Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for September 11, 2024

9-11…

let’s not forget…

Some came running

Into danger

Risk their lives

Helping strangers.

Mighty towers

Tumbled down

Many helpers

Never found.

Save us from the true believers

Hateful violence, vile deceivers.

Today ‘tis fitting to recall

Some came running, sacrificing all.

Good morning™, everybody!

Leave it to Eric to come up with very old quotations. This one was engraved on a commemorative stone on top of the burial mound of the Spartans at Thermopylae after the Battle of Thermopylae.

The Greek from Herodotus: Ὦ ξεῖν’, ἀγγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ὅτι τῇδε κείμεθα, τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι.

A literal translation cited by Wikipedia: O stranger, tell the Lacedaemonians that we lie here, obedient to their words.

There have been many different poetic translations into English. Wikipedia cites 14 variations, none of which match today’s strip.

We will always emerge from darkness better & wiser than before, & our “antennae” vigilant.

I worked for Cantor Fitzgerald from September 1999- April 2001 on the 101 Floor in the North tower. My desk faced north. I could see the lights of Yankee Stadium in the summer. On a clear day you could actually see the curve of the earth! In April of 2001 I left to work for another company in midtown.

I was fortunate. My wife wasn’t made a widow, my children weren’t left fatherless.Dozens of very good people that I worked with, joked with, ate birthday cake with and exchanged Christmas gifts with lost their lives that morning. For years I was haunted by the terror everyone must have felt those last few seconds before the plane hit.

I will never forget.

No matter what I may be going through I thank God and treat each day as a blessing. I try my best to be a blessing to others.

Good morning™, Survivors !

I was in a local hardware store, early to mid morning, MT, when on a mini tv was playing the crash footage. If vengey continues not showing up it is possible he is involved in some commemoration service.

Mr. E. has given us a new perspective on this event, as a departure from showing two towers against a skyline. A very relatable human scene.

Gaza has a 9/11 every week!

I was working at a Post Office around 30 miles from Manhattan, listening to the radio and hearing about the first crash, I believed it was a horrible accident, then the second plane hit.

A despicable act forged heroes that the world will NEVER forget.

Very poignant and appropriate today, lest we forget, thank you!

I guess they’re observing the anniversary of 9/11.

Amen

They say everyone has had a ‘JFK’ incident in their lives that they never forget. I’ve had several, but 9/11 is one of them. I just rose from bed, a quick peek over an early social media, had a friend online yelled “Canada has bombed New York!” Well, I was still very sleep foggy so I read it wrong, but another paged me to go to a TV and watch the news.

I turned on CNN about 10 minutes before the 2nd tower was hit, and saw it. The roar, the penetration, the explosion…

I spent the entire day glued to the set, with my GF at the time, calling family and friends. I saw the towers collapse. Heard of the Pentagon, PA crash…

Things have passed, relationships changed. But that memory still haunts me to this day.

I will never forget, nor will I forgive. There was no legitimate reason for that. If you have problem with our military, or government, take it up with them. Do not attack 3000+ innocents for your fanaticism. Same goes for Israel but that’s a different story. I hope all who did this, is or will be cast to the bottom pit of hell, where Satan will chew on you for all eternity now.

The FDNY Ladder Company 3 truck is currently located in the 9/11 Museum.

Https://Www.911memorial.Org/Connect/Blog/Truck-illustrates-courage-tragedy-first-responders-911

I was driving to work at Drexel in Philadelphia when the first tower and the Pentagon were hit. I wound up rescuing a nice elderly lady who’d been evacuated from a NYC-bound Amtrak train; installing her in a faculty lounge until her kids could drive down and get her…

9/11 wound up killing my mother.

She was stranded in Maine with no way to get at the chemo which was holding back her cancer. We got her home a week later, and she died at home with her family around her. To this day, I still recall telling my brother-in-law, a RN, “Remember, no heroic measures!” when he was about to start CPR…

(sad sigh) And now it’s my turn for chemo for lymphoma… :(

We will never forget…

I have an alarm set to go off just before the time the plane hit the North Tower. I don’t want to get so busy that I don’t stop and pray.

The September 11th attacks is one of the rare incidents where it’s on the same date all around the world. I was watching the late news at around 10:50pm when the story broke live of the first plane.

I was downstairs in a routine but lengthy meeting at my office and we all came back up to discover that the world had gone mad. Don’t remember now what the meeting was even about, except that it suddenly seemed idiotic and pointless in the face of what was happening….

