Gentlemen, hoist the colors!!!
Once again, it is time…
…time to remember the fallen…
…only this year, it feels a little easier then in past years.
I think most of that is due to the fact that we finally found and killed Osama Bin Laden earlier this year, so maybe the feeling of remembering that day doesn’t sting quite as much. This year I don’t find myself wondering if the efforts of our men and women in uniform are being wasted by selfish and greedy politicians and “Captains of Industry” in the quest for more and more profit. This year I know that there are not only leaders in our military, but also leaders in our Government that are willing to do what is necessary to keep us safe instead of worrying about a balance sheet.
Yes I know that President Obama gave a rousing speech in front of Congress where he laid out his jobs plan, and I will get to my feelings on that in short order. Right now it is time for the business at hand. Here once again is a re-print of my column from PCFootball.net and its accompanying addendum, newly added this year:
I still remember where I was. I don’t think I will ever forget where I was when I heard the news.
I was getting ready for work in my living room, sitting in front of the TV watching SportsCenter as usual. ESPN News broke in with a special bulletin, with some news that The World Trade Center in New York had been attacked. They wanted us to turn to ABC News for more details.
I didn’t think much of it and I thought that it wasn’t a big deal because they didn’t give out very many details. I continued to watch SportsCenter as I put my shoes on, and I saw it down on their sports ticker. They usually flashed the scores from the previous night’s games, but on this September morning they flashed something that I will never forget –
WTC collapse after…
…planes crashed into towers…
…tune to ABC for more details.
The first thing that I thought was “What?” “WHAT?!? NO FUCKING WAY!!!”
I grabbed the remote and punched the buttons to switch to ABC as fast as I could…
…and that’s when I saw it…
…a huge cloud of dust in the place where the Twin Towers once stood.
It was at this moment that my wife decided to come out of the bedroom. The first thing she saw was the look on my face. She kept asking me what was wrong and my mouth could barely form the words. “The World Trade Center in New York was attacked. Both of the towers have collapsed. They’re gone.”
She came in and watched the TV with me, and we both sat there, dumbfounded as they replayed the collapse of Tower 1. Neither one of us could believe what had happened. But there was more – a plane had crashed into the Pentagon as well. Not only that, but there was another plane still out there, and it was a plane that was supposed to be on its way to the West Coast! Specifically LAX!
Since I live in the Southern California area my mind raced as I tried to think of all the targets that terrorists could possibly hit out here. The most obvious was the Boeing plant at the Long Beach Airport just a few miles down the street from where I live. The next one was TRW, just a few miles away from where I work! Both companies are defense contractors, and they would have made some pretty good targets. I called into work to get some advice on whether I should come in or not because we didn’t know if we were going to be safe. I was told to come on in.
I went in and kept a radio at my desk so that I could get the latest news and pass it on to everyone else at the office. As the day wore on we gradually heard the story. About how the planes were hijacked and deliberately crashed into the towers. We also heard of the fourth plane that had gone down in a Pennsylvania field, and how they weren’t sure if it had been hijacked or had gone down on its own. Later we would hear the stories of how the passengers had decided to fight back, and paid for their bravery with their lives.
We all know the story that followed – the rescue effort that turned into recovery. The clean up of what became known as “Ground Zero” which was just completed yesterday. The deployment of troops to Afghanistan to find Osama Bin Laden and his Al-Queda network. W’s stirring call to arms before a joint session of congress. The donations that poured in to New York and the tributes that followed.
So I know what you are thinking. What does any of this have to do with PC Football?
Nothing…
…and everything.
Recently there was a football game played – a real football game. But these were not NFL players that took the field. No, these were true heroes. These were the players from the FDNY Bravest Football Club and the NYPD Finest Football Club. Both of these teams met in the 30th annual “ Fun City Bowl” on May 19th. The game was originally slated for St. John’s University , but because of the demand for tickets it was moved to Giants Stadium in New Jersey – directly across from Ground Zero.
The game itself was a penalty filled affair. These were not NFL-tested veterans on the field. These were cops and firefighters that played football because they loved the game. But more importantly, they played to honor their lost brothers. Lost in the rubble of the Twin Towers , but never forgotten in their hearts. This fact was in evidence before the game, as the “Bravest” recognized the surviving family members of the 22 team members out of the 343 firefighters who were lost on September 11th. Group after group of parents, widows, and children were escorted to midfield to receive the player’s framed jersey bearing a plaque inscribed “Forever a hero on our team.” The NYPD was fortunate not to lose any team members that day, but they did honor the 23 fellow officers who perished on 9/11.
