Sandie

does this affect Ken at all?


you both are in my prayers.

Lots of prayers flying, and I know some are landing in your direction. Hugs to you and Ken

We are both fine. It is a little to close for comfort being at such a large military base and so close to NY. I have had offers to stay in Ohio and a little closer inland with Rene. Thank you guys for thinking of us.

Thanks very much for the concern! As you may or may not know, this tour I am on shore duty teaching many of our nations sailors different leadership styles in order to help them lead in times of crises such as this. Very frightening thing to have have to start a lesson on combat leadership when we were notified of these cowardly terrorist acts upon our nations people. Harder still to have to look upon the faces of these young people and know that at some point they would be pulled away to man our nations defense, go off to parts unknown, and perhaps defend our way of life with their's. Fortunately, Sandie, Kylee and I are safe and had I a doubt that we would not be, they would have been packed off to Rene's for a few days to avoid any chance of the same thing happenning here.

I am, as i'm sure alot of you are, VERY angry. It saddens me to the core at the same time, and I stand wondering what the president will do, part of me wants so much to obliterate a country, the other part knows that it will take time to determine who was responsible and exact our punishment upon them. I do know this, we, as a nation cannot let this go, cannot stand by and let this go, too many citizens have lost their lives, how many we dont yet know, but even one, is too many.

I've rambled enough....


Thanks again!!

Ken

This is such a tough time right now. I want to turn off the television but the silence then frightens me. I want to scream my frustrations at the people passing on the street, and all I can seem to do is to go and hug my horse because it makes me feel better.

I never thought in my lifetime that I would see something like this, except while watching a movie. My heart just aches for the passengers of those commercial airliners, their families, their loved ones, the victims trapped, the workers working to free them, all of the people whose lives were changed in an instant this morning.

I don't think it would be easy to find the culprits or to punish them. Sure, the US had many foes and most Islamic movements call it the big devil (us being the little devil). But finding out which one is to blame won't be easy. Even then, it won't be a country but probably just a small organization.

What do you do then? Israel has been trying to fight the terror organizations by hitting their facilities and leaders. Our efforts are not that successful and the world condemns us for trying. Then you have all those countries like France and others who support countries like Iraq, Iran, Syria and Lybia and thus support terrorism

I just hope that the world will now wake up and realize that terrorism is a global problem and not an Israeli problem. I hope there will be more cooperation in limiting chemical and biological weapons.

It is hard to grasp terrorism like you speak of, when we have grown up in learning in history that our way of life has been threatened by countries and not factions, or individuals. I think it is hard for us to get into that mindset- and as angry and stunned as all of us are, we just want to go blow-up a country. To much hollywood exposure I guess...

Anne,

I think that it is going to be EXTREMELY hard to pinpoint who it was. There are so many umbrella groups that are out there, and lets face it, the US intellegence SHOULD have seen this comming, but they didn't, im sure there's going to be a BIG investigation on that. I think most people's first thought was that Bin Lauden (sic) was the front, but it could just as easily had been the work of one of the many groups that he has fronted money to and trained. It could also have been the work of Iraq ( I doubt that though ), but it is possible. Mostly I think this was caused by the fact that we are friends, it has been said by Palistinians ( and I don't mean this in a bad way, or to brag because honestly I dont know much about it) that had it not been for the US, Israel would no longer exist. Again I don't know how true that is, I doubt the fact at any rate, but the sentiment is still there. I think time will tell, hopefully, we can do something.

Ken

We have to be careful not to assign blame until there is an thorough investigation. I remember when the Federal Building in Oklahoma was bombed. At first we blamed the various Middle Eastern factions and people who had dark skin and hair were blamed and abused because "they" attacked America. Then, we found out that it was a sick American who perpetrated the attack.

So, lets be careful not to assign blame until we have good evidence to focus guilt on one group or country.

With that said....I hope the evil sons of a *#@+ burn in hell for eternity for hurting so many people in such a horrific way.

One of the news station said that until the advent of the Internet, the factions were at least controlled by how they communicated. Now , all they have to do is get on the net and they are instantly connected. Oh the wonders of the WWW

My biggest question is...with all this high-tech security stuff at airports, not letting ANYONE touch your baggage, going through x-ray machines and metal detectors, etc., how in the hell did these low-life scumbags get on the planes? And as far as computers go, well, that's a whole different story. If a high school kid can hack his way into any computer, you can just imagine(no pun intended Ken )what someone can accomplish if they really set their mind to an act of terrorism.

I've been here at work at the newspaper since noon and will remain till they say I can leave. I have heard just about every comment, snide remark, opinion, suggestion for tomorrow's headline (after the umpteenth remark about today's date being "911" I finally hung up on someone and started to cry) that I care to hear. I'm waiting to see how long it takes before the crude jokes start.

This is not a joke and no one is laughing. Security everywhere needs to be seriously re-evaluated. In today's society, too many people casually come and go as if they owned the joints, no one bothering to question their business for fear of hurting feelings. Well today, thousands were killed. If that is not a serious wake-up call, I don't know what is.

Ken, you, Sandie and Kylee are more than welcome to come to my house. My thoughts are with you.

Donna

Well, they can't keep you off a plane just for being a lowlife scumbag. Unfortunately, you can conceal a knife with a small blade pretty easily - about 2 inches is all you need to kill someone - even a large pocket knife would work. And since these planes were packed full of highly flammable jet fuel for their cross country flights, no other explosives were really necessary. So to stab the crew and fly the plane into the building, these people didn't need to have anything terribly notable with them. I used to fly pretty regularly between US and Canada (one parent in each country when I was in school), and they wouldn't even let me take a knitting needle into the cabin, but the last time I flew across country, I found out that I had left a pair of long sharp craft scissors in my backpack and nobody batted an eye. I think we have gotten complacent . . .

Sandie, Ken and Kylie

I'm glad to hear that you all are safe and sound. I pray for that to continue.....

I am glad to hear that you (Sandie, Ken and family) are alright also...I am releived to come here and find out that all my friends are still okay.

Ditto Debby!
Last night I was thinking of going out to a net cafe just to make sure that all of you are allright. The first thing i did this morning was come here and make sure all of my net buddies were fine.
I love you all and pray for the souls of those who perished....