http://www.ishaah.com/Remember911.htm
This is a beutiful page for the 1 year anniversary.
http://www.911digitalarchive.org/special/tribute.swf
An Unlikely Hero
The Marine who found two WTC survivors.
By Rebecca Liss
September 10, 2002
Only 12 survivors were pulled from the rubble of the World Trade Center after the towers fell on Sept. 11, despite intense rescue efforts. Two of the last three to be located and saved were Port Authority police officers. They were not discovered by a heroic firefighter, or a rescue worker, or a cop. They were discovered by Dave Karnes.
Karnes hadn't been near the World Trade Center. He wasn't even in New York when the planes hit the towers. He was in Wilton, Conn., working in his job as a senior accountant with Deloitte Touche. When the second plane hit, Karnes told his colleagues, "We're at war." He had spent 23 years in the Marine Corps infantry and felt it was his duty to help. Karnes told his boss he might not see him for a while.
Then he went to get a haircut.
The small barbershop in Stamford, Conn., near his home, was deserted. "Give me a good Marine Corps squared-off haircut," he told the barber. When it was done, he drove home to put on his uniform. Karnes always kept two sets of Marine fatigues hanging in his closet, pressed and starched. "It's kind of weird to do, but it comes in handy," he says. Next Karnes stopped by the storage facility where he kept his equipment?he'd need rappelling gear, ropes, canteens of water, his Marine Corps K-Bar knife, and a flashlight, at least. Then he drove to church. He asked the pastor and parishioners to say a prayer that God would lead him to survivors. A devout Christian, Karnes often turned to God when faced with decisions.
Finally, Karnes lowered the convertible top on his Porsche. This would make it easier for the authorities to look in and see a Marine, he reasoned. If they could see who he was, he'd be able to zip past checkpoints and more easily gain access to the site. For Karnes, it was a "God thing" that he was in the Porsche?a Porsche 911?that day. He'd only purchased it a month earlier?it had been a stretch, financially. But he decided to buy it after his pastor suggested that he "pray on it." He had no choice but to take it that day because his Mercury was in the shop. Driving the Porsche at speeds of up to 120 miles per hour, he reached Manhattan?after stopping at McDonald's for a hamburger?in the late afternoon.
His plan worked. With the top off, the cops could see his pressed fatigues, his neatly cropped hair, and his gear up front. They waved him past the barricades. He arrived at the site?"the pile"?at about 5:30. Building 7 of the World Trade Center, a 47-story office structure adjacent to the fallen twin towers, had just dramatically collapsed. Rescue workers had been ordered off the pile?it was too unsafe to let them continue. Flames were bursting from a number of buildings, and the whole site was considered unstable. Standing on the edge of the burning pile, Karnes spotted ? another Marine dressed in camouflage. His name was Sgt. Thomas. Karnes never learned his first name, and he's never come forward in the time since.
Together Karnes and Thomas walked around the pile looking for a point of entry farther from the burning buildings. They also wanted to move away from officials trying to keep rescue workers off the pile. Thick, black smoke blanketed the site. The two Marines couldn't see where to enter. But then "the smoke just opened up." The sun was setting and through the opening Karnes, for the first time, saw clearly the massive destruction. "I just said 'Oh, my God, it's totally gone.' " With the sudden parting of the smoke, Karnes and Thomas entered the pile. "We just disappeared into the smoke?and we ran."
They climbed over the tangled steel and began looking into voids. They saw no one else searching the pile?the rescue workers having obeyed the order to leave the area. "United States Marines," Karnes began shouting. "If you can hear us, yell or tap!"
Over and over, Karnes shouted the words. Then he would pause and listen. Debris was shifting and parts of the building were collapsing further. Fires burned all around. "I just had a sense, an overwhelming sense come over me that we were walking on hallowed ground, that tens of thousands of people could be trapped and dead beneath us," he said.
After about an hour of searching and yelling, Karnes stopped.
"Be quiet," he told Thomas, "I think I can hear something."
He yelled again. "We can hear you. Yell louder." He heard a faint muffled sound in the distance.
"Keep yelling. We can hear you." Karnes and Thomas zeroed in on the sound.
"We're over here," they heard.
