I was in a meeting with a supplier out of France and by chance most of their people where European on their side for this meeting. It was a "come to Jesus" moment where the supplier was being "motivated" to meet dates and hit targets. As we all began slowly to read about what was happening via text pager updates (yes back than text pagers and twitter-like updates where all the rage still) the mood in the room changed from business hostile to completelty distracted until a halt to the meeting called so we go see what is happening on TV. The rest is history as they say but two things stand out in my mind.lexaal wrote:QUOTE (lexaal @ Sep 12 2014, 07:55 PM) We will not forget those innocents that died. Most of us saw the 2nd impact and both building implosions on live tv. I did. We upgraded to AOL a few days ago and i saw the message first there, then on the tv. During the evening we walked to some low level antenna/supply depot of the US army (probably from eucom) and we left some condolence flowers at the gate, as some other people did. Guarding soldiers were nervous but nodded their heads friendly. During that time many of the US people lived outside the base in our cities so basically everyone had base people in the extended friends
But we forgot, and we forgot from the 9/12 until now to learn from our mistakes and to make good decisions.
It's painful to say but our democracies and our western values were more damaged by our own stupidity and arrogance than by acts of our enemies.
-I removed some 2page rabble rabble and leftyish critism-
It makes me angry and pessimistic what is happening in iraq, in afg and on many other places in the world were terror grows, and it makes me most angry that we could really do things a lot better.
The first was that every single person in the room who wasn't from the US expressed kind words and basic solidarity with those who were froom here. The second was when my counterpart who happened to be German asked if I had kids, he was obviously thinking of what was to come as was I, I told him with relief that meBoy was way to young for there to be the possiblity of his seeing "action". I was wrong, so wrong that not only did meBoy end up being old enough to possibly see "action" but many of my friends in the reserves who where adults, established in their careers, and never dreaming that in their mid to late 30s that (some of them) ended up kicking in doors and making split second decisions to kill or not to kill someone.
I still sit in awe and feel sad for my old neighbor who was a Doctor fand lew home to tend to the wounded civilians in the land he was born. he was quickly captured, tortured, and shot by some random splinter group for who knows what. I thank my lucky stars that my own family "only" had to deal with the stuff one deals with after being in a war and coming home. I'm also happy that to the best of my knowledge no one who cruises this forum has lost life or limb in all the time the reverbations of that awful day are still taking place right this very second.
