20 years ago!

[Squatch]

My second wife was a first generation immigrant from Laos. I'll never forget how she came into the bedroom and gently woke me up. When I finally opened my eyes, I saw a look on her face like I've never seen before. She simply said "Marky, I think we're going to war."
Spent the morning watching everything I could before work. At work, it's all anyone could talk about. I'll never forget how empty the skies were over the next several days and nights, even though Sea-Tac Airport is close to where I work. If you recall, nothing was in the air for a number of days (though I've forgotten exactly how many). It was eerie at night, not seeing/hearing the planes. Very surreal.

I also remember all the warnings (on the news, and reader boards along the highway) about how all stalled/abandoned vehicles on
I-5 would be towed immediately. And finally, I will never forget how drivers actually were courteous...dare I say even friendly to one another out on the roads. I had ever seen anything like that before, or since.

 

[Farmergreg]

I was building a retaining wall around a swimming pool. Daughter had just started kindergarten. Schools released early. We were glued to the tube watching it unfold.

I had passed my instrument flight rating a week before. When they began to allow private planes up it was instrument rules only for awhile.

F-16's and Air Force one were the only planes initially. Very eerie! (Oh and a still unexplained fight of Saudi Nationals that were allowed to fly out!)

Sadly, this countries patriotism brought by that event has faded into oblivion.

 

[cliffish]

Was driving into work and started seeing a ton of volunteer firefighters (lots of them are also FDNY) with their blue lights on flying towards NYC. My friend was walking towards the twin towers when he saw the fist plane heading down there at a very low altitude. He had to walk home later that day 3-4 hours across the 59th Street bridge as all the trains and subways were stopped....very weird the following week as there were no planes in the sky. I don't think there is anyone around here that does not know someone who was lost that day.

 

[Jamison C]

I was eight at the time, and was homeschooled. I remember getting up and ready only to find my mom, still in her pajamas, kneeling in front of the TV. About that time my dad walked out of his home office and the three of us started watching as the first tower burned. There was so much confusion as to what was happening, but I remember very clearly watching the second plane hit the second tower. You couldn’t see it hit because the first tower was between the news chopper and the second tower, but the explosion that followed was very visible. Reports of the pentagon also added to the confusion.

We watched the rescue efforts for awhile, and the footage of people jumping out of the windows, hand-in-hand. This seemed to be the worst of it, until the first tower fell, with the second tower falling not too far after. I was too young to truly understand the magnitude of what happened, but I’m glad so much awareness is made on each anniversary, and that it was so well documented.

Every year that goes by, I read stories and watch footage that reminds me of how truly horrific that event was. Our media has seemed to shift the narrative of what terrorism is, but that day was the face of true terrorism, a face that we should never forget. It was enough for the world to respond and hold it at bay for 20 years.

 

[Apparition]

I saw a story yesterday criticizing the 9/11 Memorial.

I’ve had a chance to visit it and I highly recommend it to anyone who visits NYC. I thought it was well done and helped to preserve the stories of those there that day.

 

[drivincar67]

I was off duty that day and had just finished making a cup of coffee when my wife called me from her classroom and told me about the first tower being hit. I cut the TV on in time to see the second tower being hit. I know their intention was to instill fear, but the first thing I felt was anger, followed by sadness. What a feeling of unity we had in this nation during that time. I was on the volunteer list to help in the aftermath, but there was such an outpouring of help, we never got called up. How I wish we still had that unity as Americans, regardless of personal opinions, willing to help each other regardless of our differing viewpoints.

 

[Fishtaco]

I saw a story yesterday criticizing the 9/11 Memorial.

I’ve had a chance to visit it and I highly recommend it to anyone who visits NYC. I thought it was well done and helped to preserve the stories of those there that day.

I visited from Australia when it first opened, the museum wasn't quite ready.
One thing that struck me after first visiting the towers in 89/90 was just how small the footprints look but I agree its well done.

 

[astjp2]

I was at camp Doha Kuwait deployed with operation desert spring. It was after shift when the second airplane hit on armed forces networks, I called operations and said we just went to war, the duty officer was like what the hell are you talking about and I said, “turn on cnn, we just went to war!” We had 2700 people on 9/11 on post, when I left in 4 months there was over 30,000 getting ready for the invasion. Being permanent party, I was an e5 in barracks and o6’s were in tents…it was wild getting 700 hellfire missiles and a lot of 30mm issued to 8 Apache helicopters until we stood down and things calmed down.

