Thursday, March 23, 2006

Father Stephen McGraw & Mark Faram: The Ties That Bind--At The Pentagon

A key to unraveling the mysteries of omission and commission behind which hide the real perpetrators responsible for the “attacks” of 9-11, can be found in the collection of photographs and videos taken at the Pentagon that day. Attempting to deconstruct the military-manufactured visual hagiography will pay as quick a dividend as rushed shipments of recycled steel overseas paid out.

We can use as our reference point images taken at Ground Zero in New York that same morning. Viewed side-by-side, the Pentagon “attack” in truth is seen as Ground Nothing, for no truth at all is captured in these images, only common American greed, cupidity, and imperialist lust for wealth. When our eyes open and the truth of US government effort comes into focus, the entire span of imagery looks as fake, artificial and stylized as a Kabuki actor would look in a Method acting class.

Some definite truth was experienced in New York on 9-11, but the whole truth only begins to be glimmered when first you bear witness to a simple fact: that World Trade Center Building Number Seven was demolished with pre-planted explosives—but those implications are for another day and blog.

One photograph in particular stands out in my mind as worthy of status as the iconic Pentagon image, not because it’s so good--although some effort was expended on it, clearly—-but there's no competition; in terms of credibility, impartiality or transparency. This photo was taken by a reporter, Mark Faram, who was working at the time as a writer for the Navy Times newspaper, an independent weekly owned by the Gannett Corporation, which also owns USA Today, in addition to other magazines targeting the uniformed services. A number of employees of the Gannett organization, quite coincidentally I’m sure, provided eyewitness accounts attesting to a 757 crashing into the Pentagon, which makes them all liars in my book.

Before I began researching, I was sure this evocative image had been published in major media outlets, perhaps as a Newsweek cover, or in big-city spreads, but my web search found it to be published in lesser outlets, but better than most of the photos taken that day, which were produced “in-house” and published in government organs similar to Navy Times, like the United States Army Military District of Washington (MDW) News Service, the NFPA Journal, MilitaryCity.com, dcmilitary.com, Leatherneck Magazine of the Marines, GovExec.com, Stars & Strips, and The New American.



Our central image of Pentagon mayhem and martyrdom, sacrifice and valor, is as complex a composition as a pointillist Sunday in the Park with George. In the foreground a medical triage vignette is depicted. We see not one, but two Pentagon workers, one a suspendered civilian, the other an officer in a beret, helping out, gallantly holding aloft IV drips, and this is our first clue. Why is the Federal government so insecure about the work habits of those who suck at the public teat, that it resorts to overkill, showing employees “pitching in” and “lending a hand,” Me thinks thou doth assist too much, dear Federal workers, not that anyone is ever doing a productive thing in the images taken September 11.

In the middle-distance are personal clumped in twos and threes, with first-responder types scattered about, but their posture and focus is all wrong. They stand here and there, looking at this or that, some breaking at the hip, which gives a studied crease to cashmere slacks, by the way, making it all look rather more like a garden party. (This would be a good occasion to mention how universally fresh everybody looks in all the Pentagon images—collars and cuffs remain crisp and clean, with nary a sweaty armpit or untucked shirt in sight. Is that called military bearing and demeanor? Well, it doesn't work here.)

In the background the Pentagon smokes its two-packs-a-day habit, with thick black smoke alternating with foggy white, but always there to obscure any pesky little detail that threatens to emerge into the picture plane. (Another aside: how rare it is to find in the entire corpus of images any that contain both fire and hoses squirting water at it. We see endless, pointless shots of one, then the other, but rarely do they combine to depict the proper purpose of firefighting.)

The central emotional element around which the composition pivots is the kneeling figure of Father Stephen McGraw, a comely celibate secular Opus Die parochial vicar of only three-months standing on 9-11-01. Previously a lawyer with the Justice Department, Father McGraw is shown in prayer beside what we are told is a badly wounded man on a stretcher, although the spatial relationship between the two men seems distant and odd to me. Perhaps Father McGraw flung the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick onto the victim's chest, or maybe he sidled up later for a dousing.

