Posted by
Jan@Oasis on Sunday, August 03, 2008 1:02:40 AM
Keeping in mind that B. H. Obama wants to leave us defenseless, disarm us, and is unbelievably naive about the actual state of the world today, here is my story:
My husband and I went to London in September of 2001 for a nice relaxing vacation. We were due to leave for the United States--home--on September 12. On September 11, we were on a boat on the Thames, enjoying a leisurely cruise down the river. We were below deck, and a woman with an instantly recognizable New York accent came down the stairs to ask if any of us were American. Several of us were. She said, "A plane has hit the World Trade Center." Oh, we thought, how awful. A terrible accident. But then she said, "A second plane hit shortly after the first one." We were stunned--it seemed that it had not been accidental after all. But we didn't think, yet, "Our country has been attacked." The boat took us back to shore, and we walked back to our hotel near Kings' Cross. As we walked, we noticed people crowded around store windows with TVs. But we didn't stop to see what they were watching. It wasn't until we arrived at our hotel and turned on the TV in our room to the BBC that we realized: yes. The United States had been attacked. I immediately tried to call our three daughters at home in Arizona. But the lines were all busy, and they stayed that way. We could not reach Delta Airlines to see if we could fly out the next day, but we were hearing that all planes were grounded. Panic began to set in, yet it still seemed unreal. Do you know when it finally sank in? It was when I heard that Barbara Olson, a writer I knew of--I had read one of her books--was aboard one of the doomed flights, and that she had called her husband on her cell phone and asked him what she should do. He knew, of course, that there was nothing she could do. I kept trying to call home. I knew my children must be frantic. But we couldn't get through.
The next morning, still unable to contact Delta, we could not bear the thought of not being able to leave for home, and we took the limo to the airport anyway. Our driver was from India. He was as distressed as we were, and having overheard our talking about not being able to reach our daughters, he handed me his cell phone and told us to call them. He said he had six brothers in New York and had talked to all of them. "What's another call?" he asked. I was able to reach my daughters and tell them that we were trying desperately to fly home, but that I didn't know if we could. Of course, when we reached the airport we were informed we could not fly--all planes were grounded. Our limo driver had offered to wait for us, knowing we were unlikely to be able to leave. As he was driving us back to London, he handed me the phone again. "You should call and tell them you won't be flying," he said. Bless his heart, he then proceeded to take us to a hotel he knew of that we might be able to stay in. We had checked out of our hotel already, and we couldn't afford to spend any more time there anyway. The hotel he took us to did have a room. I think we were the only English speaking people there, but at least we had a room.
Do you have any idea what we were thinking? We wanted to go home in the worst way. Our country was under assault, and we were stuck in a foreign country with no apparent way out. But we were fortunate. My husband was born in Germany, and his family still lives there. He called Delta from our new hotel and asked if we could fly out of Frankfurt. The Delta representative said we could, if we could get there. We made a reservation for that Friday, I believe the 14th. Now we only had to find out way to Frankfurt.
Enter the best brother-in-law in the history of the world. My husband called his sister and her husband and told them that we needed to come to Germany in order to leave for home. We would try to make our way to Ostende, Belgium, from London. Should we take the train to Cologne from there, my husband asked? No, they said. Gerhard will pick you up. Period.
And thus began our journey toward home. We took a cab, a lovely HUGE cab, from our hotel to the Charing Cross Station. We caught a train to Dover, and endured that trip with a very drunk, belligerant man. But also on that trip were some ladies around our age. They could tell we were American. My husband said, "We're just trying to get home." They looked at us with great sympathy. "Well of course you are," they said. In fact, NO ONE in Great Britain EVER gave us the feeling that what the Lefties are always telling us--that everyone hates us-- is true. We never felt anything but respect and affection from the British, and the Scots in Edinburgh where we spent a wonderful day. Dennis Prager is right. The world doesn't hate America, the Left of the world hates America. The rest of them are smart enough to know us for what we really are.
In Dover we bought tickets for the Hovercraft to skim us across the English Channel to Ostende. On the way we sat with another American couple who had been on their way home from a vacation in Greece. Slightly less than halfway across the Atlantic, the pilot came on the intercom and said, "There is nothing wrong with the plane, but we must go to London." That was all they knew until they landed and found out that America had been attacked. They were fortunate to have friends in Belgium who would do for them what my husband's family did for us--take them in, and get them to Frankfurt to fly home.