 

[freedom_in_4low]

Senior year in high school. I had turned 18 and mailed in my selective service registration just a couple of weeks before. I heard about it from a classmate walking into German class, my second class of the day after chemistry. I also pictured it as an accident involving a small private plane. We had our German lesson as normal but for the remaining classes of the day we had TVs playing the news coverage.

At lunch, my younger friends (I had one of the earliest birthdays so was older than 90% of my graduating class) asked if I was worried about being drafted.

It was a weird day for sure, though a little less weird for me than the OKC bombing which was within earshot if you were outdoors, and 3 blocks from my dad's (a lawyer in the US attorneys office) building. They didn't even tell us anything at school. I heard rumors on the playground at recess and didn't know whether my dad was alive until I got home.

 

[tworley]

I was watching the news before school (7th grade) when they had an alert about the first tower. As I watched shocked before my mom was ready we saw the second plane hit live, even in the low quality picture of the early 2000s.

There was so much confusion throughout the broadcast and our house that I went to school any way like most my peers. The whole morning was pretty much watching the news with an early dismissal with the towers coming down. I really don’t remember the rest of the day beyond shock and trying to understand what and why that would happen (the pre-pubescent mind is pretty naive).

Pretty much my experience. Turned on my 13" TV with rabbit ears that only picked up the news channel and saw the first tower had already struck and then watched the second one hit.

We went to school and sat in the library and watched everything unfold for the rest of the day.

 

[Neal]

I was working as a news helicopter pilot for WPXI in Pittsburgh, I saw the WTC impacts while getting ready to go to my office at the Allegheny County Airport. By the time I got there the Pentagon had been hit and the grounding order had gone out. All I could do was sit there and watch the coverage and wish I was still on active duty (got out in 1992). There were rumors of a plane over Pittsburgh, but nothing more until they began reporting Flight 93 down near Shanksville.

I got a call from the station around 11 or so, asking if I could get ready to fly to Shanksville to deliver search personnel and supplies on behalf of AirSearch Rescue, a local company that provided specialized teams for emergency response, water rescue, dog teams, etc. The station had an agreement with them to provide helicopter services during times of national emergency, and they were working on getting clearance from D.C. to fly, despite the grounding order. By 2 PM we had received clearance to fly. I took off with my photographer, Jim Krentz, and proceeded to Warrendale, about 20 miles north of Pittsburgh, where I landed in the parking lot of the Sheraton Hotel to pick up two search specialists and a few boxes of supplies. We departed for Shanksville, in contact with Pittsburgh Departure Control and were handed off to Cleveland Center for the rest of the trip to the crash site, about 55 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.

Arriving at the site at 3:20 PM, we circled a few times while Jim shot some video. Looking at the impact scar it was obvious that there was nothing any of us could do to rescue anyone. The crater showed signs of fire and there was a heavy smell of jet fuel and other things that should not be allowed to burn in the air. The shape of the wings, engines and tail if the aircraft was clearly visible in the impact scar and we came to the conclusion that the aircraft had been inverted at a steep angle when it hit the ground. There was also a great deal of debris scattered from the crater to the east in the direction of Indian Lake. Parts of the forested area adjacent to the impact scar were smoldering and several nearby houses were damaged. After discussing the situation with the AirSearch Rescue people I decided to land on a hill about 200 yard from the crater and unload them and their supplies, then see if there was anything I could do to help. Jim went looking for our satellite truck so he could hand over the aerials we had shot.

I was directed to an old mine building to get my photo taken and and ID card issued that would allow me access to the site. They took the picture but couldn't print the card because they had misplaced the printer cable. I ended up getting the card in the mail six weeks later, with someone else's picture on it. Nobody ever asked to see any ID while I was on site.

At 6:25 I took off with Jim, two FBI agents and a United Airlines employee to shoot more video that would be used directly in the investigation. The flight lasted about 25 minutes and documented much of the debris field, including recognizable aircraft parts and scattered papers from the mail the aircraft had been carrying. One thing in particular that they wanted was a view of the crater with a 30-foot tall telephone pole standing nearby to provide scale. That video went straight to Washington and was not included in the footage that Jim and I had shot earlier.