Father McGraw was also an eyewitness to the 757 attack, having taken a wrong turn on his way to a funeral at Arlington Cemetery, he got stuck in traffic outside the Pentagon. In an interview with the Military District of Washington News Service, he put it this way: “The traffic was very slow moving, and at one point just about at a standstill. I was in the left hand lane with my windows closed. I did not hear anything at all until the plane was just right above our cars. The plane clipped the top of a light pole just before it got to us, injuring a taxi driver, whose taxi was just a few feet away from my car.













"I saw it crash into the building. My only memories really were that it looked like a plane coming in for a landing. I mean in the sense that it was controlled and sort of straight. That was my impression. I hadn’t heard about the World Trade Center at that point, and so I was thinking this was an accident. I figured it was just an accident.

"There was an explosion and a loud noise and I felt the impact. I remember seeing a fireball come out of two windows. I saw an explosion of fire billowing through those two windows. I remember hearing a gasp or scream from one of the other cars near me. Almost a collective gasp it seemed. I just knew right away what I needed to do.” Mark Faram, who witnessed Father McGraw in the first moments after the crash, was reported in the same article as saying, “He literally had the stole in one hand and a prayer book in the other and in one fluid motion crossed the guardrail.” The article goes on, “Within 45 seconds, McGraw was on the lawn of the Pentagon to provide spiritual comfort to the injured."

However, in an email reply to Dick Eastman, who led a forum on Yahoo discussing Pentagon conspiracy theories, at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/frameup/message/1254 (The discussion was about another infamous image of Faram's, showing the one shiny, unburnt bread-box-sized piece of fuselage painted in American Airlines livery, posed lying on the verdant green lawn.)






Faram wrote Eastman: “I hate to disappoint anyone, but here is the story behind the photograph…..I was at the Navy Annex, up the hill from the Pentagon when I heard the explosion. I always keep a digital camera in my backpack briefcase just as a matter of habit. When the explosion happened I ran down the hill to the site and arrived there approximately 10 minutes after the explosion…..I also photographed a triage area where medical personnel were tending to a seriously burned man. A priest knelt in the middle of the area and started to pray. I took that image and left immediately…..I was out of the immediate area photographing other things within 20 minutes of the crash….My photos were on the wire by noon.”
Mark Faram’s “stole and prayer book/fluid motion over the guardrail” quote is just too colorful to pass off as the reporter's fancy, even though the author, Paul Haring, is identified as a “staff photographer for the Fort Myer Military Community’s Pentagram newspaper,” so, in typically convoluted military fashion, the reporter is taking the pictures and the photographer is doing the writing.
With the plane flying just a few feet off the ground at 450-miles-per-hour as it knocked down light poles--the wind turbulence alone should have flipped McGraw's car over if true, yet he could hear the still small voices of “a collective gasp” issuing from passengers in closed cars nearby. Must be spiritual ears he's using, I’d hazard.
http://www.militarycity.com/sept11/0001.jpg.html

The Group Pose Photo.

Contrast the image of Father McGraw, with these images holding some truth, that came out of New York:
http://gulnarasamoilova.com
Priest attending to a gentleman in pink shirt.

http://gulnarasamoilova.com/wtc22.jpg


Father Raymond Nobiletti covered in dust like everyone else.

This is prayer, Father:

http://www.september11news.com/Sept27RescWorkersPriestPrayRemains.jpg


Father Raymond Nobiletti from the Church of the Transfiguration



When I first saw a picture of Father Stephen McGraw I thought, “Yum, what a dish—definitely clandestine-services material.” Not high-level I'd expect, but the American CIA/FBI Spook’s Club fancies itself as being dashing and debonair, and it prefers to recruit matinée-idol good-lookers, if at all possible—it feeds their buff, self-reverential James-Bondish identities. Which is all fine and dandy, as long as the secret-keeping charisma combines with a modicum of brains, even on a mission as simple as this one. It is hard to judge McGraw on the single example of his writing Google turned up, but if his first-person account of his Pentagon experience, published in the Arlington Catholic Herald on September 5, 2002, and titled, Jesus Is With You, is any indication, then he’s just a dreamy dolt. (His mug shot is posted here--go see for yourselves.)
And, of course, he is a liar.



