A difficult read, but an important one (stories,those,day)

index index index index I could only read a few chapters a day, because the content was very depressing and difficult to read. However, it is something that Americans should read to know the true suffering and heroism that happened on that day. I did not know anyone in NYC personally, but I feel now after 5 years that I really understand the magnitude of this event. I picked this up at the library and almost read it in one sitting deeply moving and sad, the book contains eyewittness accounts...the saddest one was a call from flight 93 to his wife...

I also became very angry...angry that we have in the white house did absolutely NOTHING to thwart this attack. Him and John Ashcroft had PLENTY of forewarning since he took office. They recieved 300 emails with what was goign to happen, and (...)allowed it to happen. He also used 9/11 and the emotions from that event to launch an illegal unjustified war that is looking more and more like Vietnam.

If you read this through and you still support Bush, you are morally bankrupt and should be ashamed of yourselfI am legally blind and receive talking books free from the Library for the Blind. I just finished "Never Forget: An Oral History of 9-11-2001. Usually when I finish a book I send it back to the library and move along to the next book. This book is different, I want to own a copy. In years to come I want my children to be able to take it down and read about that day from people who were there, who can put that all important human realism to the event. If the details are boiled down to facts and figures it will become just another date to remember just long enough to pass a history test.

It isn't just about people's experiences, but a great deal about how they changed. This was a very important book to have compiled and put down on record. It's almost an American obligation to read these personal accounts and ponder the gravity of that day for those who were there. If we were only left with replays of video/media accounts (or with repugnantly self-absorbed documents on the topic such as Barbash's On Top of the World) then I don't think future history would have the documentary material needed to grasp the shock and pain.

The strength of character and ingenuity of New Yorkers comes through very powerfully, and they must be proud of that. I'm writing this review, but I really don't think it is possible to put this book into words. Never Forget: An Oral History of September 11, 2001 is by far the most personal and emotionally compelling book I have read about the terrorist attacks of 9/11. I honestly think every American should read this book - now more than ever. Some people seem to be forgetting the inhumane horror and emotional trauma of that day, and this book takes you back, quite vividly, to what you saw and felt during and after the terrorist attacks. The husband and wife team of Mitchell Fink and Lois Mathias interviewed a great number of people connected to the deadly events, from witnesses and survivors to emergency services personnel to Ground Zero volunteers and the families of Flight 93 passengers. Eighty one personal accounts fill the pages of this book.

I have only recently been going back and reading about 9/11 - suddenly, I finally felt ready to revisit what happened that day. I am learning that the personal tragedy and horror was much more extensive than I realized. The personal stories in this book introduce a number of observations and facts that were too gruesome to make it in to any news broadcasts. I knew that a number of people jumped to their deaths, but I did not realize the number of jumpers was as high as it actually was. I had also never thought about the danger those jumpers posed to rescue workers trying to get into the Twin Towers that morning. One fireman, for example, was killed by a falling body. The newscasts didn't talk about what happened when those bodies hit the ground, but the witnesses in this book do, and it's pretty gruesome stuff. Then you have descriptions of the carnage seen by rescue and recovery teams, and it's just unimaginably awful. The things these witnesses describe will break your heart, but their stories are also full of heart-warming stories of heroism and selflessness. Everyone knows the story of Josephine Harris and the miraculous survival of the Ladder 6 team she was with, but this book is bursting with personal acts of heroism by ordinary men and women who epitomize the unsung hero. Virtually everyone who survived the attacks credits someone else with saving his/her life. One account that sticks out in my mind is the group of men who transported their handicapped coworker down dozens of flights of stairs to safety; they could have abandoned him and worried only about saving themselves, but they didn't. The man whose life they saved makes a profound point: if they had been a little slower or unlucky and died that day, no one would ever have known about those selfless acts of heroism. It makes you realize that some of the greatest acts of courage and sacrifice that took place that day will be known only in heaven.

Many of the individuals whose stories are recorded here talk about the emotional effects of the experience. Many ask why they lived when those around them died, and they talk about the emotional trauma (and, for some, sense of guilt) that will be a part of their daily lives from now on. In the same vein, a few give voice to some profound perspectives. It is awful that a fireman was killed by a jumper, but one individual points out that it probably saved the lives of the firemen who carried their fallen comrade to safety because it kept those men from entering the building just before it collapsed.

