Letters: Memories of 9/11

Re “The day after 9/11,” Opinion, Sept. 10

Americans were confronted with terrible images on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. By day’s end, families, friends and neighbors had come together as one nation united in grief.

The following day will be etched in my memory forever. I was driving and came to an intersection where all the cars had stopped. I observed several firefighters dressed in full gear, each holding a black boot. They went car to car collecting donations for the families of first responders who had died in the attacks. Many tears were shed at that intersection.

A firefighter’s boot will always remind me of the heroes and brave innocents who lost their lives on that terrible day.

Rick Schreiner

Norwalk

The memories are hard to bear.

The recurring images of couples holding hands as if to at least somewhat assuage the certainty of the last. Big firefighters weeping loudly and unconstrained. Civilians taking on the murderers as best they could with almost nothing to aid them, save for a food cart, a fist loaded with a cellphone or whatever — but above all else the crazy recklessness that accompanies a “nothing left to lose” decision. And for years thereafter the brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, wives and husbands not lost but left to ponder and scream into empty rooms.

And being 3,000 miles away but observing it all in front of the television, crying, grasping the air in utter helplessness. And it does not end.

Richard Berry

Hermosa Beach

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