Two Port Authority police officers, Will Jimeno and Sgt. John McLoughlin, were buried in the center of the World Trade Center ruins, 20 feet below the surface. They could be heard but not seen. By jumping into a larger opening, Karnes could hear Jimeno better. But he still couldn't see him. Karnes sent Thomas to look for help. Then he used his cell phone to call his wife, Rosemary, in Stamford and his sister Joy in Pittsburgh. (He thought they could work the phones and get through to New York police headquarters.)
"Don't leave us," Officer Jimeno pleaded. He later said he feared Karnes' voice would trail away, as had that of another potential rescuer hours earlier. It was now about 7 p.m. and Jimeno and McLoughlin had been trapped for roughly nine hours. Karnes stayed with them, talking to them until help arrived, in the form of Chuck Sereika, a former paramedic with an expired license who put pulled his old uniform out of his closet and came to the site. Ten minutes later, Scott Strauss and Paddy McGee, officers with the elite Emergency Service Unit of the NYPD, also arrived.
The story of how Strauss and Sereika spent three hours digging Jimeno out of the debris, which constantly threatened to collapse, has been well told in the New York Times and elsewhere. At one point, all they had with which to dig out Jimeno were a pair of handcuffs. Karnes stood by, helping pass tools to Strauss, offering his Marine K-Bar knife when it looked as if they might have to amputate Jimeno's leg to free him. (After Jimeno was finally pulled out, another team of cops worked for six more hours to free McLoughlin, who was buried deeper in the pile.)
Karnes left the site that night when Jimeno was rescued and went with him to the hospital. While doctors treated the injured cop, Karnes grabbed a few hours sleep on an empty bed in the hospital psychiatric ward. While he slept, the hospital cleaned and pressed his uniform.
Today, on the anniversary of the attack and the rescue, officers Jimeno and Strauss will be part of the formal "Top Cop" ceremony at the New York City Center Theater. Earlier the two appeared on a nationally televised episode of America's Most Wanted. Jimeno and McLoughlin appeared this week on the Today show. They are heroes.
Today, Dave Karnes will be speaking at the Maranatha Bible Baptist Church in Wilkinsburg, Penn., near where he grew up. He sounds excited, over the phone, talking about the upcoming ceremony. Karnes is a hero, too.
But it's also clear Karnes is a hero in a smaller, less national, less public, less publicized way than the cops and firefighters are heroes. He's hardly been overlooked?the program I work for, 60 Minutes II, interviewed him as part of a piece on Jimeno's rescue?but the great televised glory machine has so far not picked him. Why? One reason seems obvious?the cops and firefighters are part of big, respected, institutional support networks. Americans are grateful for the sacrifices their entire organizations made a year ago. Plus, the police and firefighting institutions are tribal brotherhoods. The firefighters help and support and console each other; the cops do the same. They find it harder to make room for outsiders like Karnes (or Chuck Sereika). And, it must be said, at some macho level it's vaguely embarrassing that the professional rescuers weren't the ones who found the two survivors. While the pros were pulled back out of legitimate caution, the job fell to an outsider, who drove down from Connectict and just walked onto the burning pile.
Columnist Stewart Alsop once famously identified two rare types of soldiers, the "crazy brave" and the "phony tough." The professionals at Ground Zero?I interviewed dozens in my work as a producer for CBS?were in no way phony toughs. But Karnes does seem a bit "crazy brave." You'd have to be slightly abnormal?abnormally selfless, abnormally patriotic?to do what he did. And some of the same qualities that led Karnes to make himself a hero when it counted may make him less perfect as the image of a hero today.
Officer Strauss tells a story that gets at this. When he was out on the pile a year ago, trying to pull Officer Jimeno free, Strauss shouted orders to his volunteer helpers?"Medic, I need air," or "Marine, get me some water." At one point, in the middle of this exhausting work, Strauss, asked if he could call them by their names to facilitate the process. The medic said he was "Chuck."
Karnes said: "You can call me 'staff sergeant.' "
"That's three syllables!" said Strauss, who needed every bit of energy and every second of time. "Isn't there something shorter?"
Karnes replied: "You can call me 'staff sergeant.' "
I have received mail this week from readers objecting to my recent contention that the United States is not at war. There are two main strands to this debate: Are we at war, and should we be? The first is a matter of law: Can we be at war without a congressional declaration? Is war a subjective status (as in, "hmmm, sure feels like a war out there today") or is it a formal, objective legal state? This question has already launched a thousand constitutional, scholarly, and rhetorical ships, and I'll get back to you with an answer if Eugene Volokh and I get it sorted out this weekend over e-mail.