It is no fun saying that, in my opinion, Father McGraw's account is a total fabrication, from patsy soup to stooge nuts.He seems sociopathic, like President Bush, when he writes in the third-person, "I believe that God, by a loving design of His providence, arraigned for a priest to be present at the Pentagon crash, not only for the sake of the injured victims to whom I ministered, but also for the sake of the dying, whom He Himself attended with great mercy. I think too of the priest who was on the second plane that crashed into the World Trade Center in New York, and the priest, Father Mychal Judge, who was killed in the subsequent rescue efforts."

McGraw fails to realize that a separate reality exists, like the one in which Father Judge died as he administered last rights to a firefighter killed by a person falling on him. Judge was a sober alcoholic who altruistically helped others to recover. He was an openly gay Catholic priest with a dream day job, and he was loved by all those blue-collar palukas. McGraw’s dissociation from any sincere and honest human emotive quality is chilling. It is even more chilling to realize that thousands of his fellow spooks, spies and well-behaved politicos talk themselves into believing that these lies are good for the United States, or Iraq for that matter.

Gary Bauer, the religious right-wing ideologue, also gave an eye-witness account of seeing a 757 plane fly into the Pentagon, and his account is also a total lie, in my humble opinion. The little details thrown in along the way for verisimilitude give it a different flavor however, tasting both nauseating and noxious, like dry thistles mixed with viper's venom, to mangle Pinter's phrase.

Ted Olson is a big bald-faced liar, in my opinion. Cell phones didn't work from airliners in flight in 2001. There is only one other supposed phone call from the flight, from a stewardess calling on an Airphone, to serve up as collaboration. Teddy's testimony is too tidy for my tastes. Lies, all lies, I say. An optimistic view, maybe, is Mrs. Olson underwent extreme rendition to a secret sunny clime, and awaits his retirement.

When I saw Lisa Jefferson’s final interview on CNN I knew every word out of her mouth was a lie, but I understood her motive and forgave her. She’s the Verizon supervisor who took Todd Beamer's last 13-minute phone call, but didn’t even try to patch him through to his wife Lisa for a final goodbye. Ms. Jefferson wasn’t lying for the usual reasons--money, money and more money. In a spiritual surmise, I saw a likely scenario: local politicos/law-enforcement agents had gotten damning evidence to charge someone she dearly loves, and who was facing heavy prison time, hypothetically speaking. However, she could make it all go away, with just some simple cooperation, and a passable performance. It was perfect leverage for a true Christian woman, and she kept her end of the bargain; however, the God-force inside of her just couldn’t be silenced, and I heard the truth He spoke out of her.

Once you begin to really see these sorts of things, you'd go insane if you didn't get some fun out of it. In my opinion, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson obviously had advanced knowledge of this US government conspiracy to commit acts of murder against its own citizens on 9-11, viewing the deaths as "collateral damage," thus maximizing the potential of a “New Pearl Harbor,” the terms used by the Neo-Cons writing a few years earlier. The universal catharsis the world underwent together altered us deeply as we responded to the loss—unless of course, it wasn’t such a shock to your system because you already knew, and you just had to act mournful, and be all terrorized.

On the CCN television program, The 700 Club, aired on September 13, 2001, Robertson welcomes Falwell to the show with, "Jerry, it's a delight to have you join us this morning on the show!" Delight? Shouldn't that line have some words like "sorrowful bereavement," or "compassionate presence," or almost anything, but not "delight," that is if they were truly one of us, altered post-9-11 beings.

The message the pair unleashed on the show that morning, blaming 9-11 on gays and lesbians, abortionists and pagan ACLU secularists, was so coolly calculated, it unfolded with such singularly graceful coordination that it had to have been planned and orchestrated well in advance, in my opinion. That it was universally condemned and reviled by every sane person is further proof of the pair's culpability and inequity. Like Bush&Co.'s comeuppance in Iraq, “By their fruits, we shall know them."

