Right Thinking Girl has been around awhile in the blogosphere. Before she had her own domain and took about a year off from blogging, I used to read her posts daily. I hadn’t been back there often recently, but surfed over that way this morning and found another one of her prespectives, which is worthy of your consideration. She’s a great writer, and, her new husband lost his wife and many work friends. I’m linking to one post, but her blogging of the last few days, complete with guest posts by Sean (her husband) and other freinds who had interesting positions in sociaety on that day 5 years ago, are worth taking a few minutes to read.

Try this one:

“What Nobody Wants to Talk About“.

This link is to her blog’s September 11th Rememberances.

Post your story of where you were 5 years ago this morning here.

Other related stories of 9/11/2001:
A Navy Officer who was in the Pentagon on the morning of 9/11/2001 tells his story of that morning in two posts: Part I and II.

At Little Green Footballs, an open thread to record where you were 9/11/2001..228 comments right now…

Update 9/11/2001: The 2996 Project server is hammered. Here is an alternate list of tributes at The Blogging Times.

The 2996 Project is being mirrored at http://www.madmommajen.com/ due to the ISP telling the blogger he’s way exceeding his traffic quotas..:)

A man born in 1967 died the morning of September 11th, 2001 in New York City, New York, USA. He was 33 years old by the records I can find. Web search engines don’t place this man in history other than he is in the many places where the victims of 9/11/2001 have been posted. The specifics are merely Mark was 33, and a resident of New York, and died in the vicinity of the World Trade Center buildings.

Some of the lists I found would contain a company name of job of some of the victims, but this information about Mark wasn’t posted.

The purpose of this post is to highlight Mark, separate from, but as one of those who perished that day. I intend to keep searching for information on Mark, so as to make his memory more concrete, not just as a letters on a list. Please check back for updates.

Update 9/12/2006: Because of the power of the net and this project, Naya posted a link to a letter of Dec 7, 2002, to a Rockaway newpaper that told who Mark Gilles is:

Loss That Slipped Thru Cracks

Dear Editor;

Many local heroes and victims of the 9/11 tragedy have been honored in our community. The loss of Mark Gilles has slipped through the cracks. Mark, a resident of the Shoreview Cooperative in Far Rockaway, formerly lived in Canarsie, Brooklyn, and moved to Rockaway in November 2000.

An accountant with Pricewaterhouse Coopers, Mark was very interested in cooperative living and management. Shortly after moving to Shoreview, Mark joined the Board of Directors and volunteered his accounting skills.

In the process of making a career change, Mark was employed by Account Temps and assigned to Cantor Fitzgerald in the WTC on 9/11/01.

Mark was 33 years old. He is survived by his fiancé Sherice, their daughter Jasmine, who is now nine, and his mother Giselle, of Brooklyn.

Mark’s life ended too quickly for him to really enjoy the new community he joined.

NORMAN SILVERMAN

Mark’s daughter, Jasmine is 13 years old and without her father today. By his assignment that day, he was one of the many who perished working for the financial firm Cantor-Fitzgerald.

Mark also had a sister. She was quoted:

“It’s been over two weeks, and we haven’t heard anything,” said Myriam Gilles, whose brother Mark Gilles, 33, of Brooklyn, is missing. “We’ve got to get some closure instead of waiting, waiting, waiting.”

The death was hard enough, but I imagine his temporary work status was cause for confusion and lack of notification, and more anxieity for his fiancé, daughter, mother and sister.

At Legacy.com, there are several entires by Mark’s friends:

July 19, 2002
Your infectious laugh and sense of humor always made people smile. Nothing was ever wrong in the world when seen thru your eyes. I can’t believe you are gone but I know you are up there making everyone laugh during these trying times. The one regret I have is that we never got back on the court and played one more game. God bless and when my time is finished here, have the ball and your laugh ready for me. I will always be proud of the way you lived your life, my friend.
Ray Whiteman (Dallas, TX )

Mark played pickup ball, and he was an optomist, and most likely a cut up, as well as a good friend.

August 28, 2002
Coming up on almost a year and I still have the hardest time believing you are not around.

You have come up in so many of our conversations. Those good ole days – back in the days – riding through the Stuy in the Buick, going to the Shadow, Finn Bogging on the Deuce, balling in the Nine, 211.

You’ll always be miss Finns.