The second?and to my mind, more urgent?question is how did we come to be talking in terms of a "war" at all? Why does the war model?soldiers, uniforms, nation-states, civilians, weapons, and battlefields?apply to our fight against terrorism? The administration calls this a "war on terror" to avail itself of the limitless executive powers?mainly domestic detention and surveillance?triggered in wartime. This "war on terror"?wherein we track down rogue al-Qaida members, then hold and/or torture them?is not a conventional military operation that meets any technical or international definition of "war." And the oddest part of it all is that despite all this insistence that we are fighting a war, almost no one can come forward with a coherent theory of why.
Yes, America was attacked on Sept. 11. But there have been terror attacks on U.S. targets before?al-Qaida attacks that weren't met with a unilateral declaration of war or a rolling out of any Patriot Acts and their creepy DOJ surveillance progeny. There were criminal prosecutions and convictions in the destruction of PanAm Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland; the earlier WTC attack in 1993; the 1998 bombings of two U.S. Embassies in East Africa; the (foiled) "Day of Terror" plot (to bomb New York City tunnels, the U.N. building, and the FBI building in New York); and the (foiled) millennium bombing of LAX in 1999. The only difference between these plots and Sept. 11 was that their combined death tolls were in the hundreds, as opposed to the thousands. While that difference in scale is not morally insignificant?not by any means?it is not necessarily legally significant. The difference between a "crime" and a "war" doesn't necessarily come down to integers.
Before we decide that the only way to fight terror is through war, it's worth recalling that the criminal prosecutions for each of the above acts of terror were not only successful; they were also constitutional, frequently transparent, and overwhelmingly legal and fair. What happened on Sept. 11 to discredit the criminal law system? What failures in this system drove the administration to call immediately for secret roundups of "material witnesses," military tribunals, and secret deportation hearings? Did something go so badly in the first WTC prosecution that led to the decision to detain "enemy combatants" without trial forever? How did we lose faith in a system that worked so well?
Criminal trials are not going to solve every problem facing the nation right now: They cannot stop Iraq from launching weapons of mass destruction, and they would not have removed the Taliban from power. But it doesn't follow that the criminal law cannot bring terrorists to justice, nor does it follow that we need to gut the existing system?replacing openness with secrecy, and due process with parodies of process?to do so.
First WTC Bombing : On Feb. 26, 1993, a car bomb exploded in the basement of the World Trade Center, leaving six dead and over a thousand wounded. A cell of fundamentalist Muslim terrorists planned and executed the attacks, and zealous domestic investigation, along with diplomacy and extraditions, led to the trial and conviction of all but one of the terrorists. In 1995, after a nine-month trial, 12 defendants were convicted in federal district court of conspiracy to bomb the World Trade Center, as well as of plotting in 1993 to bomb the United Nations, the FBI building in New York, and the Holland and Lincoln tunnels, and to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. (Evidently we all missed the trial because we were too busy watching O.J.)
African Embassy Bombings: More than 220 African and American citizens were killed in two almost simultaneous bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in 1998. Twenty-three defendants were charged with various offenses, four of whom were convicted in federal court on May 29, 2001. All were sentenced to life in prison. Others are being held; still others remain at large.
Millennium Bombing: A plot to bomb the Los Angeles International Airport in the midst of the millennium festivities of 1999 was foiled when Ahmed Ressam was arrested crossing the border from Canada in a car with a trunk full of explosives. Last year, after a three-week trial in Los Angeles, a jury found Ressam guilty of nine criminal counts?including conspiracy to commit an act of international terrorism. Despite a mini-squabble with the Canadian government?which didn't want to share intelligence secrets in court?the testimony of Canadian intelligence officials was provided at the eleventh hour, without incident. Facing 57 to 130 years in prison, Ressam agreed to a deal with the DOJ and has since provided the government with detailed information about training with the Taliban and the structure of al-Qaida. He will testify against Zacarias Moussaoui and Abu Zubaydah (reportedly a top lieutenant in al-Qaida), who was captured last March. Ressam also provided crucial testimony against his co-conspirator in the millennium plot, Mokhtar Haouari, who was also convicted in 2001.