Father McGraw apparently left his position at St. Anthony of Padua Church in Falls Church, Virginia. This past February he delivered seven apologetical presentations at St. Francis de Sales Church in Purcellville. Apologetics is a formulaic defense of the teachings of faith. What he should do, in my humble opinion, is confess and seek redemption with a more personal sort of apology. Together we are standing at a threshold; either into the lie of the Apocalypse, or as I hope and prefer, the possibility for a new way of seeing collective truth for homo sapiens, whorling around on planet Earth, and I said whorling. The old way, the Bush/Kerry, Skull and Bones, balance of corruption--not balance of power--two-party system, is no longer an option for me to live quietly under, period. Exclamation point!

Once the scales have fallen from your eyes you can’t put them back. I live in the hope that a bright-light day is dawning, but for now, it's casting this immense evil shadow that presently darkens the world, as personified by an evil and vapid George Walker Bush.

But I also accept the remote possibility that somehow I got it all wrong. Then, I must accept a growing likelihood of my dying painfully at the torturer's hands in some secret prison far away. Each is a possibility.

In the photographic record of the attack on September 11, 2001 at the Pentagon it is exceedingly rare to find any cross references. Personages are seen in the roles they were intended to play and then never seen again. In fact, I know of only two such references in the entire corpus, and here's one--of a Father McGraw looking a bit distracted at a moment of supreme drama. Oh well, best not to judge.



18 comments:

  1. Friend, I was discharged from the military as a conscientious objector three years ago. I've been involved with peace activism, showing up at the pentagon, nearly getting arrested, doing all that stuff...

    But please, this conspiracy stuff is just overboard. That picture of the pentagon with the priest and the workers - yes, military people actually do tuck in their shirts. They shine their shoes every morning. They are good hard working people who have been deceived about war and violence. Of course they rushed to help one another. They want to be good people. They want to save people.

    They've simply been fooled about war and violence. They've been convinced that killing for America is a good thing.

    THAT is the real conspiracy. The conspiracy that says - it is okay to lie, it is okay to kill, it is okay to hate. And not just okay, but good.

    Attacking priests for helping the dying will get you nowhere. If you are going to attack anyone, attack them for spreading lies.

    But then that leaves you open to the very same charge.

    Better yet, lets not attack anyone. Lets love one another, discover and communicate truth, and foster brotherhood among the nations.

    Peace,
    Nate

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  2. Dear Nate-- The truth is not an attack, and it is too easy for you to dismiss it as such if it doesn't sound good in the hearing. I understand that within the military system, some knew a lot and a lot knew some, but all knew it was a staged HazMat drill, and in the context of 9-11, they MUST disobey orders and examine their consciousnesses for the truth, and speak out! Father McGraw is either a patsy, a dupe, a stooge, a victim or a perpetrator, but let's get to the bottom of it. An enforced spirit of faux brotherhood is as much a lie, more evil even actually because its sanctimonious too. The disservice at issue in my blog is that 1000's of military personel could conspire, at whatever level of conscious awareness they were at that day, all the way to where they're at today, even if just BARELY, is an outrage to me. Don't tell me how they are when I'm telling you how they must be to fix this thing. Read the blog I posted today. We are so screwed up I have to vouchsafe my sincerity to beleive that truth is important? Well, O.K. then! If that's our jumping off point, Nate, let'
    s get busy. But get back to me in two weeks about the conspiracy stuff being overblown. The unfolding of events will go rapidly from now on in. It is just so painful to accept! Only a few are there yet! It is going to be massively disruptive! We'll need to control our own reactiveness! It made me feel like I was having a heart attack some days! The discomfort goes on and on and when you think it couldn't possibly get worse, it drops down another notch! I still can go A WEEK without sleep! And, if I feel this way, and I have no personal connection to the events, didn't lose anybody, haven't even been to downtown NY since it happened, then imagine how horrible the truth is going to feel to people with deeper investments, like a mother who lost two sons. Peace is coming brother, but we'll need to steer one another back on course from time to time to get there. The transformation will be at a depth neither of us can imagine. But it will be good. Peace back, brother, Steven W.