I was in Manhattan that day, scheduled to visit a customer three blocks from the WTC at 10 AM.

I turned on the Today show to check the weather, and they broke in with reports of a fire at the WTC.

The rest, as they say, is history.

These in the days when heaven was falling

The hour when earth’s foundations fled

followed their mercenary calling

and are dead.

Their shoulders held the sky suspended

they stood and earth’s foundations stayed.

What God abandoned these defended

and saved the sum of things for pay.- A. E. Housman

…. remember…. always remember….

as for MY recollections of that day, I was at work just south of the Loop, in the business district of Chicago and was at work when someone came in and said that we have just got to watch the tv… we came into the lunchroom and saw the first attack being replayed and shortly afterwards, the second tower attack… we were immediately told to go home and that work was done for the day… I left work and headed for home and it was a strange feeling seeing an exodus of vehicles leaving the Loop and no vehicles entering, never saw anything like it before, they were evacuating the Loop, as they were afraid that the Sears Tower might be a potential target of a possible coordinated terrorist act and wanted to take no chances… I got home and just watched the news for further updates… and it was an eerie feeling to not hear ANY flights coming or going from Midway airport, which I live near… didn’t hear ANY flights being taken off or leaving for about three days except for military fighter jets on occasion… I believe they had orders to shoot down ANY plane that was not to be in the airspace, the entire area was restricted airspace for some time before it was realized that New York was the extent of the attack… I never forget that day… the good Book says that I should forgive my enemies… after what happened and the tragic and massive loss of life… am I supposed to… how CAN I?..our parents went through December 7th and now WE have gone through September 11th… one was the result of WAR, the other was a cowardly hissy fit of a crazed group of radical extremists… the madness never ends and as long as man has evil intent in their hearts, it never will, sad to say… but I will always have faith and hope for this poor old spinning marble that we reside on for a little while before we all must move on and make room for the ones who come after us… we all should make the best of our time here and leave things in a better shape for the future.

…..they, too, though vastly outnumbered, stood their ground against a tyrant. NEVER FORGET.

MOVIE QUOTE—“George was a born hero,Mister Temple. It wasn’t just a matter of doing his duty. he was always looking for a way to do more. And finding it”

“He could never think of death. Only dishonor”.

Humphrey Bogart—KEY LARGO—1948

Was working at Verizon in NYC at 6th Avenue and 42nd Street. Had a peferctly awful view from 40 blocks away watching the second tower fall.

The Firefighters, Police & EMT’s that gave their lives to try and save the others…They are just as qualified to be considered the Spartans and the quote is justly apt for today. I continue to pray for the souls lost that day in New York, Washington D.C. and Flight 93 in Pennsylvania. God bless all the innocents who perished that day.

I currently work in the office right next to the large office space where I was working at the time. I was a product designer then and the team then often had a good banter going as we worked. I had some talk radio going and the host stopped to comment on the breaking news. We worked in virtual silence from that point that day as the account was narrated to us step by step as it was happening: The Towers, The Pentagon, The plane going down in Pennsylvania, The Victims, The Heroes… The horrors that were hundreds of miles away were brought into the office as our compatriots lost and risked life and limb at the hands of people bent on creating the terror we felt – a continual escalation of perpetual mutual retribution going back who knows how long.

Please keep the firefighter battling the blazes today in your thoughts as well. It’s never ending heroism as they put their lives on the line every day to keep us safe.

Amen.

My mother lived in Topeka at the time. She and some friends stood outside and watched planes, that ordinarily flew over Kansas completely unseen, turned around over Topeka and headed back to Kansas City to be grounded.

Terrific strip and declaration!!

that was a bad day in our history. We need to remember all of the first responders.

Solid Tribute.

A poster we haven’t seen in some long time. His last posts were ten years ago. Something tells me he quit or is an “ex person”.

Https://Www.gocomics.Com/profile/1349490

the Hartford COURANT published Dick Tracy when I was in grade school, so I have read his Crimestoppers hints and fiction for decades…..Thank you for much Artist Costello for this fine drawing and tribute to our 911 Responders. Let us remember the fanatic Saudi terrorists brought this destruction even as American, NATO and Arab allies defend against anti-American Iranian zealots and their henchmen. May those who have lost their loved ones be comforted among American mourners. GF in CT

Been away and just catching up….

Thank you to Messrs. Curtis, Ettinger and Costello for still remembering….