They finally released us to return to Pittsburgh at sunset, about 7:30 PM. The rescue specialists remained on site and Jim and I returned by ourselves, arriving at 8:45 PM. The trip out had been very quiet on the radio, with minimal chatter, mostly Center vectoring military aircraft to various destinations. The trip back was even quieter, the unprecedented silence amplified by the growing darkness as we flew home. I have never flown anywhere, before or since, with so little radio traffic to listen to, and the total lack of aircraft lights in the sky hit me particularly hard. It was the most eerie flight I have ever made.

To this day, reading some of the drivel that conspiracy theorists spout about there not being an airliner in the impact crater, the whole thing being faked by some shadowy government agency in order to get us into a war, or whatever the current favorite theory is, my blood pressure gets dangerously high. This wasn't my first aircraft accident scene, as a rescue swimmer and crew chief in the Navy I had seen my share of crashes, some at high speed, and everything I saw at Shanksville fit well with my own previous experience. Bottom line: I was there, it was real, and I know enough about how such things happen to know that it was real. Enough said about that.

I didn't carry a camera with me in those days, and the video Jim shot is copyrighted and can't be shown here. I do have photos of my logbook describing the flights I made that day, shown below. I don't need photos to remind me of that day, the images are etched into my mind, and I will never forget what the passengers of Flight 93 did on September 11, 2001, saving countless lives at the cost of their own.

 

[Apparition]

I was working as a news helicopter pilot for WPXI in Pittsburgh, I saw the WTC impacts while getting ready to go to my office at the Allegheny County Airport. By the time I got there the Pentagon had been hit and the grounding order had gone out. All I could do was sit there and watch the coverage and wish I was still on active duty (got out in 1992). There were rumors of a plane over Pittsburgh, but nothing more until they began reporting Flight 93 down near Shanksville.

I got a call from the station around 11 or so, asking if I could get ready to fly to Shanksville to deliver search personnel and supplies on behalf of AirSearch Rescue, a local company that provided specialized teams for emergency response, water rescue, dog teams, etc. The station had an agreement with them to provide helicopter services during times of national emergency, and they were working on getting clearance from D.C. to fly, despite the grounding order. By 2 PM we had received clearance to fly. I took off with my photographer, Jim Krentz, and proceeded to Warrendale, about 20 miles north of Pittsburgh, where I landed in the parking lot of the Sheraton Hotel to pick up two search specialists and a few boxes of supplies. We departed for Shanksville, in contact with Pittsburgh Departure Control and were handed off to Cleveland Center for the rest of the trip to the crash site, about 55 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.

Arriving at the site at 3:20 PM, we circled a few times while Jim shot some video. Looking at the impact scar it was obvious that there was nothing any of us could do to rescue anyone. The crater showed signs of fire and there was a heavy smell of jet fuel and other things that should not be allowed to burn in the air. The shape of the wings, engines and tail if the aircraft was clearly visible in the impact scar and we came to the conclusion that the aircraft had been inverted at a steep angle when it hit the ground. There was also a great deal of debris scattered from the crater to the east in the direction of Indian Lake. Parts of the forested area adjacent to the impact scar were smoldering and several nearby houses were damaged. After discussing the situation with the AirSearch Rescue people I decided to land on a hill about 200 yard from the crater and unload them and their supplies, then see if there was anything I could do to help. Jim went looking for our satellite truck so he could hand over the aerials we had shot.

I was directed to an old mine building to get my photo taken and and ID card issued that would allow me access to the site. They took the picture but couldn't print the card because they had misplaced the printer cable. I ended up getting the card in the mail six weeks later, with someone else's picture on it. Nobody ever asked to see any ID while I was on site.

At 6:25 I took off with Jim, two FBI agents and a United Airlines employee to shoot more video that would be used directly in the investigation. The flight lasted about 25 minutes and documented much of the debris field, including recognizable aircraft parts and scattered papers from the mail the aircraft had been carrying. One thing in particular that they wanted was a view of the crater with a 30-foot tall telephone pole standing nearby to provide scale. That video went straight to Washington and was not included in the footage that Jim and I had shot earlier.