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  3. Nate and others:

    Research, research, research!

    Do some homework on this kind of stuff.
    Don’t be a verbal armchair warrior!
    Google search this aspect of reality and spend lots of time doing it!

    There’s lots of videos, reports, pictures, accounts, lectures, documentaries, etc. that will help you to see what this blogger is trying to point out!

    Separate the wheat from the chaff as you would with any situation.

    You’ll be amazed at how different reality is from that reality portrayed by CNN, FOX and all the other (strangled by corporate sponsorship media outlets).

    Good luck and good night.

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  4. "the wind turbulence alone should have flipped McGraw's car over if true"


    Why is this?

    Do you have any clue what you're talking about, aerodynamically speaking?

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  5. Does he have any clue what he's talking about, aerodynamically speaking?

    How about does he have any clue what he's talking about, totally speaking?

    Fuck no...lol

    I've counted about 2 dozen errors of fact so far in the few readings I have done thus far, which points directly to 2 things - an ignorance in learning about what he writes of and 2) a visceral, absolutely intellectually blinding hatred of ATB (All Things Bush), which is better documented as Bush Derangement Syndrome.

    When hatred takes over your mind at the level this has, you can believe (and thus, write) anything, facts be damned!

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  6. Please pinch, if you want to defend Bush be my guest.

    While you're at it, why don't you go over and fight his war for him.

    You have inspired me to redo my information about the two Ingersoll shots--I certainly considered whether or not those were rolls of roofing paper, but I may be wrong nonetheless.

    You know, you're the one who sounds deranged. If I've made two dozen errors of fact, let's have a discussion about each one. Otherwise, you're just an ideological spewer with a vocabulary in the sewer.

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  7. I found this blog while searching for Father Steve McGraw, and frankly can't believe what I'm reading. Father Steve is one of the most holy priests I have had the pleasure of knowing, hence my need to come to his defense. I don't know what your agenda is, but I pity you if you really see the world through such cynical eyes. It's one thing to believe it was all a conspiracy, but it's quite another to vilify such a good person, especially one you don't even know. Take it from one who does know him, he is not a fake, or a patsy, a dupe, a stooge, a victim or a perpetrator. He is a good and loyal priest of the diocese of Arlington, VA, and is loved by all who know him! Of course, I don't expect you to believe me...but I had to speak up to defend him!

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  8. Please speak to the points in my blog Ms. Baker. None of what you say has any bearing on what I say. P.S. Do you have a blog, or just a blog persona? It's hard to judge whether or not you are legit.

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  9. Are you legit? what exactly makes on "legit"? If I go an start a blog does that automatically mean I have entered the celestial realm of legitimacy? Maybe I will, and I'll talk about all sorts of wonderful things like, I don't know, perhaps what causes certain psychotic people to say the things they do. Or about how your entire article makes you seem like a moron trying to be intelligent. But wait, that might get too violent...
    PS. They have a diagnosis for people who suffer from delusions as you do -- it's called "Schizophrenia," maybe you've heard of it?

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  10. No dear, one needn't blog to be legit, but than having a Blogger ID without blogging is another recognizable (bizarre) technique of the covert classes.

    If you were serious about defending the reputation of your supposedly maligned priest, then you would be somebody ready willing and able to be contacted, either by email, snail mail or telephone. Even your email link doesn't work on your fake profile, or am I to infer it is "bakerbunch9@aol.com?" Then you come back to retort as "anonymous." How boring you are.

    I may very well be schizophrenic honey, but that doesn't mean the conservative Christian players in the conspiracy of 9/11 and the immoral wars that followed are not guilty. How about we let God be the ultimate judge? In the mean time, thanks for destroying civilized society Mrs. Holier Than Thou. I hate the deceitful ground you walk on. You shall get your just desserts in this imperfect world if it's the last thing I do.

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  11. I'm being maligned for something I didn't write. I wrote the comment with my name, but not the next one by "Anonymous", to which you seem to be responding. And I don't list my email address because I don't want to receive hate mail. However, if you really want honest dialog, I can be reached at bakersnine@yahoo.com. But if you just plan to insult me, please don't bother.