No one would tell you these trials were disasters. No one would argue we are less safe today as a result of these criminal prosecutions. Certainly there were security issues: information to be sealed; witnesses, judges and jurors to be protected; and fears throughout of further incidents. But the procedures instituted for handling those issues worked. The investigations leading up to the trials also uncovered future plots. And the convictions have produced government informants and witnesses for future prosecutions. Terrorists have been incapacitated for life, and cells have been disrupted. Still, the national presumption remains that prosecuting terrorists via standard criminal means has failed us somehow; perhaps because no one trial can pre-empt all future attacks.
No one war will pre-empt all future attacks either.
The first thing greeting Michael Hingson and his guide dog, Roselle, was the choking stench of jet fuel wafting down the north tower of the World Trade Center.
Hingson hadn't seen what happened -- the 51-year-old has been blind since birth. But it wasn't hard to figure some sort of aircraft had struck the building with tremendous force at 8:45am, Tuesday, September 11.
Quickly, he told the few people in his office to get out of there and suggested they take the stairs because he believed the elevators surely wouldn't be working. He had no idea what was happening. The Palmdale native, well-versed in earthquakes, said he only knew the rocking skyscraper was in terrible trouble -- and that he was pretty much alone -- on the 78th floor.
"The office was empty except for myself, David, Frank and Roselle," he said. "I took a moment to call my wife and tell her there was an explosion at the World Trade Center and that I'd be home as soon as I could."
With that, he hung up the phone, grabbed the harness for Roselle and began issuing the commands that told the yellow Labrador retriever it was time to go to work.
But the dog, who had only been his guide for nine months, was already raring to go. She had been, in fact, since the initial impact that jarred her from an early-morning slumber under Hingson's desk.
"She had already jumped up from there," Hingson said. "Usually she doesn't even stir when the wind shakes the tower." While Frank described to Hingson how flaming chunks of debris tumbled past their window, Roselle led him through the disheveled office and, eventually, to the stairwell.
"The crowds weren't huge at first," Hingson said. "But as we started making our way down, they got bigger." It was getting hot, too, with temperatures in the stairwell climbing higher than 90 degrees. Hingson was sweating and Roselle was panting. By the time they got to about the 50th floor, United Airlines Flight 175 had slammed into the south tower of the World Trade Center -- something he wouldn't know about until later.
Instead, the smell of kerosene was getting stronger and soon he felt people bumping into him as Roselle, Frank and he continued downstairs. The problem was, the people bumping into him were going the wrong way.
"I heard applause and was told they were firefighters," he said. "I clapped a few on the back, but I was scared for where they were going." He should have been worried. Temperatures in the north tower were scorching the top part of the building at more than 1,000 degrees. And that heat was working its way through the stairwell each time people opened a door in an attempt to escape.
Others were worried, too. As news spread across the country about the terrorist attack on the twin towers, Kay and Ted Stern watched the news, horrified, from their Santa Barbara home. The Sterns knew Hingson worked in the World Trade Center and had met him in December 1998 when they went to visit him and Roselle -- the puppy they had helped train for her eventual career as a guide dog.
"We had several friends in New York, including Hingson, and we sent emails immediately and asked for them to respond so we would know if they were OK," Ted Stern said.
At that time, however, Hingson, wasn't even sure he would be all right. The stairs were thick with people clambering -- not stampeding, but moving quickly. And Hingson was worried about Roselle. The dog had begun panting heavily, her throat scratched by jet-fuel fumes. No air was circulating and Hingson knew she was thirsty. Frank stayed with both of them and they finally reached the lobby of the building.
"A lot of pipes had broken and there were puddles on the floor," he said. "Roselle was stopping to drink some of the water, so I knew she was very thirsty."
It had taken them 50 minutes to get down the stairs and it took them another 10 minutes to actually get out of the building and onto the street. The plan was to get to Frank's car and drive away, but at 9:50am, that plan was scrapped.
"I heard the second tower collapsing," Hingson said. "It sounded like a metal and concrete waterfall. We started running for the subway."