They finally released us to return to Pittsburgh at sunset, about 7:30 PM. The rescue specialists remained on site and Jim and I returned by ourselves, arriving at 8:45 PM. The trip out had been very quiet on the radio, with minimal chatter, mostly Center vectoring military aircraft to various destinations. The trip back was even quieter, the unprecedented silence amplified by the growing darkness as we flew home. I have never flown anywhere, before or since, with so little radio traffic to listen to, and the total lack of aircraft lights in the sky hit me particularly hard. It was the most eerie flight I have ever made.

To this day, reading some of the drivel that conspiracy theorists spout about there not being an airliner in the impact crater, the whole thing being faked by some shadowy government agency in order to get us into a war, or whatever the current favorite theory is, my blood pressure gets dangerously high. This wasn't my first aircraft accident scene, as a rescue swimmer and crew chief in the Navy I had seen my share of crashes, some at high speed, and everything I saw at Shanksville fit well with my own previous experience. Bottom line: I was there, it was real, and I know enough about how such things happen to know that it was real. Enough said about that.

I didn't carry a camera with me in those days, and the video Jim shot is copyrighted and can't be shown here. I do have photos of my logbook describing the flights I made that day, shown below. I don't need photos to remind me of that day, the images are etched into my mind, and I will never forget what the passengers of Flight 93 did on September 11, 2001, saving countless lives at the cost of their own.

View attachment 278340
View attachment 278341

Thanks for sharing your story

 

[Squatch]

I was working as a news helicopter pilot for WPXI in Pittsburgh, I saw the WTC impacts while getting ready to go to my office at the Allegheny County Airport. By the time I got there the Pentagon had been hit and the grounding order had gone out. All I could do was sit there and watch the coverage and wish I was still on active duty (got out in 1992). There were rumors of a plane over Pittsburgh, but nothing more until they began reporting Flight 93 down near Shanksville.

I got a call from the station around 11 or so, asking if I could get ready to fly to Shanksville to deliver search personnel and supplies on behalf of AirSearch Rescue, a local company that provided specialized teams for emergency response, water rescue, dog teams, etc. The station had an agreement with them to provide helicopter services during times of national emergency, and they were working on getting clearance from D.C. to fly, despite the grounding order. By 2 PM we had received clearance to fly. I took off with my photographer, Jim Krentz, and proceeded to Warrendale, about 20 miles north of Pittsburgh, where I landed in the parking lot of the Sheraton Hotel to pick up two search specialists and a few boxes of supplies. We departed for Shanksville, in contact with Pittsburgh Departure Control and were handed off to Cleveland Center for the rest of the trip to the crash site, about 55 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.

Arriving at the site at 3:20 PM, we circled a few times while Jim shot some video. Looking at the impact scar it was obvious that there was nothing any of us could do to rescue anyone. The crater showed signs of fire and there was a heavy smell of jet fuel and other things that should not be allowed to burn in the air. The shape of the wings, engines and tail if the aircraft was clearly visible in the impact scar and we came to the conclusion that the aircraft had been inverted at a steep angle when it hit the ground. There was also a great deal of debris scattered from the crater to the east in the direction of Indian Lake. Parts of the forested area adjacent to the impact scar were smoldering and several nearby houses were damaged. After discussing the situation with the AirSearch Rescue people I decided to land on a hill about 200 yard from the crater and unload them and their supplies, then see if there was anything I could do to help. Jim went looking for our satellite truck so he could hand over the aerials we had shot.

I was directed to an old mine building to get my photo taken and and ID card issued that would allow me access to the site. They took the picture but couldn't print the card because they had misplaced the printer cable. I ended up getting the card in the mail six weeks later, with someone else's picture on it. Nobody ever asked to see any ID while I was on site.

At 6:25 I took off with Jim, two FBI agents and a United Airlines employee to shoot more video that would be used directly in the investigation. The flight lasted about 25 minutes and documented much of the debris field, including recognizable aircraft parts and scattered papers from the mail the aircraft had been carrying. One thing in particular that they wanted was a view of the crater with a 30-foot tall telephone pole standing nearby to provide scale. That video went straight to Washington and was not included in the footage that Jim and I had shot earlier.

