9/11 victim George A. Llanes

I first honored George in 2009. I decided this year to give Scott and George their own posts.

[[Removed section that had a bogus post.]]

It appears that George was a funny guy cracking jokes and making people laugh. You can read tributes to him here.

He was also a poet. He had given his mother a bound copy of his poems and when they cleaned out his apartment after his death, they found poems everywhere.

It was Mr. Llanes devotion to his dog, that led to his death. The dog,

a pug named Mae Mae, persuaded him to rejigger his work schedule. He switched to a schedule of 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. from an ordinary one of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., despite a lifelong aversion to getting up early.

Had he been on his normal schedule, George would have not yet been at work on that fateful morning.

Related articles

• 10 years, 21,000 bone fragments, no 9/11 closure (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Links to more tributes (Project 2996) (project2996.wordpress.com)
• 9/11 Round-Up (melissablogs.com)

9/11 victim Scott Hazelcorn

As I have for several years previously, I honor Scott Hazelcorn, a young employee at Cantor Fitzgerald who perished in the attacks of September 11.

I quoted a New York Times article on the 7th anniversary.

“At a memorial service for Scott Hazelcorn, his father learned that there were at least a dozen people who considered his son their best friend. This was not the result of duplicity, Charles Hazelcorn said, but rather a function of Scott’s open heart and sunny nature. Each eulogist put it differently: your problem was his problem; he made each person feel he was the only one in the room; he taught people to hug each other; he was the one who made work fun.”

In a New York Times tribute 5 years ago his parents talk about the week spent at the camp they founded in Scott’s name, which was his dream,

“My wife and I almost feel selfish because we’re getting so much out of it,” Mr. Hazelcorn said. “It’s our only therapy.”

Yet the relief, as always, was fleeting. At the end of the week, the couple turned to each other and said, “He’s still not here.”

Each year about this time I go back to read tributes left to Scott, especially the ones left on his birthday. I always tear up. I have a son who just turned 30 and wonder.

I don’t know exactly what happened to folks in that tower that day, but I pray that what happened to some didn’t happen to Scott.

My continued prayers for those family and friends of Scott.

Related articles

• Camp for 9/11 kids marks ninth summer (cbsnews.com)
• Blogger honored to tell 9/11 victims’ stories (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Links to more tributes (Project 2996) (project2996.wordpress.com)
• 9/11 Round-Up (melissablogs.com)

Tenth anniversary of 9/11

Ten years ago, American life received a jolt as four airplanes were hijacked for the purpose of flying into large buildings. Three succeeded. Here’s a timeline of that day.

We were traveling that day and I was sleeping in at my daughter’s house in Nashville, TN. My wife and daughter woke me with the news and we stayed glued to the TV the rest of the day as events unfolded.

In the years that have passed, some things have become clear, some remain cloudy.

Here’s something for you:

Of 21,000 remains that have been recovered, nearly 9,000 are unidentified, because of the degraded condition they were found in. More than 1,100 victims have no identifiable remains.

And

in five years, only 26 new identifications.

Not out of the realm of possibility, based on the physics, but breath-taking nonetheless. The physics:

In Pennsylvania, the heat caused by the high-speed crash into a field caused 92 percent of the human remains to vaporize, leaving very little to work with,

but they’ve managed to

make matches to the 40 victims, plus four sets of remains from the terrorists.

All but five victims at the Pentagon have been identified.

But nowhere was the forensic detective work as demanding and daunting than at the 16-acre World Trade Center site, where the giant towers collapsed onto the rest of the complex, breaking everything into pieces.

And the work continues,

Five scientists work seven days a week trying to make new identifications at a lab in an ultra-modern building on the east side of Manhattan.

And then there’s this,

The failure to identify so many victims has affected the final victims’ count over the years The city’s list of the dead — often with multiple missing persons’ reports of the same people — peaked at nearly 7,000 in the months after the attacks, but dropped to 2,752 by the fall of 2002.

Project 2996 lists, well, 2996. Not sure when the list may have been updated. Note the numbers here.

As of August 2011, 1,631 victims have been identified, while 1,122 (41%) of the victims remained unidentified.

That makes 2,753, the commonly accepted number. Note that names are added and subtracted.

Three more names were removed in 2004 after investigators failed to track them to the trade center; including Sneha Anne Philip, a Manhattan doctor who was last seen Sept. 10, 2001, at a department store across from the twin towers. Her name was added back to the death toll in 2008 after her family argued in court that there was no other place she could have been.

Sometimes it’s just too much to wrap one’s head around.

And then you read,

Twenty-seven profiles DNA generated so far don’t match any of the approximately 17,000 genetic reference materials that were collected. Scientists aren’t sure who they are. [Emphasis mine]

Watching some of the specials on the National Geographic channel recently reminded me of the sad, sad stories that day. So did the series of excerpts from Mike Nichols book Just a Few Sleeps Away in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Andrea Haberman, a Wisconsin woman who was in the North Tower. And I read an article in the September/October 2011 issue of The History Channel magazine by Michael Graves, Between the Dawn and the Dusk (not found online). Mr. Graves was in his hotel room at the Marriott World Trade Center hotel when the first plane hit.

And this just covers those who died that day. There are other casualties who are slowly dying and those who really shouldn’t be a casualty.

The images flash through the brain; the explosive collisions, the jumpers, people on the street hit with debris, pictures of firefighters ascending the stairs, the collapses, the calls from those trapped, the posters hung on the street, the smoldering wreckage in a field in Pennsylvania.

Honoring 9/11 victims

UPDATE: For the 10th anniversary, I gave the men their own post. You can find Scott’s here and George’s here.

Today is the 8th anniversary of that tragic day. As I thought of making my comeback to blogging, I thought no greater post could I make than to once again honor those who perished that day. So I’m not starting with politics. As I did 3 years ago, I gave my blog a simpler theme and limited it to showing one post.

