Trump’s memory wrong on cheering
On the morning of 9/11, I was at the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, N.J., across the Hudson River from the World Trade Center. A witness to the horror and devastation of that day, I remember the sirens, boat horns and police helicopters that accompanied the screams of people.
The towers had fallen when some among the thousands of onlookers lining the shoreline began yelling, "They're coming back for us!" "There's more of them!" Two jets appeared, flying straight down the river. Panic was setting in. I reacted with a makeshift megaphone. "Those are our jets," I called out when I saw the F-15s, "coming to protect us." The crowd quieted and looked skyward. Then came deafening cheers. Donald Trump did remember the cheers, but for the wrong reason. The crowds were not celebrating the destruction of the World Trade Center. They were cheering the Air National Guard pilots who had come to protectively encircle the beleaguered city.
Mr. Trump recalls the “thousands and thousands of people” who were cheering. He was right about the number. There were over 10,000 people standing on the Hudson River shore in Jersey City. Memory can often play tricks on us. But I was there in Jersey City on 9/11, and I remember.
LESTER GREENE, MARIETTA
Consider refugees sans partisanship
Current conflicts of opinion over the admission of thousands of Syrians to the U.S. are, at best, misleading and at worst, dishonest. The debate is drowning in a flood of partisan emotion, devoid of analysis and intellectual integrity.
On one side are opponents who, in the face of international violence and mourning, want to keep the door closed out of fear. On the other are open-arms advocates who, through an abundance of reflexive compassion, see the arrivals as homeless widows and orphans. Both are wrong. The answer is to replace emotion with thinking. Admit women with young children first. They are a very, very small fraction of the whole. If husbands are present, admit them as well, but only after thorough background checks. Individuals with unverifiable backgrounds should be refused. Thinking before feeling serves both enlightened security and heartfelt compassion.
DENNIS MCGOWAN, SNELLVILLE
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