Airline Pilot Central Forums - View Single Post - Magenta Line Friday September 11, 2009

09-11-2009, 04:18 PM

#2

CAL EWR

Gets Weekends Off

Joined APC: Nov 2006

Posts: 258

Item 7: Secretary-Treasurer’s Editorial

September 11, 2001

Those of us of a certain age know exactly where we were when we received the news of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. The generation before us remembered where they were when the news of Pearl Harbor reached them. Today’s generations remember 911 in the same way—the same denial, the same disbelief, the same gut-churning outrage. While President Kennedy’s assassination was an attack on a man, and Pearl Harbor was an attack on our military assets on a remote Pacific island, 911 was an attack on every one of us as Americans; it took place in our most populous city, it targeted thousands of civilians, and it was carried live on TV.

While hundreds of heroic Police Officers and Firefighters gave their lives that day, no other profession has paid the ongoing price we, as airline pilots, have paid. Continental Airlines management—indeed, management everywhere— lost no time in using the tragedy of 911 to their own advantage. Today, our earning power is about half of what it was 8 years ago, most of us have very little money to look forward to in retirement, and we must endure daily and petty violations at the hands of pretenders in security uniforms around the world.

We have become inured to the loss of the things that were taken from us that day—our pay, our retirement, our rights and freedoms. We no longer notice or comment on the stupidity of collecting all the dangerous liquids like water, shampoo, and toothpaste—and throwing them into one large trash barrel; the silliness of testing our laptop computers for bomb-making residue; or the sight of grandmothers and small children selected for extra screening by the “security” forces occupying our airports.

Most of us have succumbed to a kind of collective amnesia—in the same way the image of the World Trade Center has been removed from many older movies by computer trickery, we have removed our memories of that horrifying day by just not talking about it anymore. Yes, we make mention of it now and then but do we talk about it? Do we discuss the men and women in the twin towers trapped above the impact sites praying for rescue that would never come? Do we mention the paralyzing fear of those hanging from the outside of the towers making the last decision they would ever have to make: death by fire, death by building collapse—or death by jumping? Do we talk about those on the airplanes and in the towers and their final, agonizing cell phone calls to their families?

Like many unpleasant things, the more we push them from our minds the more we can pretend they don’t affect us as they once did. But, as difficult as it may be, 911 must be remembered for eternity. We must remember what we felt when we saw the second aircraft hit the World Trade Center on live TV, we must remember the speechless horror of watching dozens of people falling from the buildings like the leaves of autumn, and we must remember the ongoing vigils we kept as the overwhelmed rescue teams worked non-stop to find survivors buried in the wreckage of Ground Zero.

To put our past behind us, we must face it. Only when we can look evil in the eyes and not flinch and not turn away, can we say we have mastered it. America faced true evil that day—but has spent the past 8 years turning away. Our troops fight this evil in far-away lands and the only mention of them is when they are added to the warriors Roll of Honor. Here at home, we only think about 911 when we attempt to pass through the farce of airport security.

America is the greatest land, the greatest people, and the greatest source of opportunity our world has ever seen or ever will see. We can defeat the evil sworn to destroy us—but we first must remember that it exists—and then turn to face it.

Please remember our 147 hostages and their families.
“It’s good for the company to have a unified pilot force…If you guys are of all one mind then it does help the negotiations.” - Captain Fred Abbott, Newark Pilot Meeting, August 12, 2009

Captain Jayson Baron, EWR Council 170 Chairman
[email protected]
610 442-3817

First Officer Tara Cook, EWR Council 170 Vice Chairman
[email protected]
610 220-8904

Captain Kaye Riggs, EWR Council 170 Secretary-Treasurer
[email protected]
830 431-0450

Reply