Meg Cabot 9 11

[Favio Cassidy]

Membersof the 189th Airlift Wing and Cabot Police Department salute the lowered base flag at Little Rock Air Force Base's Heritage Park in honor of the 20th anniversary of 9/11 on the morning of Sept. 11, 2021. Members of the ceremony salute the flag, during the song Taps, to remember and reflect on the terrorist attack.

Chief Master Sgt. Edward Cassidy rings a bell at the Little Rock Air Force Base Heritage Park for the 20th anniversary of 9/11 on September 11, 2021. The bell is symbolic of a fire fighter who died in the line of duty, making the ultimate sacrifice, it was the mournful toll of the bell that solemnly annouced a comrades passing.

Sgt. Steven Elliot, Cabot Police Department, honors fallen police members at the Little Rock Air Force Base Heritage Park during the 20th anniversary of 9/11 on the morning of Sept. 11, 2021. Sgt. Elliot speaks of a police officer's beginning a tour of duty with a radio call that lets their dispatching authority know they are available when needed.

The Arkansas Air National Guard's 189th Airlift Wing hosted its first 9/11 Remembrance Ceremony Saturday, Sept. 11, 2021, honoring the 20-year anniversary of those who lost their lives in the attacks against our Nation. The ceremony was held at the Little Rock Air Force Base's Heritage Park and began at 7:40 a.m.

The tragedies of what happened Sept. 11, 2001, should not be forgotten. It is our responsibility to preserve the memories and heroic sacrifices our first responders and others made and to honor those sacrifices. The wing's ceremony was held on Sept. 11, as the sun was rising, in order to do just that.

"Today's ceremony was a reminder that we must never forget those who lost their lives in the horrific attacks against our Nation on September 11," said Col. Dean Martin, the 189th Airlift Wing commander. "We also have an obligation to educate our Airmen on the impacts of these attacks on our families and their daily lives and to tell the stories of those who paid the ultimate sacrifice over the past 20 years in order to keep us safe."

Event participation included the Cabot Fire Department and Cabot Police Department. Each emergency responder as well as Chief Master Sgt. Misty McClean, the 189th Medical Group superintendent, had a speaking role during the ceremony. The event is scheduled to occur again next year on Patriot Day.

Every year on this day I post an essay about my experience living in Manhattan a few dozen blocks from the World Trade Center on 9/11 (my husband was working in a building across the street from the Twin Towers when the planes hit).

I wondered if I should even post it this year, given how challenging 2020 has been, not just for our country, but for the world. Globally, a million lives have been lost so far to the Covid-19 pandemic. Millions more face an uncertain economic future.

Because now, more than ever, our lives depend not only on remembering the past, but on understanding what it means to truly love one another, behave like human adults, and do the right thing instead of the selfish, easy thing.

Every last one of those young, brave boys would be dead in exactly one hour. Their truck would be crushed beyond recognition. That firehouse would sit empty and draped in black bunting for months. No one would be able to look at it without crying.

But their offices were sixty to ninety floors from the ground. Some of them were holding hands with their colleagues as they jumped. Many of them were women. You could tell by the way their skirts ballooned out behind them as they raced towards the pavement below.

Luz went up to the roof of my building to see if she could see anything more from there than what they were showing on New York 1. While she was gone, I went into my bedroom to get dressed (I was still wearing my pajamas).

I knew this because when I worked at the dorm at NYU, a few students had killed themselves. Every time a body was discovered, it was so horrible. All the first responders involved in the discovery could never wear the same clothes we wore that day again, because of the memory.

Watching from my living room window, we saw the crowds of people streaming out from what was soon to be called Ground Zero, thin to a trickle, then stop altogether. That was when 4th Avenue became crowded with vehicular traffic again. But not taxis or bike messengers.

Luz and her family are doing fine. Fred is now married with two children, and is head of his own division at NYU. Mr. Fluff did eventually die, but of natural causes. Jake just graduated from law school, and Shai has her first job out of college.

Receiving the prestigious Global Explorer Scholarship from John Cabot University has been a dream come true for me. Growing up in post-9/11 Afghanistan meant I had to endure many of my country's dividing conflicts and stagnation in terms of progress. Because of the generation I grew up in, being accepted to one of the best American universities in Italy was a shock and a wonderful surprise. I love looking back at the progress I have made, and the journey that has led me to John Cabot University.