First, I honor Scott Hazelcorn, an employee at Cantor Fitzgerald. Here’s what I posted last year.

“…Hazelcorn, 29, was a trader of long-term treasury bonds at Cantor Fitzgerald; his girlfriend, Amy Callahan, was a special-education teacher. The pair had plans for a summer camp for needy kids. Scott often told his parents that he wanted to buy an ice cream truck, so he could hear the squeals of children all day.”

This year, I also asked to remember someone else so I could learn about them. The name I received was George A. Llanes. George worked for Carr Futures on the 92nd floor of World Trade Center North tower. A poignant post by his step dad can be found here.

Google books has part of the book Portraits of 9/11 which starts off with,

George Llanes was a sensitive, studious child, the kind that classmates often teased.

George was an only child and didn’t move out of his parents house until he was nearly 34, shortly before his death, because he had started smoking and he wanted to get a dog, both of which would give his mother allergy attacks.

It appears that George was a funny guy cracking jokes and making people laugh. You can read tributes to him here.

He was also a poet. He had given his mother a bound copy of his poems and when they cleaned out his apartment after his death, they found poems everywhere.

It was Mr. Llanes devotion to his dog, that led to his death. The dog,

a pug named Mae Mae, persuaded him to rejigger his work schedule. He switched to a schedule of 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. from an ordinary one of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., despite a lifelong aversion to getting up early.

Had he been on his normal schedule, George would have not yet been at work on that fateful morning.

Two men. One sunny and outgoing. The other, a shy poet. Both dead much too early.

This day is Scott’s and George’s.

Project 2996 is the driving force behind these tributes. Here is their Facebook page. If you’re on Facebook, become a fan. If you have a blog, post a tribute. If you don’t, you can still honor a victim.

Scott Hazelcorn (8/14/1972 – 9/11/2001)

Today is the 7th anniversary of that tragic day. No politics today. As I did 2 years ago, I honor Scott Hazelcorn, an employee at Cantor Fitzgerald. Here’s what I posted then,

The thing about 9/11 is that it didn’t matter what creed or ideology you subscribed to. Like Scott Hazelcorn. Republican, Democrat, Green, Libertarian or independent, the fact remains that his life was snuffed out at a much too young age.

I can’t read far in the memorial guest book without tears welling up in my eyes for a young man taken from his family and friends far too soon.

I found it so moving, I’m going to quote the New York Times page on Scott.

Dream of an Ice Cream Truck

“At a memorial service for Scott Hazelcorn, his father learned that there were at least a dozen people who considered his son their best friend. This was not the result of duplicity, Charles Hazelcorn said, but rather a function of Scott’s open heart and sunny nature. Each eulogist put it differently: your problem was his problem; he made each person feel he was the only one in the room; he taught people to hug each other; he was the one who made work fun.

“‘Nobody enjoyed life more, from the minute he got up to the minute he went to sleep,’ his father said. And to that end there were ‘Haz’s Rules,’ which included setting the clock radio to a Spanish language station, which he could not understand, so he never had to start the day listening to bad news.

“The younger Mr. Hazelcorn, 29, was a trader of long-term treasury bonds at Cantor Fitzgerald; his girlfriend, Amy Callahan, was a special-education teacher. The pair had plans for a summer camp for needy kids. Scott often told his parents that he wanted to buy an ice cream truck, so he could hear the squeals of children all day.

“When Cantor Fitzgerald spun off a company called eSpeed, which allowed clients to do their own trading, Mr. Hazelcorn’s work group shrank from 30 to 4. In a few months, it was to disappear altogether, his father said. To his son that was good news: between yearly raises, bonuses and stock options in eSpeed, he was planning to buy that ice cream truck.
Profile published in THE NEW YORK TIMES on October 9, 2001.”

As a tribute to Scott, his family formed The Scott Hazelcorn Children’s Foundation. Its purpose has been to offer a one-week, all expense paid summer experience for children who lost a loved one on September 11, 2001. The goal of Camp Haze is to provide these children with refuge from worry and grief, a network of peers and a staff that understands their unique emotional needs. Starting in the summer of 2006 children, ages 7-12, who have lost a loved one to illness or tragedy are also eligible.

The camp accepts donations online.

The camp has more about Scott.

This will be my only post today. No partisan politics. No insightful commentary. No witty or odd headlines. And I gave my blog a simpler theme and limited it to showing one post.

Tomorrow partisan bickering resumes. After all there’s an election to be won. But not today.

This day is Scott’s.

Here is a list of more tributes.

UPDATE: There are too many tributes to list but you can go to silent E and No Runny Eggs for their list. Here’s also tributes from the campaigns:
McCain/Palin Campaign
Obama/Biden Campaign

Project 2996

Via Ol’ Broad

Sadly, it’s that time of year again when we honor those who died on 9/11.  The 2996 Project is looking for some bloggers who will honor at least one of our lost.  Time is short, so please, if you want to put a little time into a project, please go here, send an email letting them know you want to participate.  You’ll be assigned a name, and it will be up to you as how much, or how little you’ll post about the person.

Hear, hear. I hope they get inundated with requests from folks on all points of the political spectrum.

If you knew someone you might be able to request their name. I honored Scott Hazelcorn in 2006 and asked for his name again this year.

If you would like to participate (you don’t have to be a blogger), go to this page and sign up.

You can also send an email to .

He explained the resons behind last year’s drop-off:

In 2007, Project 2996 was scaled back a bit. Health concerns and job market difficulties made it impossible to match the time I devoted to it in 2006.

Even still, several hundred people took the time to write tributes to the fallen, and pledges to remember them still.

(Cross posted at Fairly Conservative).