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"Though I live in California now, I used to live in New Jersey. The World Trade Center towers could be seen from my backyard. I was also a volunteer firefighter there. So, that fateful morning was very emotional for me. One year later, I still get choked up when I watch it on television or read about it. It's very painful. I hope our country never forgets."
Joe Barbarotta
Sales Manager
Haldeman Inc.
Los Angeles, CA
Michael Senter recalls that morning all too vividly. It's noticeable in his voice and his eyes. The CEO of ABCO Refrigeration remembers watching the horror unfold before him while standing outside his company's Long Island City headquarters, located in Queens, just across the East River from midtown Manhattan.
"Just one year ago," begins Senter, starting out slowly but gradually picking up speed, "we stood in front of our headquarters in Long Island City and watched the towers burn and ultimately fall as fire engines, police cars, and ambulances streamed past our building."
There is a slight pause, as if Senter has stopped to review the agonizing pictures of September 11, 2001. They just won't go away.
"Truthfully, 9/11/01 seems as though it happened just yesterday and, at the same time, it seems as though it has been an incredibly long year since it occurred," he finally says. "Although we at ABCO Refrigeration did many things in the days and months following 9/11/01 to contribute to the relief effort - from donating ice machines to the blood bank, air conditioners to the police, clothing, food, and cash to central relief funds, and authorizing employees to donate time to the relief effort at full pay" (there's another slight pause) "- nothing ever felt adequate, not in the face of the magnitude of the loss suffered by one child, one wife, one mother, one father."
"I remembered watching Pearl Harbor during the holiday season, and realized each generation will have its struggle, a time that we are unprepared for the next thing in our lives, the loss of innocent life on a mass scale or a single life, the unity it brings forth in one's beliefs and country. I think of my sons,...