Many of these accounts come from policemen, firemen, Port Authority personnel, emergency service workers, and those who worked tirelessly to recover bodies in the days and weeks following the tragedy. I was also happy to read about some of the 300 search dogs who contributed so much to the effort, as well. A majority of the book relates to the attack on the World Trade Center, but there are also a number of accounts from those on site at the Pentagon as well as loved ones of the brave passengers of Flight 93. I was actually most interested in the stories of regular people who lived through the events, though; those are the stories I can most easily identify with, especially when I ask myself how I would have reacted in their situation. So many of those people showed great bravery and humanity, and it's really uplifting to read about those "little" but powerful stories that you never heard about on the news. It renews your faith in humanity and really drives home the point that the terrorists who kill innocent men, women, and children without a single twinge of guilt will never achieve their goals.On the morning of September 11, 2001, shock waves rippled through the country as the United States came under terrorist attack. In New York, Washington, D.C., and Somerset County, Pennsylvania, four planes piloted by members of the Al Qaeda terrorist organization left death, shattered innocence, and incomprehensible destruction in their wake. While the attacks united all Americans in their shared horror and grief, the actual witnesses to these events often bear the heaviest weight of these painful memories. Never Forget is a collection of unbelievably moving stories of loss, heartache, and survival, as told in the words of those closest to the unfolding tragedy.

In stark, haunting detail, these vivid personal accounts bring to life the events as they happened: from the harrowing moments after the planes hit the twin Towers of the World Trade Center to the overwhelming cloud of debris that enveloped lower Manhattan when the towers fell, the devastating conversations with loved ones on the hijacked flights, the terrifying hours spent trapped in the fallen buildings, and the painstaking recovery efforts at each site. Moses Lipson, an eighty-nine-year-old construction inspector, walks down from the eighty-eighth floor of Tower 1. Steven Bienkowski, a police officer in the New York Harbor Unit Scuba Team, watches helplessly from a helicopter as people trapped in the upper floors of Tower 1 reach from the windows to beg for a miracle rescue. Tim McGinn, a now-retired NYPD lieutenant, shoots out a window and saves at least thirty people from suffocation. Young Lyzbeth Glick's heart drops when she realizes that her husband, Jeremy, who changed his travel plans at the last moment, is now on the hijacked flight from Newark. As the Pentagon blazes, Lieutenant Colonel Ted Anderson plunges back inside to rescue civilians trapped by fallen debris.

Weeks later, the rescue and recovery efforts at Ground Zero continue. Construction worker Joseph Bradley looks on as a firefighter gently closes the eyes and straightens the suit of a woman whose body is found in the rubble. Benjamin Garelick, seven years old, raises seven hundred dollars with a lemonade stand to "help the firemen buy a new truck."

As these unforgettable stories reveal, many Americans transcended their own confusion and despair to help one another escape, to offer one another kindness, and to affirm life in the face of catastrophe. This concert of voices shows, as never before, the heartbreaking grief and slow but uplifting healing process that the people of this nation have experienced individually and as one.

Mitchell Fink, former New York Daily News gossip columnist, teamed with wife Lois Mathias to gather the first-person accounts of World Trade Center office workers, Pentagon employees, rescue workers, witnesses, and others who lived through the events of September 11. And while Fink does have a background in news reporting, his years plying the gossip trade actually serve him well in Never Forget. Part of the role of the gossipmonger, after all, is to reveal the human sides of public figures, to find the ways in which the famous are just like regular people. Fink and Mathias's interview subjects tell vivid details of what they experienced, forming fascinating, horrifying, and uplifting stories that provide a human face to the magnitude of that day's events. The book is not organized particularly clearly and, between sections, the authors unnecessarily underscore the stories with short inspirational messages rather than let their subjects' experiences do the talking. But the sheer force of the stories themselves is undeniable: the NYPD Chief of Police relates the experience of watching one of the towers collapse, a preschool teacher tells of the three days she spent searching in vain for her fiancé, an 89-year-old man describes his trip down 88 flights of stairs. After reading all of these stories, the reader may be struck with not only the enormity of what happened, but also a glimpse into the real impact it had on the people who lived through it. --John Moe suria review reviews analysis analyze