http://www.rense.com/general74/911why.htm

The first time I shouldered my Scott airpack, a self contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) and pressed the face mask and respirator to my face and mounted the ladder over the hotbox, I panicked and nearly fainted. My heart pounded; I couldn't breath! A sudden burst of air, however, from the release valve, relieved the feeling of suffocation, but drew a quick scolding from my firefighting instructor. Stop breathing in bursts, he said; remain calm, and follow your team leader.

At 56, never too old to learn, I was trying to become a certified firefighter.

Descending into the hotbox, a converted shipping container purposely set aflame and smoldering, I remained low and crawled to the source of the fire. One by one, the team of novices cooled the fire before retreating. Outside we breathed a collective sigh of relief, having passed the first test.

The other day I watched Fahrenheit 911 again, thinking I may have missed something in the documentary. Bravura filmmaking, especially the edited scenes at the base of the twin towers, particularly the scenes of emotionally stricken people at the WTC, the documentary only focuses on 9-11 briefly. Accompanied by music befitting the death knell of nearly three thousand victims, we see the shock, the stunned disbelief, and the impending death. Among the victims were more than 343 firefighters who stood a thousand feet below the fire and realized what they had to do. Knew what they were trained to do. Knew they had to shoulder their Scott airpacks and climb hundreds of feet, passing terrified people along the way.

In the film I watched a group of New York firefighters shoulder their Scott airpacks and move towards the towers. Did anyone of that group survive, I wondered?

Some people watching the film (with 20/20 hindsight) may have thought the firefighters crazy. Obviously the buildings were coming down. At least that is what the well-paid experts tell us today. What fools those firefighters were. Why would they rush into collapsing buildings?

Because skyscrapers had never collapsed before or since. No sizeable steel building had ever burned and then collapsed. Even the architects and designers of the Twin Towers had factored in an airliner, filled with fuel, crashing into the towers.

But this was no ordinary fire, no ordinary rescue, no ordinary series of tragic events. This was a manufactured terror event destined to have far-reaching and epic repercussions.

One objective observer, Wall Street Journal reporter John Bussey, described the collapse of the south tower from the ninth floor of the WSJ office building: "I . . . looked up out of the office window to see what seemed like perfectly synchronized explosions coming from each floor. . . . One after the other, from top to bottom, with a fraction of a second between, the floors blew to pieces."

Why We Fight

Had most if not all the 343 firefighters lived, had everyone escaped, had the buildings not collapsed, the firefighters would have been living heroes. They would have added their testimony to that of the working class survivors, firefighters with nothing to hide. Here is just a portion of testimony that utterly destroys the fraudulent official version of 9-11.

"I saw a flash flash flash [at] the lower level of the building. You know like when they demolish a building?" said Assistant Fire Commissioner, Stephen Gregory. Now why would a top firefighting official like Gregory lie? And if telling the truth, why was no one listening?

"There was just an explosion [in the south tower]. It seemed like on television [when] they blow up these buildings. It seemed like it was going all the way around like a belt, all these explosions." Added firefighter Richard Banaciski. Once again, was Banaciski mistaken in what he saw?

These two quotes were only a sampling from a collection of 9/11 oral histories recorded by the FDNY at the end of 2001. Understandably, they were never publicly released until August 12, 2005. The testimonies suggested more than one explosion occurred in the towers. For example, FDNY Captain Dennis Tardio recalled: "I hear an explosion and I look up. It is as if the (south tower) building is being imploded, from the top floor down, one after another, boom, boom, boom."
Readers often ask me why we in the 911 Truth Movement bother to pose logical questions to the tragedy that took so many lives--and continues to take so many lives. People wonder why we fight, why we dissent, why we question the official story when so many so-called patriots remain quiet? Because a great crime was commited and never fully investigated. Because nobody can speak for the dead unless we do it.

Firefighter Louie Cacchioli entered the north tower lobby and saw elevator doors completely blown out and people struck by debris. "How could this be happening so quickly if a plane hit way above?" Debunkers claim the blast from the impact and subsequent fuel explosion destroyed the lobby, elevators and sub basement floors.

However, after Cacchioli reached the 24th floor, he and another fireman heard a sizeable, secondary blast. "This huge explosion that sounded like a bomb [and] knocked off the lights and stalled the elevator." Had Cacchioli simply heard the tower coming down at that exact moment, he would have been crushed before he escaped. Instead, after prying themselves out of the elevator, they heard "Another huge explosion like the first one... This one hits about two minutes later." Two minutes later? Once again, logically, had he heard the tower pancaking down around them, rather than a series of explosions, Cacchioli and his partner would have NOT have had time to escape from the tower to testify.

Thus exposing the government version of 9-11 events as an outright lie, an outright fraud, a house of cards composed of treachery and deception. Thus exposing, in no uncertain terms, the cabal of government experts and self-styled 911 "debunkers" as either unquestioning patriots, unwitting accomplices, or worse: willing co-conspirators.

Not until the credible testimony of those who actually experienced the controlled demolition of the WTC is given due weight, not until the testimony of those who witnessed and experienced the destruction from the inside and outside of the buildings is properly investigated, will justice be served. Until then we will continue to fight with the only weapons we possess. Dissent and dissemination of suppressed evidence. Until then America has witnessed the controlled killing of 343 firefighters without due process of law. Those brave men who shouldered heavy gear and marched to their doom were sacrificed. If the intentional murder of these trusting public servants is allowed to stand, this nation will weaken and fall. Because any nation that permits an unending series of crimes against itself cannot last long, nor does it deserve to.

USAF veteran, certified firefighter, longtime Alaska fisherman and recent novelist of crime novel, The Guns of Dallas, Douglas Herman writes for Rense frequently.