Smack This
by Philip Varlese on 2001-09-13

I remember going to the World Trade Center as a kid, and remember being mesmerized by its size......it represented everything that America was to me, large........powerful.........standing tall.

Those of you who came here expecting another article on indy wrestling, or what the current state of affairs are in the WWF, may be disappointed, but I doubt it.

The sights we witnessed on Tuesday will live with me forever. Like the Kennedy assassination, I remember the sights, sounds & smells of that day as if they just happened yesterday.

First, my kudos to the most unlikely of people in this tragedy. ALL of my early reports on this act of war were from the Howard Stern Show. Howard became a news journalist on Tuesday, reporting on this AS IT HAPPENED. His group of guests, supposedly crazed people like Crazy Cabbie, actually reported on the incident at the local level, inasmuch as they all live somewhere near the attack. Both Howard, Robin, and the staff should be applauded for their efforts. Same is true of Opie and Anthony, who still went on the air, despite being unable to get to the WNEW FM station, and having to do the show from WLIR's studios on Long Island. They kept their cool, despite being among the live witnesses to what was happening. Thank you as well.

That is what makes us great......it's our ability as a nation to come together in times like this, working and cooperating in the name of the US. We did it at Pearl Harbor, and we did it here. Yes, outside of events like this we may have trivial differences, but we know what time it is.

Bush, in a press conference this morning, said this is the first war of the 21st century. I agree. And we have to fight this war in a new way, and he knows and openly admitted that today. We continue to progress as a nation, even in war.

And we will recover from this attack.....I hope and pray we can rebuild the World Trade Center in its original location, and build it even bigger, larger, and more powerful than it originally was, to show ourselves, and the rest of the world, what we as a nation are capable of. Remember, in America, there is always hope, even in despair.

Remember, especially this week, life is real and wrestling is fake, but hope never goes away......