My brother-in-law drove five hours in the pouring rain to pick us up. We sat in a restaurant in Ostende, where the waiter spoke excellent English and offered us much care and sympathy, watching the rain and wondering how in the world we had ended up in such a fix, and how in the world we were so blessed as to have a brother-in-law like Gerhard. It still seemed unreal, though we had seen the film of the WTC towers being destroyed a number of times, while still in London. On the Hovercraft we had read several newspaper articles about people from Great Britain who had been killed in the attack on the U.S. We were all in this together, at that point in time at least. We felt great kinship with the British and indeed with all of Europe. My, that didn't last long. But it was a very comforting feeling while it did last.
We were fortunate too in that we were able to see my mother-in-law and my husband's brother and his wife, who happened to be visiting by chance. We saw our nephews too, and that was a treat. It turned out to be the last time I was to see my mother-in-law, and it was a small positive in a hugely negative situation.
We flew home by way of Atlanta. There was a huge delay in Frankfurt, for some of the crew who would have flown with us had been killed on the flights that were hijacked by the vermin who perpetrated the attacks. The crew who eventually flew with us were volunteers, and they were our heroes. Some were friends of the ones who had been killed, and they were devastated. But they came to our rescue, knowing how much we wanted to touch American soil. I don't even remember if we were still on Delta, or if some other airline brought us, finally, to Phoenix. I only know that arriving in Atlanta, we were home already, we were in America. Along the way we heard many stories from other Americans who had experienced the trauma in their own way. One woman who had been on her way from Italy with her tiny dog was told, upon arrival in London, that the dog would have to be quarantined for two weeks. She was nearly hysterical, convinced the dog would not survive. Someone found a vet to certify that the dog could go ahead and fly.
In Frankfurt, a woman who was ahead of us in the third security check line dropped her passport between the stairs and the wall. Her husband was ahead of her, about to board the plane. She was frantic. But the airport people grabbed a maintenance man and he retrieved her passport, and she was able to get on the plane. And a word about security in Frankfurt. The last time I had been to Germany was in 1989, and even then the airport security force carried M 16s or Uzis or some such impressive weapons. All I can say is, YAY. I never felt safer than I did there, with the Army walking around armed to the teeth. Let's see some terrorist try something there. I would feel vastly more comforted if our American airports were teeming with armed military types. Bring on the Uzis. Forget the patting down of random passengers, none of whom are from Islamic countries where terrorism is celebrated and encouraged. Mostly, from what I can tell, they are white-haired grannies from Cleveland, or six month pregnant blond married women from Tucson. PROFILE, people. Seriously.
I haven't been back to Europe since that ill-fated trip in 2001. I don't regret going, for my family came from Scotland and I have always felt such an affinity for the British. Granted, you don't see nearly as many British people in London as you do Indians, Somalis, Arabs, Chinese, etc., etc. But you still get the feeling that we are kin.
And one more word about how it was all handled. London was a target too, but the FAA grounded the flights all over the world so fast that it thwarted the plan to make London part of the plot. God knows what else was thwarted. Once in a while even a blind pig finds a truffle.
My message is this. I am sick and tired of Obama and his terminal naivity in the face of such colossal evil as we are facing in Islamic terrorism and fascism. I am sick of him and his racist, anti-American megalomania. He is hopelessly inept, and if I hear one more person say he is SMART I think my head will truly explode. He is NOT smart. He is a creation of the media, out of whole cloth. He is incompetent, egomaniacal, racist, and, as I keep telling everyone, stupid. He cannot say three words without a teleprompter, and even when he has one he still doesn't say ANYTHING of substance. Except, once in a while, a bit of Marxist dogma. Yikes, is that what you lemmings have been waiting for? Well, I guess, yeah.
Today my husband talked to another brother-in-law in Berlin. Asked what the Germans REALLY thought about Obama's visit to Berlin, he said they were not much impressed with a guy who goes around acting like he has already been elected. Once again, the mainstream media has told you what the Germans thought and you are supposed to buy it, hook, line and sinker. Don't. He is a media creation. There is nothing to him.
But do remember September 11, 2001. Obama is determined to remove any and all defenses that the United States has at its disposal at the moment, and to prevent any future defense plans from coming to fruition. He is so demented, he thinks he can TALK the evil in the world into being GOOD. It's possible he could bore them to death, but I don't think we can count on that. McCain is not my cup of tea, he is not a Conservative, he is awful on a whole host of issues, but he is INFINITELY better than this sorry, silly teeny bopper of a candidate. Vote for life--OURS, as well as those of the full term infants Obama is more than willing to see murdered in the name of "choice."
Don't forget......