Gregory Bentham (Brooklyn, NY )

Ray comes back again to talk to his friend:

September 10, 2004
another year, another tear. want you to know that there are still folks missing you. seems like yesterday when i last heard “come on b” from you. keep laughing “big man”, keep laughing…..
Ray Whiteman (washington, DC )

At the 911 Heros site, I found this post to Mark:

I miss you; it took a long time for me to accept that I was never going to see your face. I regret all the things left unsaid and undone between us. All this time has passed: nearly three years now. And I am vacant and lost without you. I have read the reports and sorted through all the paper work, only to realize there is no comfort in them. I long for Justus and I am striving to find my way without you.
May God Have Mercy on Us All

*** Posted by Teri Johnson on 2004-07-24 ***

Other Posts of note:

Steeljaw Scribe was at the Pentagon on 9/11 and remembers some of his shipmates here and here. He tells his story of that morning in two posts: Part I and II.

Black Five has a memorial to retired Army Officer and former British Army soldier Rick Rescorla, who died while “running to the sound of the guns” on the morning of 9/11/2001. He wasn’t there and he didn’t have to go, but, like the first responders and other heros of that day, he put others above his own life. He is credited with savings thousands, for pushing an evacuation plan for his company after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Rick is a real hero, serving the Queen, our Presidents, the Constitution in Vietnam and then his fellow Americans on 9/11/2001.

Trackbacked at:
Stop the ACLU

The 2996 Project Blogroll site is here.

From Little Green Footballs, a report from someone who attended a reception for former Iranina President Khatamis, hosted by CAIR in DC.

This quote is absolutely striking:

But one thing above all stood out when Khatami was speaking (I don’t know if it was Arabic or Persian). Apparently his language has no equivalent for the English word because he always said the word in English.

Democracy.

Interesting…the question now for me was the spoken language Fasri or Arabic? The cultures that spawned those languages have multi-millenia of history, and at least one doesn’t have the word “democracy” in its lexicon. Both cultures were in contact with the Greeks, who, from my knowledge of history, formulated the concept of democracy, or were at least the first ones to claim practical experience in it. The fact thse two cultures didn’t absorb a word like that would most likely have a reason for not doing it, as it certainly has become a concept hard to ignore.

Read the entire report for some real insights to the complex issues of Iran, but meditate on the quote above and consdier the implications…

From Powerline Blog, a compiled list of terrorists acts during the Clinton years (Jan 1993-Jan 2001). The point is to discuss the Democratic opposition to the upcomng “The Path to 9/11:”

Did the Dems Threaten ABC?

The Democrats have gone nuts over the ABC miniseries, The Path to 9/11. But it’s a little hard to see why. Maybe it’s because Disney and ABC have been reliably pro-Democrat in the past, so the Dems feel betrayed.

Looking at the big picture, though, it’s a little hard to see what the Dems are complaining about. I haven’t seen the miniseries, but I take it that it doesn’t portray the Clinton administration as having taken very effective action against the growing threat from Islamic terrorists. What I don’t understand is how the Democrats think they can rewrite history to challenge that characterization.

There is no doubt about the fact that the terrorist menace grew and became increasingly obvious during the Clinton administration. To note just a few highlights:

* January 25, 1993: Mir Aimal Kansi, a Pakistani, fired an AK-47 into cars waiting at a stoplight in front of the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Virginia, killing two CIA employees.

* February 26, 1993: Islamic terrorists try to bring down the World Trade Center with car bombs. They failed to destroy the buildings, but killed 6 and injured over 1000 people.

* March 12, 1993: Car bombings in Mumbai, India leave 257 dead and 1,400 others injured.

* July 18, 1994: Bombing of Jewish Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, kills 86 and wounds 300. The bombing is generally attributed to Hezbollah acting on behalf of Iran.

* July 19, 1994: Alas Chiricanas Flight 00901 is bombed, killing 21. Generally attributed to Hezbollah.

* July 26, 1994: The Israeli Embassy is attacked in London, and a Jewish charity is also car-bombed, wounding 20. The attacks are attributed to Hezbollah.

* December 11, 1994: A bomb explodes on board Philippine Airlines Flight 434, killing a Japanese businessman. It develops that Ramzi Yousef planted the bomb to test it for the larger terrorist attack he is planning.

* December 24, 1994: In a preview of September 11, Air France Flight 8969 is hijacked by Islamic terrorists who planned to crash the plane in Paris.

