10:30pm Sept 11, 2009
In the midst of the activities of today, I have given many a thought and moments of reflection on the attacks that occurred on our country and our people in 2001, September 11th.
On one hand I feel shaken and awakened at the idea that our country was attacked, recently, and in broad daylight.
In reflection — from the videos, news reports, articles, pictures and first-hand accounts I received on the 9/11 attacks — I cannot , to this day, express how saddened I am for those who lost a love one, a friend, an associate, a boss, a junior, a neighbor, a teacher, a fireman, a policeman, a son, a daughter, a store owner, a pet, an office, a home, a church, a park, a school.
I know that on that day when the attacks occurred, my husband Hiro Kimoto was on the top of the New York Org Scientology building doing renovation work, repairing bricks. He had the radio on and heard that a plane had crashed into one of the Twin Towers. He looked up and saw the smoke rising in the sky behind the Time Square sky scrapers. He was with several others of the New York renovations team. They immediately got on the walkie-talkie to alert their superiors in the CLO … and while on the radio the second plane hit.
Hiro and the others realized at that exact point that they were at war.
They determined their priority was to get to the site of the damage and do whatever they could to help.
The CLO responded by organizing volunteers to get to the hospitals to assist the wounded. But when they found that volunteers were not needed, they concentrated on distributing the Way to Happiness brochures as their priority.
Despite orders to do that, Hiro and his friend Chris recruited about 10 people and jumped in a van and got to the location of the attack — later designated as Ground Zero. They first went to local restaurants and got them to donate food – any food they could give. And the restaurants did, with no questions asked — any place they stopped they gave them everything they could. Hiro and Chris packed their van to the gills with food and somehow made it through the first ten barricades. They then convinced the police at the later barricades that they were delivering food to those firemen and policemen who were at the site saving people. They eventually found a high school just a block or two from Ground Zero. They immediately set up a table and put out all the food they brought in. The exhausted and wasted policeman and fireman wandered in as this was the closest, safest place for them to come and eat and regroup. Hiro at that point realized this hat of feeding and energizing those people who are finding and saving lives needed to be worn, so he was now in charge of providing food and water to those who were saving lives. Shortly after, the emergency personnel started showing up to eat, Hiro also quickly realized he didn’t bring enough food…and by far. So he ran into the high school refrigerators finding there was food there, got together with the Red Cross In Charge and got her to get her volunteers to help gather this food and set up more tables and put out all the food they could find.
He recalls there were people in charge of feeding the police, but he found the police were coming to him as he had commandeered a safe space and had it all out and organized and it was large enough to service many people – so this was now the place they came to eat and drink water. Due to the state of things, nobody drank or ate anything the first many hours after the attack occurred.
Everyone was flat-out trying to dig through the rubble and save people. But eventually their energy would drain, they would be tired and dehydrated and realize they needed more energy to save more lives.
It was the first morning after the attacks, when Hiro and his team were rapidly distributing water to anyone and everyone that they started to realize that the air they were breathing was bad.
After Hiro and team established the food station, he realized they needed other basic supplies — such as water, ice, shovels, gloves, masks and rain gear. Water was needed most. He got the word out and got the volunteers he’d recruited activated to search for and get these items brought to him. He was stationed inside the high school as the coordinator to get more food brought in from NY, NJ and as the trucks filled with supplies arrived, they reported to Hiro who organized another crew responsible for unloading these trucks.
By the second day toiletries were needed – soap, tooth brushes, tooth paste etc. So he had these brought in. Then linens, beds and towels so the emergency personnel had a place to rest and clean-up.
By the third day the trucks were coming in from farther and farther places. Even trucks of dog food arrived and Hiro and his team unloaded, organized and made it known that these supplies were there for those who needed it.
It was a race for the authorities to find the living in the 4-story high rubble. He recalls that at the end of the first night, a bunch of fireman arrived at the high school and they were all upset and in tears because they had just lost a bunch of firefighters in their team as a part of the building had crashed down on them when they were trying to save people. Hiro never saw this reported in the press. He said people trapped in the rubble were calling on out on their cell phones hoping to be located before their batteries ran out.
Drinks, juice, energy bars, T-Shirts, sweatshirts, sweaters, jackets, rubber boots etc all donated from department stores and the lot came pouring in – so Hiro set up another room with everything hanging so the emergency personnel could come in and take whatever they needed.
There was one incident wherein there were emergency nurses who needed help bringing items to the innards of Ground Zero, so Hiro and his crew would assist the Nurses by loaded up their medical items in wheelbarrows and carry them into the site for them. He recalls that one nurse he personally helped ended up passing out later that night due to the bad air and physical exertion.
Note that Hiro and the people who went with him to Ground Zero never got “official approval” from the Church to go there. He said it was always at the back of his mind whether they were going to be considered “blown” or not. But due to their level of responsibility they each realized that handingout brochures at the hospital was not the right thing to do. It wasn’t the right place to be. Ground Zero was.
The next day –everything was closed off and no one could come into the high school. Everyone who was in, was in. So later on, when Hiro saw the CLO EUS PR waving at him behind the barricade trying to get in, Hiro spoke to the guard and convinced him to allow her in. And thus Scientology was allowed in to Ground Zero, along with the Red Cross and Salvation Amy and other volunteers.
After Hiro got the CLO EUS PR and others to able to come to Ground Zero other Scientology volunteers arrived and helped with the efforts he was doing as well as gave needed assists to those who needed it. The Scientology PR then met with the Mayor of NYC and Hiro was proud to be part of this and be able to help and get his Church on the front lines and helping.
Hiro continued to receive all the food supplies at the high school, organize it and set up stations. He then set up other stations closer to the site so the people digging out the debris could have water while doing so.
He did this because he realized his efforts in this way would be more effective than personally digging the people out. He realized it was the police, firemen, National Guard and other volunteers who needed to be taken care of so they could do their jobs.
Hiro and team were there at the most gruesome and difficult time. Before the dust settled. Three days later, the actual damage could be viewed. They worked hard and diligently and created Scientology Org presence at Ground Zero.
Yet in the end, when it came to acknowledge our heroes within the Church who showed up, took action and took charge, our church didn’t do so. CLO EUS PR submitted to Int the exact list of names of who took action on 9/11, but as it turns out DM didn’t have the guts to acknowledge our real heroes and instead deleted their names from the silver plaque that was awarded to the CLO, from COB, for the actions taken at Ground Zero.
During the presentation, the people who were previously from Int and had taken action at Ground Zero (and whose names had been deleted) looked at each other and realized that they were in a never-ending condition that they were never going to be allowed out of — a condition of “a menace and who needed to keep a low profile” as Hiro stated.
This is a true story that needed to be told. It is just the essence of the type of injustice, evilness (and fear) that DM and his minions exude and perpetrate.
None of which has any similarity to LRH policy and technology.
In standard Scientology, there are real condition formulas that anyone can apply easily and to great wins and results. There is never a condition that cannot be applied or gotten out of. There is never a good deed that is gone unacknowledged.
I could go on, and on, and on.
All I can say is that LRH is Source.
Anyone else who attempts to exude he/she is Source is a Squirrel and is anti-LRH and Anti-Scientology.
Even though I am declared, I have the ability to tell right from wrong,
the ability to recognize and acknowledge Source,
The freedom to think for myself and make my own decisions…and to communicate truth.
– Shannon Kimoto
Host Note: Shannon is a former Inspector General RTC Communicator. I had five competent Communicators assigned to me from 1982 through 2004. Shannon was by far the best. She was taken out and RPF’d by DM’s Asst. and wife because Shannon reported to me on RTC squirreling in Qual Gold while I was gone for more than a year in Clearwater on the McPherson case. I sincerely apologize for not taking a stand for you at the time Shannon. At least we’re both standing now – along with a lot of others. My hat is off to Hiro and his crew. They were a sub-group of approximately ten Int staff who were swept up in the 2000 purges wherein DM demanded scores of people he did not like, or did not sufficiently kow tow to him, were deported to far-flung Sea Org outposts forever labelled to be on low posts. More on them in a follow up post later this week as I recollect some of the more disheartening travesties of justice that were visited upon them.
Moving On Up a Little Higher 