They finally released us to return to Pittsburgh at sunset, about 7:30 PM. The rescue specialists remained on site and Jim and I returned by ourselves, arriving at 8:45 PM. The trip out had been very quiet on the radio, with minimal chatter, mostly Center vectoring military aircraft to various destinations. The trip back was even quieter, the unprecedented silence amplified by the growing darkness as we flew home. I have never flown anywhere, before or since, with so little radio traffic to listen to, and the total lack of aircraft lights in the sky hit me particularly hard. It was the most eerie flight I have ever made.

To this day, reading some of the drivel that conspiracy theorists spout about there not being an airliner in the impact crater, the whole thing being faked by some shadowy government agency in order to get us into a war, or whatever the current favorite theory is, my blood pressure gets dangerously high. This wasn't my first aircraft accident scene, as a rescue swimmer and crew chief in the Navy I had seen my share of crashes, some at high speed, and everything I saw at Shanksville fit well with my own previous experience. Bottom line: I was there, it was real, and I know enough about how such things happen to know that it was real. Enough said about that.

I didn't carry a camera with me in those days, and the video Jim shot is copyrighted and can't be shown here. I do have photos of my logbook describing the flights I made that day, shown below. I don't need photos to remind me of that day, the images are etched into my mind, and I will never forget what the passengers of Flight 93 did on September 11, 2001, saving countless lives at the cost of their own.

View attachment 278340
View attachment 278341

Wow. Ummm...just, wow. As App said, thank you for sharing your story. I will likely reread that a number of times. This is the kind of perspective you will never get on the six o'clock news...

 

[drivincar67]

Yes, thank you so much. I don't post a lot, but I want you to know how much I appreciate your sharing.

 

[LukesfirstJeep]

To this day, reading some of the drivel that conspiracy theorists spout about there not being an airliner in the impact crater, the whole thing being faked by some shadowy government agency in order to get us into a war, or whatever the current favorite theory is, my blood pressure gets dangerously high. This wasn't my first aircraft accident scene, as a rescue swimmer and crew chief in the Navy I had seen my share of crashes, some at high speed, and everything I saw at Shanksville fit well with my own previous experience. Bottom line: I was there, it was real, and I know enough about how such things happen to know that it was real. Enough said about that.

Thank you for the first hand account. I've visited the flight 93 memorial site, and it was pretty somber.

I'm not trying to stir things up, but the only drivel I've ever heard was the plane didn't crash, but was shot down. Then again, some people believe the earth is flat.

 

[Neal]

Thanks for sharing your story

Wow. Ummm...just, wow. As App said, thank you for sharing your story. I will likely reread that a number of times. This is the kind of perspective you will never get on the six o'clock news...

Yes, thank you so much. I don't post a lot, but I want you to know how much I appreciate your sharing.

It has taken me 20 years to write my story down. I have tried several times before, but was never able to put it into words. I don't know why this thread triggered my ability to say something, but it was good to finally be able to relate what I had done and seen. I'll try to clean it up a bit and fill in a few more details, make it a bit more readable. Might have it ready for the 25th anniversary. Might not.

Thank you for the first hand account. I've visited the flight 93 memorial site, and it was pretty somber.

I'm not trying to stir things up, but the only drivel I've ever heard was the plane didn't crash, but was shot down. Then again, some people believe the earth is flat.

I don't think you are stirring things up. There are plenty of websites and blogs out there (and most of them are REALLY out there...) with all kinds of theories about What Really Happened On 9/11. It's not only Flight 93, but every aspect of the events of that day is questioned in one way or another. The theories range from the somewhat plausible to the wildly improbable, with most leaning toward some sort of sinister government plot. Yeah, let's kill thousands of our own citizens in an effort to go to war halfway around the world in order to kill thousands more. Makes perfect sense, right? Right. Just like Pearl Harbor...

 

[MaximusLJR06]

Thank you for the first hand account. I've visited the flight 93 memorial site, and it was pretty somber.

I'm not trying to stir things up, but the only drivel I've ever heard was the plane didn't crash, but was shot down. Then again, some people believe the earth is flat.

It has taken me 20 years to write my story down. I have tried several times before, but was never able to put it into words. I don't know why this thread triggered my ability to say something, but it was good to finally be able to relate what I had done and seen. I'll try to clean it up a bit and fill in a few more details, make it a bit more readable. Might have it ready for the 25th anniversary. Might not.