* January 6, 1995: Operation Bojinka, an Islamist plot to bomb 11 U.S. airliners over the Pacific Ocean, is discovered on a laptop computer in a Manila, Philippines apartment by authorities after a fire occurred in the apartment. Noted terrorists including Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed are involved in the plot.

* June 14—June 19, 1995: The Budyonnovsk hospital hostage crisis, in which 105 civilians and 25 Russian troops were killed following an attack by Chechan Islamists.

* July—October, 1995: Bombings in France by Islamic terrorists led by Khaled Kelkal kill eight and injure more than 100.

* November 13, 1995: Bombing of OPM-SANG building in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia kills 7

* November 19, 1995: Bombing of Egyptian Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan kills 19.

* January 1996: In Kizlyar, 350 Chechen Islamists took 3,000 hostages in a hospital. The attempt to free them killed 65 civilians and soldiers.

* February 25 – March 4, 1996: A series of four suicide bombings in Israel leave 60 dead and 284 wounded within 10 days.

* June 11, 1996: A bomb explodes on a train traveling on the Serpukhovsko-Timiryazevskaya Line of the Moscow Metro, killing four and unjuring at least 12.

* June 25, 1996: The Khobar Towers bombing, carried out by Hezbollah with Iranian support. Nineteen U.S. servicemen were killed and 372 wounded.

* February 24, 1997: An armed man opens fire on tourists at an observation deck atop the Empire State Building in New York City, United States, killing a Danish national and wounding visitors from several countries. A handwritten note carried by the gunman claims this was a punishment attack against the “enemies of Palestine”.

* November 17, 1997: Massacre in Luxor, Egypt, in which Islamist gunmen attack tourists, killing 62 people.

* January 1998: Wandhama Massacre – 24 Kashmiri Pandits are massacred by Pakistan-backed Islamists in the city of Wandhama in Indian-controlled Kashmir.

* February 14, 1998: Bombings by Islamic Jihadi groups at an election rally in the Indian city of Coimbatore kill about 60 people.

* August 7, 1998: Al Qaeda bombs U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya, killing 225 people and injuring more than 4,000.

* August 31 – September 22, 1998: Russian apartment bombings kill about 300 people, leading Russia into Second Chechen War.

* December 1998: Jordanian authorities foil a plot to bomb American and Israeli tourists in Jordan, and arrest 28 suspects as part of the 2000 millennium attack plots.

* December 14, 1998: Ahmed Ressam is arrested on the United States–Canada border in Port Angeles, Washington; he confessed to planning to bomb the Los Angeles International Airport as part of the 2000 millennium attack plots.

* December 24, 1998: Indian Airlines Flight 814 from Kathmandu, Nepal to Delhi, India is hijacked by Islamic terrorists. One passenger is killed and some hostages are released. After negotiations between the Taliban and the Indian government, the last of the remaining hostages on board Flight 814 are released in exchange for release of 4 terrorists.

* January 2000: The last of the 2000 millennium attack plots fails, as the boat meant to bomb USS The Sullivans sinks.

* August 8, 2000: A bomb exploded at an underpass in Pushkin Square in Moscow, killing 11 people and wounding more than 90.

* August 17, 2000: Two bombs exploded in a shopping center in Riga, Latvia, injuring 35 people.

* October 12, 2000: AL Qaeda bombs USS Cole with explosive-laden speedboat, killing 17 US sailors and wounding 40, off the port coast of Aden, Yemen.

Between 1993 and 2000, everyone who was paying any attention knew that the threat from Islamic terrorism was grave and getting worse. The catastrophic losses that occurred on Septimeber 11, 2001, could just as easily have happened in 1993, when the first plot to destroy the World Trade Center was carried off successfully, but the terrorists had miscalculated the effect of their explosives, or in 1995, when the plot to destroy eleven American airplanes in flight was thwarted by counter-intelligence work in the Philippines. What did the Clinton administration do in response to this grave threat? Essentially nothing. Worse, Clinton tried to sweep the problem under the rug, lest it disrupt the surface calm and prosperity for which he was eager to claim credit.

However Path to 9/11 portrays the Clinton administration, it can be no worse than the reality.

Now top Democrats have written a letter to ABC that can reasonably be read as a threat to pull the network’s broadcast license if it shows Path to 9/11:

Presenting such deeply flawed and factually inaccurate misinformation to the American public and to children would be a gross miscarriage of your corporate and civic responsibility to the law, to your shareholders, and to the nation.