In the end the NYPD prevailed 10-0 to record their 9th straight win over the FDNY, and take a 21-9 lead in the series, but none of that mattered. What mattered was that they had come together to raise money for 9/11 charities, and to honor their brethren.
That is what I have tried to do recently.
I made a new roster for Madden 2002. I created the FDNY Bravest and the NYPD Finest and put them into their own file. I used the teams that were created by Bly Gilmore on MaddenMania, which evened up the Maniac and Instigator rosters, and moved those players onto the FDNY and NYPD rosters. I had intended to change the names of the players on both teams to reflect the rosters for the fire and police teams. I was able to find the actual roster for the FDNY, but I am unable to fine the roster for the NYPD. I have included the file for the FDNY, which contains the FDNY names, along with positions, numbers, height and weight.
If anybody out there can find the NYPD roster and wants to make the changes, I invite you to do so. I also ask that if you do find them, if you could share them with the rest of us who have the rosters, we would be very grateful. In this way we can all pay tribute to those men who gave their lives on that terrible day every time we play with these teams.
I know that is what I will be doing every time I play with those rosters…
And I will also remember where I was when I heard the news that Osama bin Laden had been killed…
I was actually making dinner for us when I heard it. I had just put a Dijorno’s Pizza in the oven when I heard a news bulliten break in on my father-in-law’s TV. He was watching “America’s Funniest Home Video’s” when ABC News broke in with a special report. I came into the living room to see what the commotion was all about and was greeted with old footage of bin Laden. I coudn’t tell what they were talking about because my father-in-law had the closed captioning on, so I turned it off temporarily so that I could see what the big news was.
That’s when I saw the headline…
…Osama bin Laden killed….
Naturally the first thing that I thought was “What?!? No fucking way!!! NO FUCKING WAY!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THAT WE GOT HIM, WE KILLED THE GREAT SATAN?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?”
Then as the news went on and on and on it started to sink in………it was true – we got the son of a bitch!!!!!
I went into the other room to tell wifey. I asked her what she was watching and I could see that she was watching a “Burn Notice” rerun. I told her to change it to CNN and watched to see the look on her face. Her eyes grew wide when she first saw the news and sat up in bed. We just sat there taking it all in as the confirmation of his death came in. We sat through President Obama’s address to the nation while we ate our pizza, we heard the details of the operation…
…and I lit our memorial candle for the victems of 9/11 and put it out on our front deck.
We actually have a memorial candle that we light at sundown every September 11th and extingwish at midnight in memory of those who died that day.
Now I have a new date in which to light that candle, because there is another day for us to remember. That date is May 1, 2011. For some in the world that is known as “May Day”, but for those of us here in the United States that is a day on which the healing could really begin. That is the date in which we heard that our greatest enemy, and the butcher of over 3,000 innocents, was finally delivered to the right hand of God.
Or is it the left hand of God? It’s been a while since I took Catecism…..
Anyway, we know have an new day to remember in this country, and so on every May 1st I will light that memorial candle, and remember all of the fallen.
So why is it that President Obama’s approval ratings were in the tank soon after he got bin Laden?
In a word – jobs. Or actually, a lack of jobs. No check that – a lack of good jobs that pay enough so that American families can afford to have food in their children’s stomachs, the lights and heat on in the dead of winter, as well as a good roof over their heads in the rain without having to work four part-time minimum-wage jobs and have to choose what to do without.
Now I can go into another tirade about how The Rich-Wing Republicans have deliberately chosen to keep the unemployed unemployed with the support of their Teabagging minions – but I won’t…
…this time.
I do want to say something about the President’s speech and his program for getting people back to work. One – I loved the speech as we finally saw the Obama with the fire in the belly, just like during the campaign. Two – I thought that he had some good ideas for giving the economy and the job market the jump start that it needs so that the private sector can pick up the ball and run with it. And make no mistake – in order for the economy to improve the private sector is going to have to do its part and put people back to work. If they don’t, if they do as they have done in the past and just sit on their hands, then the plan will not work. Three – I thought that the analysis that was happening was very cynical and defeatist in nature – and that was the analysis that was coming from the left!!!!!!!!!!!! The last thing that anyone who has been unemployed for more than six months needs to hear from a liberal Democrat is that the Presidents plan to create jobs will not work. Tell us what is right about the plan, don’t keep telling us what is wrong with it to the exclusion of all else you idiots!!!
I will expand on my feelings in a couple of days time and go into greater detail as to why I feel that the left-wing analysts were doing the unemployed in this country a disservice the other night. But for now, I have a flag bracket to go put up in preparation for tomorrow.
Until next time…