He heard the shrieks of terror and yet Roselle remained focused on her task. He kept the commands simple -- left, right -- and a police officer steered them into the subway. When they emerged, Hingson was told the north tower was gone and the south tower was smoldering near the top.
"It was unbelievable," he said. "I felt lucky to be out of there. But I wondered about the firefighters."
About 20 minutes later, while they were making their way from the World Trade Center, the south tower caved in on itself, sending a rolling gray cloud of ash, glass and debris toward them. Everyone became coated with the soot of what had once been two 110-story buildings. If Hingson could have seen her, Roselle had become a gray Labrador.
Because there were no trains operating that day, Hingson had to stay at a friend's house in Manhattan on Tuesday night before going home to his wife in Westfield, New Jersey, on Wednesday. He then began the long process of emailing everyone who was waiting to hear from him.
The Sterns finally heard from him Friday after Hingson contacted the San Rafael-based Guide Dogs for the Blind, Inc.
Joanne Ritter, spokeswoman for the nonprofit company that supplies guide dogs to the blind around the country, said Roselle was the first puppy the Sterns raised to be a service dog. The Sterns, for their part, said Hingson's story has inspired them to continue working with service dogs.
"We're training our fourth dog now," she said. "But Michael's story sure gives us a lot of validation."
David Montero
____________________________________________
David Montero is a writer for the Scripps-McClatchy Western Service.
We all know who attacked us on Sept. 11, 2001, don't we? No, not Osama bin Laden. God, that is so last year. It never turns out to be the person you first suspect. It was Saddam Hussein. For some reason we couldn't find him when we went after him in Afghanistan, bringing that magic elixir of regime change along with us. But now we've got a better idea: Track him down where he actually lives, in Baghdad, and punish him right in his own backyard. It's the only way to obtain justice for the thousands he killed on 9/11.
In this latest rewrite of history, Osama has suddenly lost his beard and grown a mustache, morphing into the Butcher of Baghdad -- or one of the look-alike stand-ins Saddam has been using for public appearances since 1998.
"You can't distinguish between al-Qaida and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror," said President Bush in the Oval Office last week.
Really? He can't differentiate between a group of evil ultra-radical Islamic fundamentalists that carried out the Sept. 11 attacks and an evil secular nationalist who, despite the frantic efforts of the Bush administration, has not been directly linked to 9/11? He'd better start making such distinctions -- and fast. When every expert who knows anything about the Mideast can distinguish between the two, is it too much to ask that a president who's ready to go to war look a bit closer?
People under stress often regress to earlier stages of development. It appears Bush is so intent on getting Saddam, so tightly gripped by a need to succeed where his war-hero dad failed, so obsessively determined to lay the murderous 9/11 assault at Baghdad's door, that he's regressed to that level of childhood development where fantasy, reality and wish fulfillment are all mixed up. Except that this time, things like nuclear weapons and the safety of the world for the next few decades are involved.
Now, I'm no psychologist, but I believe there is a clinical term for this condition: going off the deep end.
How else to explain the president's bizarre response to a reporter's straightforward query last week about who poses a bigger threat to America, Saddam or al-Qaida?
"That's an interesting question," he replied. "I'm trying to think of something humorous to say but I can't when I think about al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein."
When did the president take over "The Tonight Show"? Why would the idea that he should make a joke about such a deadly serious subject even cross his mind? It would be like asking Danielle van Dam's parents about the trial of their daughter's murderer and having them apologize for not being ready with a humorous quip.
No, Mr. President, you needn't apologize -- your inability to treat serious subjects lightly is not one of your deficiencies. So rather than struggle to come up with a wan witticism, why don't you just answer the question? Especially since it appears by your actions that you've already come up with one.
Instead of bothering to give the least defense of his sudden fusion of Saddam and Osama, Bush launched into a fantasy-fueled diatribe: "The danger is, is that they work in concert. The danger is, is that al-Qaida becomes an extension of Saddam's madness and his hatred and his capacity to extend weapons of mass destruction around the world."
The president's regressed condition is spreading like the West Nile virus throughout the West Wing and beyond.
Witness the symptomatic blurring of fact and fantasy exhibited by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. When asked at an Armed Services Committee hearing about what is now compelling us to "take precipitous actions" against Iraq, Rumsfeld barked: "What's different? What's different is 3,000 people were killed." Yeah, by Mohammed Atta and company -- not Saddam Hussein. By why quibble over details when there is a propaganda war to be won?