The Communications Act of 1934 provides your network with a free broadcast license predicated on the fundamental understanding of your principle obligation to act as a trustee of the public airwaves in serving the public interest. Nowhere is this public interest obligation more apparent than in the duty of broadcasters to serve the civic needs of a democracy by promoting an open and accurate discussion of political ideas and events. ***

We urge you, after full consideration of the facts, to uphold your responsibilities as a respected member of American society and as a beneficiary of the free use of the public airwaves to cancel this factually inaccurate and deeply misguided program.

Blue Crab Boulevard calls this letter an “enormous miscalculation.” Blog of the Week Riehl World View agrees that the Democrats will pay a political price for their heavy-handedness:

[T]he ramifications of the current move by Dems to pressure ABC are going to have consequences far beyond a docu-drama. Americans don’t like people, especially politicians, messing with their TV. And the other big issue facing Republicans in the run up to the coming elections besides Iraq was firing up their base. I say was because the Dems have just saved the Republicans from having to go to the trouble.

The Democrats’ shameless maneuvering now going on on behalf of Clinton brings back, not only the animus Republicans have always felt for Clinton, while drawing attention to their general weakness in foreign affairs, it also reminds everyone of the scandal ridden side show that was Democrat Clinton’s presidency.

Well, one can always hope. But it’s hard to think of an instance of bully-boy tactics by the Democrats causing them any serious problems.

UPDATE: ABC says that it is still making changes in the program, evidently in response to the Democrats’ attacks, so we won’t know how effective the Democrats’ tactics have been until the program airs.

Plenty more to say, just this is an important list of facts, not what people feel.

Cross posted at:
Samantha Burns, The Amboy Times, Blue Star Chronicles, Stuck on Stupid, Linkfest Haven, TMH’s Bacon Bits and Point Five.

Welcome back and remember: Inline tracks backs are working! C’mon…show me your work!

Today’s “sea story” is not one of humor, but one of finding out I was in the presense of a man who almost was one of the original Project Mercury astronauts….

It’s a repeat, but from my earlier days of blogging, and a story I think is worth sharing once again. Capt Hawkins was quite a man. I include why such a fine leader never made flag rank, either….

Posted in the comments by Station Commando as a “war story” (he’s in the Army):

Being that I’m in the Army I don’t have any sea stories but here’s a good story along the same lines as yours. When the movie Tears of the Sun was being filmed I was stationed in Hawaii (where they filmed the movie.)

We received a request for any black Infantrymen who we thought we could do without for a few weeks to go be extras for the movie. They wanted black soldiers because they were playing the Nigerian soldiers in the movie. Our company sent four people over. One of them returned later that day because the movie people didn’t think he had dark enough complexion to pass for a Nigerian soldier, the other three were accepted.

They were going to be working on the movie all day every day for about 4 weeks. About 2 days into it they kicked one of our guys back. This guy was the biggest, dumbest klutz you’ve ever seen. Whenever the movie people would film a scene he would always be falling down or losing his fake AK-47. In one scene where all the Nigerians run through a small river bed he actually ran the wrong way, realized he was going the opposite direction as everyone else, and then promptly dropped his rifle in the river and had if float away. While everybody else was charging ahead he was chasing his rubber rifle down the river, falling down the whole way.

They gave him his check and sent him on his way.

The rest of the guys got paid pretty well (about $700 a week if I remember right) and got to tell everyone they were in the movie. They did say that for all you hear about Bruce Willis supporting the troops he never once came and said a word to any of the guys there and they were instructed by someone with the movie that if they said anything to him, even in passing, they would be promptly fired.

They also said that Bruce Willis didn’t so much as run up a hill. They had the stunt double do anything that would result in so much as breaking a mild sweat. I guess that’s Hollywood for you.

Part III left us hanging with lots and lots of engagements with simulated TASMs of simulated and constructive targets, and now we got around throught the Striats of Florida and parked south of Eglin AFB for the firing to two test rounds.

Not only was there tight OPSEC (operational security) around this because of the implication of the Soviets getting wind of the exercise and gathering data, but a family member of one of the staff at EGLIN was a member of Greenpeace and that organization had a plan, also. Something about finding out the time the Tomahawks would jet across the Flordia panhandle, overflying I-10, so they might park an 18 wheeler, equipped with barrage balloons to be sent aloft in a tethered configuration to try to stop the missiles.

