more facts, and a lot more complicated questions to be asked. The death toll has now exceeded Vietnam. War is such an abomination hanging over the head of this world.
Love never fails…
My cousin was in the world trade center when it was first attacked in the late 80's with bombs in the garage. She worked on the 85th floor and was evacutated. I remember having a conversation with her when she came to visit me in CA. I advised her to look into purchasing a mini parachute and take lessons in base jumping just in case she had to get out of the building and the last resort was to jump. She laughed at my suggestion and said the WTC would never be attacked again due to improved security measures.
Fortunately for her, she was out of country on assignment on 911, but a lot of her office co workers were amongst the victims that had to make the horrible decision. If base shoots had of survived the initial impact, they could have saved countless lives….