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  12. Your character assessment of Fr. McGraw was completely unfounded. I knew the man, he was my parish priest. He may not be the most eloquent priest, but despite his difficulty he is not a liar. He is a good man, a good listener, and a good friend. All you do is claim conspiracy and when a witness comes forward to disprove it, you attack their character. If you want to prove a 9/11 conspiracy, back it up with facts.

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  13. +
    I have the privilege of having known Father McGraw for many years and being his friend. He has always been one of the best men I know. He happened to be driving by the Pentagon on 9/11/01 and as a good Samaritan, stopped to try to give comfort and aid to those in need as an authentic man of God would try to do. It is too bad if this offends anyone to the point where people would criticize or insult him for it. May God forgive those who do so. If you tried helping other people like Father McGraw spends his time doing, you would find less time to criticize.

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  14. I have also been very blessed to know and to pray with Fr. Stephen McGraw. He is a very good man and a very holy priest who certainly would never lie or participate in a "conspiracy". I also felt that I must come to his defense. May God forgive you for saying and assuming such terrible things about a man who would only pray for you in return. He is very gentle and humble and kind and good! You would know that if you actually knew him. Please, I pray that you open your eyes. Several people have come to his defense now. And no, I don't know these other people.. (so I am not in conspiracy with them) perhaps it is by Divine Providence that we have found your blog... so that we can help you to know who Fr. McGraw truly is! This theory has blinded you to the goodness of people. Please don't malign good, holy, humble people anymore, I beg you. And I will pray for you, my good sir. I am about to send Father McGraw a Christmas card.. that is how I found your blog. I very sincerely and warmly wish you a Merry Christmas and a happy and healthy New Year! May the peace of the Christ Child, and His truth, be with you.

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  15. After spending some time on this site and looking at a lot of photos, I am noticing the bad acting, and the staged set ups. There is a lot of people standing around doing nothing. People with uniforms and clothes too clean and perfect, there are hardly any actual injured people, The emotions just don't seem to look like you would expect had there really been a commercial jet crash there. The recollections and stories that the various featured characters tell, about their experiences that day, all have this Readers Digest, Golly Gee Whiz, isn't that touching, proud to be an American, feel to them. It creates the kind of sentiment that makes people want to tar and feather anyone who would dare question their "hero-ness" or their validity.
    Anybody who was, and still is, shilling for the real perps, have sold their souls to evil, by denying God and the Truth. Anyone who would lie to the American people and to the world, about something so outrageously, horrifically criminal and evil, as the events that occurred on 9-11-2001 ought to be deeply ashamed of themselves, because anyone who would knowingly be complicit in any aspect of this snow job and cover up, is in my opinion a treasonous scum bag, and they certainly ought not think they are Christians.

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  16. I grew up with Father Steve McGraw as my church youth group leader and have known him all my life. Although this is belated, I would like to defend him against your unfounded conspiracy theories. Steve is a patriotic American, having served in the Navy for many years before his legal career and before his religious career. I am utterly disgusted by your post and it seems that you may be projecting some paranoia onto someone who you know will not attack you as you have done to him. Shame on you. There is nothing wrong with a priest professing his faith. I have every confidence his account is as honest as he can recall and he would never do anything to intentionally mislead an investigation. I would stake my life on it. I am sure Father McGraw has been praying for you and every other person who has talked behind his back. I am also one of those who responded to the call that day. Leave the investigation to the real professionals.

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  17. You know a lot.
    You have a lot of humble opinions.

    Although you dont know that wake turbulence and the thrust of those engines absolutely wouldn't have flipped those cars. I've worked in aviation for over 20 years. You're talking shit. Yes military folks look very smart even under duress at that time at the morning and it isn't a stretch at all that highly trained individual, trained many times for emergency situations, actually react in this manner. It's literally what the training is for.

    I believe that there is some absolute shady shit that went down on 9/11 for sure. And I've done a lot of my own digging over the past 18 years. I was serving in the middle east on 9/11 and in the years following.

    An aircraft absolutely hit the Pentagon.

    You sound like a fucking douche

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