I don't think you are stirring things up. There are plenty of websites and blogs out there (and most of them are REALLY out there...) with all kinds of theories about What Really Happened On 9/11. It's not only Flight 93, but every aspect of the events of that day is questioned in one way or another. The theories range from the somewhat plausible to the wildly improbable, with most leaning toward some sort of sinister government plot. Yeah, let's kill thousands of our own citizens in an effort to go to war halfway around the world in order to kill thousands more. Makes perfect sense, right? Right. Just like Pearl Harbor...

Back when I was in college I would spend the summers working construction for my current employer. Summer of 2010 I was sent out to Shanksville to build the Flight 93 Memorial. They bought houses for us to stay in while we were there, I think I was there for a total of 12 weeks. We did all the sitework for what is there now. I have pictures on CD's somewhere of the entire project from start to finish. The only one I have on my current phone is below. It is still hard to describe the feeling you got when working at the site everyday and I am grateful that I was given the opportunity to be a part of the project. I'll have to see if I can dig up the other photos.

Back to what @LukesfirstJeep said... Every local person we talked to in the 12 weeks I was out there said the plane was shot down. Some of the locals said there were fighter jets flying all over when it happened. There were stories of one one of the motors being found miles from the crash site. I think 2 of the strangest things we were told was that the owner of the property where the plane went down has not been seen since. And there was a beautiful farm that overlooked the property and they disappeared shortly after the crash. They also said FBI was at the crash site within 5 minutes (which made everyone believe they knew where it was going down at)

The truth is we will never know what happened

This photo was looking towards the crash site in the grass by the woods. We completely changed the way the site looks during construction. About the only thing that didn't change was the actual crash site area.

 

[SkylinesSuck]

There are some on this board that have talked about how obvious it was that 9/11 was an inside job and nothing anyone can say will convince them otherwise. There is no point in arguing with people like that and it's not what this thread is about.

I was watching the news about an aircraft accident while getting ready to go to my ground school (learning to fly) class at the local community college. I still distinctly remember hearing the lady they were interviewing about it scream a split second before the second plane hit. Everybody immediately knew what was going on at that moment. 20 minutes later my Civil Air Patrol squadron commander called and said to meet up at the airport. Something about helping with the clearing of the airspace (maybe helping organize all the people getting off planes?). When I got there we heard about the Pentagon and that there were "other planes" being hijacked. They sent us to the red cross to help direct traffic for people donating blood. It was a huge amount of people wanting to help. Unfortunately very little blood was needed that day. It was amazing how different reality was that day. Total strangers talked to each other as brothers who were just resuming an on going conversation and everybody wanted to do anything they could to help. I signed up to enlist in the AF as soon as the recruiting office opened back up a couple weeks later.

I work with a couple controllers who were working at Dulles that day. They watched AA77 fly in from WV right over top of the Dulles final which was jammed with airplanes and head into DC. Shanksville is also just over the border of our airspace and we can easily see it on our scopes. They also worked the "mysterious airplane" at the core of several conspiracy theories that was circling over DC that day. I've heard lots of stories from controllers that were all over the nation that day throughout my career and how insane it was. One dude even saved the flight progress strip that directed "ALL AIRCRAFT US AIRSPACE LAND NEAREST PRACTICABLE AIRPORT IMMEDIATELY."

I've taken my kids to the memorials at the Pentagon, WTC site, and we will be doing Shanksville soon.

 

[Mazepam]

I was in 5th grade art class, and I remember they made the kids whos parents worked in the buildings go into the auditorium. I was totally clueless about what was happening.

My best friend to this day his father worked on the 60th or so floor of the building. When the first plane hit him and a a few other guys ran down the stairs to get out, one of them forgot his bag. My friends dad offered to go up and help him but the guy said no go down ill meet you there after I'm done, the guy who went back up to get his bag was in the building when it coolapsed.

My Father in law did electric contract work for the towers, that morning he missed his train ride into the city.

There are TONS of stories like this around me because I'm from central Jersey.

I actually just read/listened to the Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright for the first time, fascinating stuff I should have listened to it sooner.

I too was fond of all those "conspiracy bullshit" sorrowing this as well until i educated myself on it.

 

[drivincar67]

There is no point in arguing with people like that and it's not what this thread is about.

There are people I care deeply about that any attempt to convince otherwise would cause more harm to our relationship than any good that could come of it. I have found that compassion for others is far more important than winning any argument.