One
of the American Airline Pilots who died on 9/11 was Captain Chip Burlingame. His
plane hit the Pentagon and flew over Arlington National Cemetery moments before
impact.
Unconfirmed reports suggest the intended target was the White House, just across
the Potomac from DoD headquarters.
Captain Burlingame is said to have put up a violent fight, and died a horrible
death before his flight augured in.
Chip Burlingame was Naval Academy Class of '71 and is today buried at Arlington.
Following comments are by one his friends.
PILOT'S EDITORIAL-"YOU WORRY ME"
"I've been trying to say this since 9-11-01. I guess I will be labeled as a
bigoted American."
By: American Airlines Pilot - Captain John Maniscalc
You worry me. I wish you didn't. I wish when I walked down the streets of this
country that I love, that your color and culture still blended with the
beautiful human landscape we enjoy in this country. But you don't blend in
anymore. I notice you, and it worries me.
I notice you because I can't help it anymore. People from your homelands,
professing to be Muslims, have been attacking and killing my fellow citizens and
our friends for more than 20 years now. I don't fully understand their
grievances and hate but I know that nothing can justify the inhumanity of their
attacks.
On September 11, nineteen ARAB-MUSLIMS hijacked four jetliners in my country.
They cut the throats of women in front of children and brutally stabbed to death
others. They took control of those planes and crashed them into buildings
killing thousands of proud fathers, loving sons, wise grandparents, elegant
daughters, best friends, favorite coaches, fearless public servants, and
children's mothers.
So I notice you now; I don't want to be worried. I don't want to be consumed by
the same rage and hate and prejudice that has destroyed the soul of these
terrorists. But I need your help. As a rational American, trying to protect my
country and family in an irrational and unsafe world, I must know-how to tell
the difference between you, and the Arab/Muslim terrorist.
How do I differentiate between the true Arab-Muslim-Americans and the
Arab-Muslims in our communities who are attending our schools, enjoying our
parks, and living in OUR communities under the protection of OUR constitution,
while they plot the next attack that will slaughter those very same good
neighbors and children?
The events of September 11th changed the answer. It is not my responsibility to
determine which of you embraces our great country, with ALL of it's religions,
with ALL of it's different citizens, with all of it's faults. It is time for
every Arab-Muslim in this country to determine it for me.
I want to know, I demand to know, and I have a right to know whether or not you
love America. Do you pledge allegiance to it's flag? Do you proudly display in
front of your house, or on your car? Do you pray in your many daily prayers that
Allah will bless this nation, that He will protect and prosper it?
Or do you pray that Allah with destroy it in one of your "Jihads"? Are
you thankful for the freedom that only this nation affords? A freedom that was
paid for by the blood of hundreds of thousands of patriots who gave their lives
for this country? Are you willing to preserve this freedom by paying the
ultimate sacrifice? Do you love America; If this is your commitment, then I need
YOU to start letting ME know about it.
Your Muslim leaders in this nation should be flooding the media at this time
with hard facts on your faith, and what hard actions you are taking as a
community and as a religion to protect the United States of America.
Please, no more benign overtures of regret for the death of the innocent because
I worry about who you regard as innocent. And no more benign overtures of
condemnation for the unprovoked attacks because I worry about what is unprovoked
to you. I am not interested in any more sympathy ...I am only interested in
action. What will you do for America-our great ountry -- at this time of crisis,
at this time of war?
I want to see Arab-Muslims waving the AMERICAN flag in the streets. I want to
hear you chanting "Allah Bless America". I want to see young
Arab-Muslim men enlisting in the military. I want to see a commitment of money,
time, and emotion to the victims of this butchering and to this nation as a
whole.
The FBI has a list of over 400 people they want to talk to regarding the WTC
attack. Many of these people live and socialize in Muslim communities. You know
them. You know where they are. Hand them over to us, now! But I have seen little
even approaching this sort of action. Instead I have seen an already closed and
secretive community close even tighter. You have disappeared from the streets.
You have posted armed security guards a your facilities. You have threatened
lawsuits. You have screamed for protection from reprisals.
The very few Arab-Muslim representatives that HAVE appeared in the media were
defensive and equivocating. They seemed more concerned with making sure that the
United States prove who was responsible before taking action. They seemed more
concerned with protecting their fellow Muslims from violence directed towards
them in the United States and abroad than they did with supporting our country
and denouncing "leaders" like Khadafi, Hussein, Farrakhan, and Arafat.
If the true teachings of Islam proclaim tolerance and peace and love for all
people then I want chapter and verse from the Koran and statements from popular
Muslim leaders to back it up. What good is it if the teachings in the Koran are
good and pure and true when your "leaders" are teaching fanatical
interpretations, terrorism, and intolerance.
It matters little how good Islam SHOULD BE if large numbers of the world's
Muslims interpret the teachings of Mohammed incorrectly and adhere to a
degenerative form of the religion. A form that has been demonstrated to us over
and over again. A form whose structure is built upon a foundation of violence,
death, and suicide. A form whose members are recruited from the prisons around
the world; A form whose members (some as young a five years old) are seen day
after day, week in and week out, year after year, marching in the streets around
the world, burning effigies of our presidents, burning the American flag,
shooting weapons into the air. A form whose members convert from a peaceful
religion, only to take up arms against the great United States of America, the
country of their birth. A form whose rules are so twisted, that their traveling
members refuse to show their faces at airport security checkpoints, in the name
of Islam.
Do you and your fellow Muslims hate us because our women proudly show their
faces in public rather than cover up like a shameful whore? Do you and your
fellow Muslims hate us because we drink wine with dinner, or celebrate
Christmas? Do you and you fellow Muslims hate us because we have befriended
Israel, the ONLY civilized democratic nation in the entire middle-east?
And if you and your fellow Muslims hate us, then why in the world are you here?
Are you here to take our money? Are you here to undermine our peace and
stability? Are you here to destroy us? If so, I want you to leave. I want you to
go back to your desert sandpit where women are treated like rats and dogs; I
want you to take your religion, your friends, and your family back to your
Islamic extremists, and STAY THERE!
We will NEVER give in to your influence, your retarded mentality, your twisted,
violent, intolerant religion. We will NEVER allow the attacks of September 11,
or any others for that matter, to take away that which is so precious to us: Our
rights under the greatest constitution in the world.
I want to know where every Arab-Muslim in this country stands and I think it is
my right and the right of every true citizen of this country to demand it. A
right paid for by the blood of thousands of my brothers and sisters who died
protecting the very constitution that is protecting you and your family. I am
pleading with you to let me know. I want you here as my brother, my neighbor, my
friend, as a fellow American. But there can be no gray areas or ambivalence
regarding your allegiance and it is up to YOU, to show ME, where YOU stand.
"Until then ... you worry me."