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I was in New York last week for business when on a lark, the wife and I visited Ground Zero. The whole area is blocked off, but you can get a glimse or two of the wreckage. It is one of the saddest places I have ever visited. Thousands of Teddy Bears, wreaths, cards, flowers, pictures. This make you realize that these 4,000 people were real, had real lives, real children, real jobs, and real relatives. Gulp. The saddest was a faded birthday card dated 9/18 from two kids who printed the think in block letters, you know with backwards “R”s the whole bit: “Happy Birthday Daddy, Hope They Throw a Birthday Party For You in Heaven”. I had to sit down for that and have a solid 2 minutes of weeping.
I cried buckets and buckets of tears, my eyes were red and swollen. The emotion I felt was not anger or hate, just an overwhelming sense of sadness and grief. I have not been to Pearl Harbor or a Nazi Death Camp, but imagine this must be the same feeling.
Not a whole lot of traffic, and one cop yelled at me for being there, and had to explain to him that (a) Because of the loss of life and my feelings, I had to be there; and (b) This is not a police state yet, and as long as I was behind the yellow police tape, I had a right to be there. I not sure he entirely understood my feelings.
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I was in New York last week for business when on a lark, the wife and I visited Ground Zero. The whole area is blocked off, but you can get a glimse or two of the wreckage. It is one of the saddest places I have ever visited. Thousands of Teddy Bears, wreaths, cards, flowers, pictures. This make you realize that these 4,000 people were real, had real lives, real children, real jobs, and real relatives. Gulp. The saddest was a faded birthday card dated 9/18 from two kids who printed the think in block letters, you know with backwards "R"s the whole bit: "Happy Birthday Daddy, Hope They Throw a Birthday Party For You in Heaven". I had to sit down for that and have a solid 2 minutes of weeping.
I cried buckets and buckets of tears, my eyes were red and swollen. The emotion I felt was not anger or hate, just an overwhelming sense of sadness and grief. I have not been to Pearl Harbor or a Nazi Death Camp, but imagine this must be the same feeling.
Not a whole lot of traffic, and one cop yelled at me for being there, and had to explain to him that (a) Because of the loss of life and my feelings, I had to be there; and (b) This is not a police state yet, and as long as I was behind the yellow police tape, I had a right to be there. I not sure he entirely understood my feelings.