National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice continued the assault on reality when she vaguely yet ominously claimed: "There clearly are contacts between al-Qaida and Iraq that can be documented." Well then, why not document them? We've documented contacts between al-Qaida and our oil dealers in Saudi Arabia and al-Qaida and our new best friends in Pakistan. But I don't see any B-2s powering up for raids over Riyadh or Karachi.
As is the White House custom, Rice simply refused to back up her claims. So did Rumsfeld, who memorably rebuffed a reporter late last week by saying, "That happens to be a piece of intelligence that either we don't have or we don't want to talk about." In other words: Proof? We don't need no stinking proof! And just because I'm asking your sons and daughters to possibly sacrifice their lives for it doesn't mean you deserve to know whether it even exists.
It would be nice if we could just take them all at their word and let the bombs fall where they may. But Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., who, as chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence is privy to the inside scoop, says he's seen no evidence of any link between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein.
So we're left with the fevered, infantile imaginings of the president and his pals. "We had dots before," said Anna Perez, Rice's spokeswoman. "Now we have a higher density of dots. Have we connected those dots? No."
Perhaps the president should put down his saber-rattle, pick up his crayons, and connect them before drawing us into a bloody war.
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About the writer: Arianna Huffington is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of eight books. Her most recent, "How to Overthrow the Government," was published in 2000 by Regan Books (HarperCollins).
September 11, 2001. I watched in horror as the World Trade Center towers were erased from the skyline of New York City. Glued to the television, I felt deep sorrow for the families of thousands who would be grieving intensely. There was no warning, no good-byes and for most, no bodies to bury. There was only stark horror and lives forever changed.
I so regretted that my book, A Passage through Grief, had gone out of print in December. It could have helped in this desperate time of need. As a hospice and church volunteer, that book had been my text and guide in leading grief support groups. It offered encouragement and hope. Now, the people of New York City needed both.
Before the sun went down on that horrible day, God began laying a burden on my heart too big to ignore. I felt he wanted me to send 10,000 copies of my out-of-print book to the grieving survivors. Incredible, in place of any doubts, I felt excited and empowered by the task.
I told no one until the following Sunday, when I shared my plan with Pastor Syd. He was supportive but questioned how I would distribute the books once they were delivered to New York. All I could answer was, "If God gets them there, He'll also get them distributed to the right places."
The next morning I called the publisher inquiring about the process of printing and donating 10,000 books. And then I waited. God seemed to be saying, Trust me.
Two days later, I was excited to get an e-mail from the publisher saying they were checking prices on printing the books in paperback instead of the original hard cover. While waiting, I talked to several writers about printing costs and heard prices from $2.80 to $4.00 each. Suddenly my mission became raising thirty to forty thousand dollars. Yet God was still saying, Trust Me.
I spent hours at my computer sending e-mails to everyone I knew, asking them to send e-mails to their friends. I told them there would be no profit or royalties paid to anyone for this project. "I can't do this alone. I need your help," was my plea. I gave them the address of my home church as a fund-receiving center. I'll have to admit I was counting up any of my own personal resources that could be liquidated to pay for the books if I didn't get donations. I had a small inheritance from my mom who'd died in June. And I could sell my motor home. It surprised me to have such perfect peace about doing that as I continued to pray, "Please God, send the rest of the money."
Meanwhile, Pastor Syd, still concerned about distribution, wrote an e-mail to two men he knew who would be involved in counseling in New York City. He hit the "send" button and went home. When he returned to work the next morning, messages of willingness to help were waiting, but not from the recipients of his e-mail. Upon investigation, he found that he had apparently hit a wrong button and mistakenly sent his message to every Conservative Baptist church in the United States. Messages came all day: We just received your e-mail. . . We would like to get the word out to our congregation. . . Please let us know where we can send contributions. . . We would like to include the address in this week's bulletin. . .
Other messages came: I'm not sure why I got this e-mail but I can share some input with you. I am currently in New York City working as a part of the NW Medical Trauma Counseling Team. I can see that in the coming months there is going to be a need for material such as you are suggesting. I would suggest you look for a release date about a month from now. . . I am praying for you. . . We are planning to take up a special collection for you next Sunday.
