Making an exception, for a damned good reason

I don’t normally link to something I haven’t read all of yet, but Greyhawk’s 9/11 post is too outstanding to put off passing on until I’ve had time to read it. If you don’t read anything else related to that day, read what he has to say. A short sample:

[…]

"You're all professionals. Today I need you all to get out there and focus on the task at hand."

A little over dramatic, I'm thinking. We're in the midst of a major exercise and the B52's are all prepped and ready to go; loaded for bear and ready to crush an imaginary foe. In this case, as with all exercises, the scenario is based on hypothetical bad guys launching an unprovoked and brutal attack against a make-believe ally of the United States. Exercises almost always begin with that premise, for it would be unrealistic to have the attack actually directed at us. Still, the script calls for us to respond in such a way that the hypothetical bad guys will suffer grave consequences for their crimes.

The boss continues, and he's really hamming it up. The look on his face is dead serious. "There's little information available right now but this we know: an aircraft has crashed into one of the towers of the world trade center."

Damn. That, I know, was not in the script.

[…]

I need a break from this scene and there are a few things I need to get done, so it's down the hall to the office. When I get there the guy I share the office with is hanging up the phone; he was talking to a buddy at the Pentagon.

"Learn anything?" I ask him.

"He hung up...he said 'I've gotta go, the whole building just shook'... and he hung up."

Damn.

[…]

JUST. GO. READ. IT.