Completing 10 years of education under such difficult conditions, becoming an ASI (Afghan Scholar Initiative) scholar, and subsequently being admitted to Woodstock School, an international high school in India, was nothing less than a victory for me. In 2015, I left my home and my family for the rural Himalayas to join Woodstock for 11th grade. Upon my graduation from Woodstock in 2017, I was faced with a mix of confidence from this achievement, and anxiety about my future waiting for me back in Afghanistan. This truly shaped my quest to aim higher and to continue reaching my goals.

As I applied to JCU, I found many courses that I felt would contribute to my journey of achieving my noble objectives. John Cabot's Political Science curriculum includes Modern Political Theory, Terrorism and Counterterrorism, and The Political Economy of Globalization. I believe these rigorous courses will help me gain the skills and knowledge to contribute to society and the international community in today's political climate.

Moreover, I believe that John Cabot promotes inclusiveness and encourages engaged learning in a changing global community. By joining this wonderful environment, I aspire to grow and become a perceptive, insightful, and compassionate individual so that I may work toward improving the global political landscape. I can't wait to get to the city and university of my dreams!

Every year during the week of 9/11 I post a personal essay about my experience living in Manhattan a few dozen blocks from the World Trade Center on 9/11. My husband was working in a building across the street from the Twin Towers when the planes hit.

"As someone who grew up loving AM radio, and loved being a reporter for an all-news station, I think this is a loss that people might not realize," said Peter Haskell, who worked at WCBS from 1994 to 2022.

"Certainly the interference on AM hasn't been kind to us over the decades," Cabot said. One of several reasons WCBS 880, like many stations, has taken to streaming over the last few decades (Audacy.com).

Wayne: "And we say with all caution and responsibility, Happy 4/20. That's today. The unofficial cannabis holiday. Of course, as Sophia Hall has been reporting, it's not a good idea to be driving, and there's a crackdown going on across New York state."

These guys have worked many a routine day of election recaps and traffic accidents. They've also been on deck for once-a-century disasters like 9/11 and Superstorm Sandy. It's days like these when AM radio really shines. "Whenever there's really big news breaking that's when people flock to us," Cabot said.

In an emergency, AM has certain strengths. It broadcasts in real time, or close to it, said Tim Scheld, WCBS news director from 2003 to 2022. Which could mean life or death, in a crisis. "Digital is a delayed signal, as much as a minute or two minutes off in a live broadcast," said Scheld, a Paramus native. "That can be pretty dangerous, if you're telling people not to go out-of-doors."

During a blackout, crucially, AM is available to anyone with a car or an emergency radio. Try hand-cranking a computer. "When the power goes out, when you can't watch TV, when the internet goes down, the battery-powered radio is there," Haskell said.

It wasn't the first all-news station in the country: 1010 WINS had switched over to the format on April 19, 1965 (the two stations are now both owned by Audacy; 1010 WINS has its studios a floor below WCBS).

"WCBS newsradio 88," as it was then called, launched on Aug. 28, 1967, in the wake of yet another disaster. "The night before, a plane hit the tower and knocked the transmitter out," Scheld said. "They literally had to start on FM."

The station's current transmitter, located just off City Island in the Bronx, is a monster. At night, the 50,000 watts can carry through to as many as 38 states and Canada. "It's a blowtorch of a signal," Cabot said. Which explains how Murnane, in the outlands of Connecticut, and Cabot, in the wilds of New Jersey, grew up listening to it.

"I do remember CBS was on in the house, and in the car," said Murnane, who still lives in Connecticut. "There would be rock-and-roll music on the air, and then there would be a moment when either mother or father would have had enough, and they'd hit the button. Suddenly you would hear these deep, resonant voices."

He was enthralled. So was Cabot, as a boy, when he got a clock radio for Christmas. "It projected the time on the ceiling," he recalled. "Woo-hoo. Gimmicky thing. I wanted to set the exact time, and CBS every hour had these tones."

So he listened, on the hour and the half hour, for the distinctive musical cues heralding the time (Leonard Bernstein's "New York, New York" was, back then, the half-past "bumper"). Before long, he had fallen in love with the station itself, and its roster of personalities: Jim Donnelly, Lou Adler, Neal Busch, Charles Osgood.

3a8082e126