Later that day, Pastor Syd sent me an e-mail that said, "Now I seldom get too excited, but today I laughed out loud. God doesn't make a mistake, but He uses human mistakes!"
As the days went by, we saw more and more of God's perfect plan for this project. My publisher generously decided to get involved, pricing the books below their cost. However, I would have to prepay the order before the printing could begin. In faith, I charged it all on my two credit cards. I felt certain that the money would come to pay for them - and it did. Money came from all over America - it came from other writers, friends, my family, churches and strangers who I probably will never meet.
God's inconceivable plan even included a distributor. The day I ordered the books, I received an e-mail from a Baptist church in New Jersey that had received my pastor's stray e-mail. They wrote: "We have a 'Heart for the Nation' fund that may be able to help. Is it possible that we could have books sent directly here. . .? We are fifteen miles from the World Trade Center and have a great need to meet in this area. Thanks."
The books were paid for and shipped on October 29th. The conservative Baptist church in New Jersey went to work distributing 5,000 copies all over the area. Books were given to churches for use in grief support groups and chaplains gave hundreds of them to firefighters and police officers at Ground Zero. The Metro Baptist Association of the Southern Baptist Convention distributed 2,000 books, many of those in Christmas packages given to families of those who died. And the Salvation Army took the remaining 3,000, and used my newly revised leader's guide for training at a weekend conference for grief counselors. I was amazed at God's plan.
Pastor Syd never did get an answer from either of the two men he sent the original e-mail to. But the misrouted e-mail did the job God intended it to do.
Reprinted by permission of Barbara Baumgardner © 2001 from Chicken Soup for the Christian Woman's Soul by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Patty Aubery, Nancy Autio and LeAnn Thieman. All rights reserved.
Prayer wheel for our soldiers:
"Lord, hold our troops in your loving hands. Protect them as they protect us. Bless them and their families for the selfless acts they perform for us in our time of need. I ask this in the name of Jesus, our Lord and Savior. Amen."
Prayer Wheel: When you receive this, please stop for a moment and say a prayer for our ground troops in Afghanistan. This can be very powerful Please.... Of all the gifts you could give a US Soldier, Prayer is the very best one
Osama bin Laden was sitting in his cave wondering who to terrorize next when his telephone rang.
"Hallo, Mr. Laden" a heavily accented voice said. "This is Paddy down at the Harp Pub in County Sligo, Ireland. I am ringing to inform you that we are officially declaring war on you!"
"Well, Paddy," Osama replied, "This is indeed important news! How big is your army?"
"Right now," said Paddy, after a moment's calculation, "there is myself, my cousin Sean, my next door neighbor Seamus, and the entire dart team from the pub. That makes eight!"
Osama paused. "I must tell you, Paddy, that I have one million men in my army waiting to move on my command."
"Begorra!", said Paddy. "I'll have to ring you back!"
Sure enough, the next day, Paddy called again. "Mr.Laden, the war is still on! We have managed to acquire some infantry equipment!"
"And what equipment would that be, Paddy?" Osama asked.
"Well, we have two combines, a bulldozer, and Murphy's farm tractor."
Osama sighed. "I must tell you, Paddy, that I have 16,000 tanks and 14,000 armored personnel carriers. Also, I've increased my army to 1-1/2 million since we last spoke."
"Saints preserve us!" said Paddy. "I'll have to get back to you."
Sure enough, Paddy rang again the next day. "Mr. Laden, the war is still on! We have managed to get ourselves airborne! We've modified Harrigan's ultra-light with a couple of shotguns in the cockpit, and four boys from the Shamrock Pub have joined us as well!"
Osama was silent for a minute and then cleared his throat. "I must tell you, Paddy, that I have 10,000 bombers and 20,000 fighter planes. My military complex is surrounded by laser-guided, surface-to-air missile sites. And since we last spoke, I've increased my army to TWO MILLION!"
"Saints above!", said Paddy, "I'll have to ring you back."
Sure enough, Paddy called again the next day. "Top o' the mornin', Mr. Laden! I am sorry to tell you that we have had to call off the war."
"I'm sorry to hear that," said Osama. "Why the sudden change of heart?"
"Well," said Paddy, "we've all had a long chat over a bunch of pints, and decided there's no way we can feed two million prisoners."