[meteorite-list] A Day Of Silent Mourning - Part 1 of 2

From: Bernd Pauli HD <bernd.pauli_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:48:59 2004
Message-ID: <3BA22FCE.CCD10452_at_lehrer1.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de>

Dear List,

I have collected and read about 80 mails with regard to the tragic
events that befell the United States of America last Tuesday. My
senior students read and discussed the list contributions and felt
exactly like one of you wrote to me:

"Your capsuled comments will mean much
more than the sterile newspaper reports"

They knew all the facts as they are constantly being televised and
so they were thankful and appreciative for your personal perspectives.

Some of them do want me to pass on their thoughts to you. I chose
three of them (it would just be too much to reprint all of them),
they are typical and representative of how most of them feel. I
mostly left their contributions in their original state correcting
their words only (with thewir permisssion) if this was necessary to
understand what they wanted to convey. Just one example to show
you what I mean. Please, go to #3: "We all have to join forces
now". The original wording was "We all have to hold much more
together now".

Two of my students' contributions come from 18-year-old females
and one stems from an 18-year-old male student in my group.

Contribution #1:

When I heard of that terrible assault, I was really shocked. I could
never imagine that something like that happens to the USA. I always
thought the US would be a country which is inviolable. Furthermore
I feel very sorry for the thousands of victims and their families.
It is just inconceivable that there are men who are able to do such
cruel things. Haven't they any respect of life? Not even their own?
Don't they believe in a god? But I really hope, that the most powerful
man of the world, George Bush, has the ability to be reasonable and
guards the world against a terrible war.

Contribution #2:

I' m deeply shocked about the incident that happened in the US! The
terrorist act that hit America was a very cowardly and insidious act
against America and all mankind and it killed many innocent people
and hit America right in the middle of its heart. Now it's very
difficult to find out who exactly planned the terrorist act and who
is responsible for it but it is necessary to spare no effort to find
out and to lay this person by the heels. This is something that has
to concern all people who want to live in peace and want to feel
safe in their homes. I also feel very sorry about the many firefighters
that died because they wanted/ had to help.

Contribution #3:

What happened on Sep 11 is incredible. All mankind was caught in
surprise by that terible act. How must these people feel to commit
such a thing? What do they hope to achieve by that? Such people have
no understanding, their brains are diseased. Our future has now been
changed vehemently for all of us. We all have to think about how we
should face such things. What should we do now? And above all, what
should Americans do now? Is that the beginning of WW III ? Of course,
the perpetrators must be punished, but how? Can the Americans risk to
attack them in a foreign country? It is hard to say which way is the
right one (to choose). If the Americans took revenge for what happened,
wouldn't these "enemies" then take vengeance again? That would be a
game which never ends. It is no solution. But who says that there will
be no further attempts if the Americans do nothing!? That was only the
beginning of a slowly approaching war – it only needs some time.
There is no way out of this for all of us – above all for the Western
countries. We all have to join forces now. Who knows – maybe we
are the next target for these people. Time has changed – we all have
to be more careful now than a few years ago.
Received on Fri 14 Sep 2001 12:26:54 PM PDT