Some employees of the Defense Department, specifically the United States Air Force, and the White House, not to mention that bastion of incompetence the FAA, decided it would be a swell idea to send a great big airplane, initially described as a 747 airliner, one of the planes used as Air Force One, screaming low over Manhattan today, escorted by a military plane taking pictures.
It's not quite clear yet who pulled this stunt off.
Here's a link with a photo of the stunt today. Above, of course, is what a great many New Yorkers remember seeing one morning eight years ago.
Today's incomprehensible stunt was described as a "photo op." A secret "photo op." Surprise, horrified New Yorkers and those looking on from across the river in Jersey! Up there in the sky, that great big airplane swooping low over the skyline? It was just a photo op! A publicity stunt! Whatsa matter witcha? Get over it! Chill!
The stunt was so secret that the mayor of New York wasn't told, let alone the citizens of the city.
It just boggles the mind that anyone, let alone a group of people, thought this would be a good idea. Did none of the idiots behind this stunt even consider the fact that literally hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers personally witnessed the 9/11 attacks, and will live for the rest of their lives with the horrifying images of 9/11 in their heads?
And please remember, these were not images they saw on some television screen. These were images they saw in the skies over Manhattan with their own two eyes. They saw airliners swoop low over the city and crash into the two tallest buildings in New York. They saw and heard and in many cases felt those skyscrapers burn and tumble while thousands died.
My next-door-neighbor, who worked in the World Trade Center, was working out on the morning of 9/11 in the glass-rooftop gym at the Marriott Hotel situated between the two World Trade Center towers when the first plane hit. The Marriott collapsed along with the towers. He staggered home that night bloodied, covered in soot and dirt, his clothes ripped, his eyes hollow, to a wife and a child who thought he had died. Somehow, he got out. He has no idea how he made it home. He recalls only the strange, eerie image of an airplane swooping low, low over Manhattan -- and he'll take that image to his grave.
I was in a plane crash once, two and a half years ago, and walked away from it while 154 others did not. I still wake up many mornings with a terrible image in my head. It will never disappear.
And some people in the federal government thought it was OK to pull this stunt over New York, without letting New Yorkers know in advance that it was just that, a stunt?
I cannot get my jaw to un-drop over the invincible stupidity of this. Apologies are utterly insufficient. The people responsible for this must named, shamed and fired. Publicly fired. Slapped with a white glove. Drummed out of government employment, forever. In Times Square. High noon. Tomorrow.
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