First Hand History

"Particularly in the first six months we would have rocket attacks."

"I was riding the elevator up when the first plane struck the North Tower."

"I could hear the bullets and the scandal of people and planes. I was scared because I did not know what was happening at that moment."

"Earlier that day, life had been going on as normal, but now we could hear the bombs dropping, and that was just..."

"I do remember feeling glad we moved to New York when we did because I feel like if we were supposed to come after 9/11 we might not have gone, and I was so glad to be there, you know, in those years"

"I had a faith, I had a voice that kept telling me that I will be alright, that I will escape. "

"Everything that my family owned was taken away by the government."

"They were viewed as an inferior people. They became a scapegoat for other people. I’ve always viewed it that any person who looks down on other people is wrong. I’ve accepted everybody and I try to be nice to everyone. "

"And the gravity of the situation... we all slept very well at night actually. It was not like being in Vietnam or someplace where you sleep with one eye open"

"And it was the smell of the fires, initially, but once the fires subsided, then was the smell of - dead things. "

"I came home after the 14 months of training to say good-bye to all of my family because we were leaving but we didn't know if we were going to come back."

"If just tapped the brakes the propeller would curl up."

"I walked up the stairs and there was a sign that said “Colored Bathroom” And I said to myself, “Where are we? What country is this?”"

"It's just giving me... the memory"

"I would catch glimpses...of these poor people... I thought 'my goodness, that's hard for them' and I felt the need to help."

"I remember I came here with only 300 dollars."

"It was the most beautiful green I’d ever seen in my life…"

"After two or three years we knew we would never go back."

"These Palestinian kids... they haven't actually seen the ocean even though it's only 45 minutes away. "

"And it just seemed impossible, it seemed impossible that we weren't just coming under attack everyday."

"When Hitler allowed the refugees to go back to wherever they wanted to go, wherever home was, if it was available, my family went to the DP camps. The American government created housing for refugees, so we lived in military barracks on a military base for five years in Germany."

"We were not very popular when we came home and less and less is that the situation now. I think people have come to realize that you don't blame the soldier for the war."

"We're being honored more, thank God, than we were back when I came home in 1969."

"There were just dead people all around us on the sidewalks, and when we got to the wharf, we got onto that ferry and then there was a huge explosion, huge explosion, because they were bombarding Danzig,"

"Immigrating to America and leaving my home was an adventure for me. "

"...there was a curfew so no one could go in and out at all and you could see the light, the red light and fire from the bombing. "

"So, we have-a kind of a, rankings, between the friends; it’s not an equally same."

"Take Dwight D. Eisenhower. He was the one that ordered the invasion of Europe..."

"The Vietcong would go into a village and capture all the little ones and all the men that could fight and they gave them a gun and said 'You're gonna fight or were gonna kill you.' "

"He actually was in a very safe place, but because he was driving on the truck through Germany -- it had lumber on the back -- and they shot him in the head, and he is buried in Germany."

"Eleven and six year olds were starting stoves in their houses to cook so that they could save food tickets for their parents."

"Life gives you certain things and you just got to accept them. There's no use of having regrets or anything like that because, you cannot change the past."

"Me, as an officer, I need to be forearmed, day and night, and with a combat suit, even during sleep."

"And one of the things I did is threw my ribbons back across the divider and said: No, I’m not going to be a part of the glorification of this war."

"We were always talking low voice, making sure none of the neighbors were listening."

"They turned out to be communists helping North Korea. They tried to kill my father. My father had to run away."

"Every now and then we would see bodies floating, those were casualties of the fight, of the battle. They would just throw them in the river."

"There was a draft for Vietnam, but what they needed was a lot of soldiers, but they also needed blood."

"I was poor. I was so poor I lived in an apartment that cost me eighty dollars a month."

"Even if you put the clock in front of me, I wouldn't turn it back."

"... I could never understand how Americans could feel that way when their soldiers and sailors and airmen were there to protect them ..."

"If I hadn’t overslept, I might have not come back."

"The march itself was unbelievably powerful. I was honored to be a member of this vast movement of like minded women coming together to make a difference. It was really the most powerful thing I have, and probably will ever experience."

"Entire villages died of starvation. It was probably the worst man-made famine in human history."

"I served a year in Vietnam in 1968, and that was a very active period over there."