I made a promise – GraniteGrok will not forget Eugen; this day we still remember what happened 23 years ago today: 9/11/2001. Someone had written a post with a short blurp “…22 years ago…”. I can’t believe that it has been THAT long – yet I vividly remember that day almost to the minute.
While it is fading from many folks’ memories, it changed us for both better and worse.
It HAS turned into a long war – the Islamic militants, while not as active as they were, still lurk even as the Russian invasion of Ukraine has taken over the “war headlines.” In the big picture, both are of a war against Freedom – both the Islamists and Socialist/Communists want all of us to bend a knee in subjugation to their decrees in every aspect of our lives. In fact, while those two act militarily, I make the supposition that the Left here in the US, having captured the High Ramparts of Society as well as the Levers of Government, are just as determined to do the same in controlling every part of our lives. Instead of howitzers and bullets, they use one facade (like Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity Climate Apocalypse, Wealth Inequality, Social Justice, and deliberately changing our language to FORCE us to accept their premises, worldview, and ideologies) after another, but it’s all for one result – they win, we lose.
Unless we, like our Revolutionary forbearers, step up and shout out, “You shall not pass!”
While it has been 22 years, it has never stopped. Simply, the means, the purpose, and the people have changed. Their goal remains – there will be no “Land of the Free” except in name only and fading memories of what used to be.
And it is a choice by you – what will you do?
We were attacked by Islamic radicals, Muslim terrorists, that believed that the United States must be removed from the world in order for a worldwide caliphate to be enacted. Their ideological descendants, ISIS and Al Queda, still work for that end game of Dar-al-Islam.
This is a Long War and it is a religious / clash of civilizations – but our leadership does not only not believe it but has done all it can to bury it. And along with that, would bury the memory of Eugen Lazar as “inconvenient”.
(2021) Even as President Biden believes he has just “ended it”, he has forgotten the primary rule of wars – the other side also has a vote. I’m afraid that there will be more Eugene’s going forward.
Bumped from its original posting of 9/11/2006 in memory of Eugen Lazar
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The 2,996 Project was activated with the coming of the fifth year anniversary of America being attacked in a large scale terrorist operation by Islamofascists. Bloggers from all over and of all political persuasions, each taking on the responsibility of honoring a single victim, are participating to keep the memory of the victims’ alive and show their families that we will not forget their sacrifice and loss! I am humbled that GraniteGrok has been allowed to participate, and wish to honor Eugen Lazar in this fashion.
As the years pass by, our memories go “collective” and round up the three separate tragedies (the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and StonyCreek Township – United Airlines Flight 93, Pennsylvania) into just one meme – “9/11”. We should, however, never forget that 2,996 innocent souls were lost that day – each one a tragedy that cannot be allowed to just be swallowed up into one event in which the Individuals are lost and forgotten. This is our effort to do so.
Again, we express our sorrow for his family and loved ones, as we do for all of the other families whose lives were shattered forever by those who hate our way of life: Freedom.
Eugen Gabriel Lazar, barely able to speak English, had immigrated to America with his Romanian parents in 1985 when he was 11, the family determined to escape communism.
“We came to this country and he knew only a few words,” recalled Elena, who lives in Glendale, Queens, with her husband, Alecsandru. “Romania was Communist at the time and that’s why we came here. Not for money. Because of communism, and this country was free.”
He was a child with a million questions. How does our body work, his mother once recalled him asking their pediatrician back in Bucharest when he was 3. When we stop walking, what makes us stop? “All these questions,” said Siu Chong, his girlfriend. “He was always wondering how everything works, always seeking for knowledge.”
In June 1992, Lazar was one of 33 Queens high school students named as a Leading Scholastic Achiever in the annual New York Newsday High Honors Competition for the borough.
With a quick mind and insatiable curiosity, Eugen mastered his studies at Grover Cleveland High School in Queens and earned a college scholarship to Cooper Union (NY), where he graduated Summa Cum Laude with a degree in engineering.
For two years, Eugen, an only child who lived in Queens with his parents, worked as a computer programmer with eSpeed, a company owned by Cantor Fitzgerald (this was the bond-trading firm located in Tower One at the World Trade Center that was so decimated by the plane attack). When he got to his 103rd floor office on Sept. 11, he e-mailed his girlfriend. By the time she read his message, it was too late.
“My heart is broken,” Elena Lazar said, sobbing about her only child, whom she buried on Monday. “He was such a wonderful boy.”
Approximately fifty alumni of The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art worked in the World Trade Center towers. Eugen Lazar was included among the first confirmed deaths.
He had other interests as well. Fascinated by music and how people hear it, he was building his own speakers. He was a cook and a baker. He and his girlfriend liked to make crepes together; in Paris, they watched closely to see how they were made. They had even tackled chocolate fondue.
That girlfriend, Sui Chong, a graphic designer, and he had met while on a camping trip in the Catskills years earlier. However, it was not until learning years later that she no longer had a boyfriend, that he sent her an e-mail message asking her out for pizza), still misses him.
Their first date took place at Lombardi’s, a SoHo restaurant, and Sui remembered that night. “He was so perfect for me”. It became the couple’s favorite restaurant and had returned once again Monday night before the fateful blast. “Ironically, we had dinner there,” Chong said, barely able to finish her sentence through her tears, ” . . . and it was our last date.”
He was 27 at the time of his murder.
(This has been compiled by using materials found from Google and Yahoo searches, with much of the material from New York newspapers. My thanks to them).
(Image H/T: AP/Richard Drew)