I’m not sure if they figured they’d work in a deterrent mode and we’d just not launch, or if they thought they’d be able to “wing” a 450kt, one ton flying machine and bring it down. If the latter, rather than the former, I think they hadn’t thought out the negative pblicity that might come the way of Greenpeace if bits of high speed debris smacked into homes, vehicles or playgrounds along the ballistic path towards “the scene of the crash.”

Be that as it was, no balloons were sighted on the day of the test firing. We were embarked aboard USS CONOLLY (DD-979), and the Joint Cruise Missile Project Office (JCMPO) officers accompanied us as well. As officers, we all demonstrated our concern by standing behind the well trained fire controlmen of CONOLLY. Many, many things were double, triple and quadruple checked, but the firing went as planned inthe late morning. The afternoon was scheduled for the IOWA’s shot. Long story short (shortened because I don’t recall all the details), problems arose and the decision was made to wait until the following morning to try again. We had heloed over to IOWA after CONOLLY fired and got the grand tour by Capt Larry Seachrist. She certainly was a magnificent ship and the crew very proud of their charge. Gun Plot was quite a highlight of the tour, with the WWII era computational equipment still in pristine order and able to put 2000 lb rounds on targets 23 miles away.

Back to CONOLLY for the night, then up for the shot. By mid-day, things had cleared up and the bird left the armored box launcher as planned. The rest of the flight was not a success. Part way along the flight path, the missile suddenly deployed the recovery chute, which, as one might expect, caught the chase pilots by surprise. The good part was the TLAM was over land and an unpopulated area. The standby explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) detachment scrambled from Eglin in an Navy SH-3 and secured the missile.

We packed up our cruise boxes on CONOLLY and heloed off to Eglin, where BOQ accomodations awaited. We anxiously awaited a chance to sleep, as we had pretty much had none over the last 6 days. We checked in and I got in my room, set my bag down and the phone rang: “Get down to the Commodore’s room so we can capture the lessons learned while they are fresh in our minds.” So much for sleep, but we did get some useful stuff on paper. The next day we flew back to Norfolk in a Navy 707 from Pax River, one equipped for data collection and had been used for the Tomahawk shots. We got a little sleep then.

We were “blooded” now with Tomahawk experience and one of the reports we had committed to in our own Op Order was a lessons learned report to the chain of command in a few months. Part V will provide the interesting details of the “fallout” of the development of tactics for a notional battleship battle group (BBBG), in addtion to the value of digging up enough detail to know what you’re talking about when you have to take some performance data forward.

Up for reading: Part V – The Final Chapter!

“Something in the air” is a recent post at Neptunus Lex.

Subject matter: As the political debate in the execution of the GWoT continues, how is this affecting those who serve?

The main post is a well thought out, well stated point of view of a prefessional warrior, an aviator, and a man who has held command in a combat role. He is no stranger to the intricacies of conflict, and a well studied man, or men and events, as well.

The discussion is a sane, polite discourse, wtih those on both sides of the issue, complete with some links to supportive information for consideration.

If you need to see such temperate, yet controversial, discussions can still be held, it’s up to you to click and go read…and join if you will, in the sharing of ideas.

Over on Black Five, a story sent in by a soldier known to the blogosphere as “Questing Cat” talks about the junior soldiers in the light of the reality of youth, combat, and NCOs, and he uses that long known term “The New Guys” to describe the message.

QC is back in Iraq, on his second tour. During his last tour, he posted a raw, detailed and intense story of exercising his Combat Life Saver (CLS) skills one day on the battlefield. He wrote it shortly after returning from the mission and it was the kind of writing that told the story of what that medical aid person is going through as he takes care of a wounded comrade. That blog is no longer available (see note), but will most likely be featured in Black Five’s upcoming book, where he has collected and edited the best of military blogs. The book is close to being published.

For those who have served, you will instantly know you were one once. The comments by the readers have add on stories to confirm and amplify on QC’s excellent shot of life via his writing.

History. The military taking the lead in the changing of the society on the issue of racial integration.

In 1943, on this day: Commissioning of USS Harmon (DE 678), first Navy ship named for an African-American Sailor.

This is the quick story of the man the ship is named for:

Poster featuring Mess Attendant Harmon and USS Harmon (DE-678), which was named in his honor. He was killed in action on board USS San Francisco (CA-38) during the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, 13 November 1942. For his heroism in that action, Mess Attendant Harmon was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross. The poster also features the text of his award citation and a representation of the Navy Cross medal.

A fitting namesake for the ships that are at the tip of the spear, even today.