Sept. 11 kin want answers

[soleft]

http://www.app.com/app/story/0,21625,858160,00.html

Published in the Asbury Park Press 11/20/03
By ANDREA ALEXANDER
MIDDLETOWN BUREAU
MADISON -- As an insurance company executive testified before the national commission on the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, four Central Jersey women who fought for the investigation sat frustrated in the front row with their children.

Eleven months since the commission started its inquiry, the four women -- who lost their husbands in the World Trade Center attack -- are upset that they still have none of the answers they were hoping to get.

But many of the victims' relatives said they considered his testimony irrelevant to the questions they wanted answered.

snip

"They are still missing a large part of the story," Van Auken said yesterday. Her husband, Kenneth, worked for Cantor Fitzgerald on the 105th floor of the north tower of the World Trade Center.

"They talked about everything except what happened on Sept. 11," she said.

The commission's progress "is not giving me any renewed confidence in the players in Washington to do the right thing," Casazza said.

Van Auken's daughter, Sarah, 14, sat by her side through the hearing. Her son, Matthew, 17, wasn't able to attend. Kleinberg brought her daughter, Lauren, 9, and her son Jacob, 11, to learn about the commission. She decided her youngest son, Sam, 3, was too young to attend.

Breitweiser's 4-year-old daughter, Caroline, sat on her lap and sometimes played games with her mother during the morning testimony.

Van Auken said the women brought their children for a reason.

"It is good for the commission to see who they are doing this for," she said.

Jacob Kleinberg brags about his mother's work to his friends. When classmates ask about his parents, he replies, "My father is unemployed, and my mother is a rebel."

His sister offers advice about how stories on her mother and the other women should start.

"This is a story about four girls who lost their husbands," she suggests

[ramapo]

1. Gutsy women

They've been at this since not long after the attacks.

[catzies]

2. Damn the Administration who lies to them, and to the rest of the world

They and we deserve real, honest answers dammit. :mad: