9/11: Lest we forget

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Current News - Homefront Preparations : One Thread

09/02/2002 - Updated 09:26 PM ET

Desperation forced a horrific decision

By Dennis Cauchon and Martha Moore, USA TODAY

At first, it seemed like debris. Large objects were falling from the top of the World Trade Center's north tower, just a few minutes after American Airlines Flight 11 hit.

The sight of people plunging from the north tower compelled hundreds in the south tower to flee before the second jet struck the building. Richard Drew, AP

"It took three or four to realize: They were people," says James Logozzo, who had gathered with co-workers in a Morgan Stanley boardroom on the 72nd floor of the south tower, just 120 feet away from the north tower. "Then this one woman fell."

She fell closer to the south tower, he recalls. Logozzo saw her face. She had dark hair and olive skin, a white blouse and black skirt. She fell with her back to the ground, flat, staring up.

"The look on her face was shock. She wasn't screaming. It was slow motion. When she hit, there was nothing left," Logozzo says.

Logozzo cried, "Oh my God!" and raced for the stairs. When he got to the street 45 minutes later, he looked up. By then, his building had been struck by United Airlines Flight 175. From the ground, he saw two more people jump. This time, they were from his building.

The story of the victims who jumped to their deaths is the most sensitive aspect of the Sept. 11 tragedy. Photographs of people falling to their deaths shocked the nation. Most newspapers and magazines ran only one or two photos, then published no more. USA TODAY ran one photo Nov. 16.

Still, the images resonate. Many who survived or witnessed the attack say the sight of victims jumping is their most haunting memory of that day.

It was worse than people realize.

USA TODAY estimates that at least 200 people jumped to their deaths that morning, far more than can be seen in the photographs taken that morning. Nearly all were from the north tower, which was hit first and collapsed last. Fewer than a dozen were from the south tower.

The jumping started shortly after the first jet hit at 8:46 a.m. People jumped continuously during the 102 minutes that the north tower stood. Two people jumped as the north tower began to fall at 10:28 a.m., witnesses said.

For those who jumped, the fall lasted 10 seconds. They struck the ground at just less than 150 miles per hour — not fast enough to cause unconsciousness while falling, but fast enough to ensure instant death on impact. People jumped from all four sides of the north tower. They jumped alone, in pairs and in groups.

Most came from the north tower's 101st to 105th floors, where the Cantor Fitzgerald bond firm had offices, and the 106th and 107th floors, where a conference was underway at the Windows on the World restaurant. Others leaped from the 93rd through 100th floor offices of Marsh & McLennan insurance company.

Intense smoke and heat, rather than flames, pushed people into this horrific choice. Flight 11 struck the 94th through 98th floors of the north tower, shooting heat and smoke up elevator shafts and stairways in the center of the building. Within minutes, it would have been very difficult to breathe. That drove people to the windows 1,100 to 1,300 feet above ground.

There were several reasons more people jumped from the north tower than from the south. The fire was more intense and compact in the north tower. The jet hit higher, so smoke was concentrated in 15 floors compared with 30 floors in the south tower, which was hit on the 78th through 84th floors. The north tower also stood longer: 102 minutes vs. 56 minutes. And twice as many people were trapped on the north tower's upper floors than in the south tower, where occupants had 161/2 minutes to evacuate before the second jet hit.

The New York medical examiner's office says it does not classify the people who fell to their deaths on Sept. 11 as "jumpers."

"A 'jumper' is somebody who goes to the office in the morning knowing that they will commit suicide," says Ellen Borakove, spokeswoman for the medical examiner's office. "These people were forced out by the smoke and flames or blown out."

She says the medical examiner's office couldn't determine who jumped because the injuries were similar to those suffered by the people killed in the collapse of the towers. The manner of death for all those who died was listed as homicide on death certificates.

To make its estimate of the number of people who plunged from the Trade Center, USA TODAY reviewed videos and photographs, interviewed witnesses and analyzed the time and location of the jumping. The newspaper discussed its conclusion with officials in the fire department and medical examiner's office who, while not making calculations of their own, deemed an estimate of 200 jumpers as accurate.

The New York Times counted 50 different jumpers in a review of photographs and videotapes. USA TODAY's estimate attempts to include people whose falls were not documented. Nearly all photos were of the north tower's north and east faces, which were more accessible to photographers coming from uptown Manhattan. But witnesses reported that numerous people leapt from the north tower's south and west sides as well.

On the south side, firefighters reported 30 to 40 bodies on the roof of the 22-floor Marriott Hotel, adjacent to the north tower.

On the west side, falling bodies crashed onto the awning covering the circular VIP driveway. The thudding of bodies at this entrance can be heard on a video taken near there by French cameraman Jules Naudet, whose footage was broadcast on CBS on March 11.

On the east side, people plummeted into the plaza, best known for its globe sculpture. Blood covered the glass walls and revolving doors that led to the plaza from the second-floor mezzanine in the north tower. People evacuating the north tower walked by this horrible sight.

"The windows were red ... and bits of bodies were outside. We were stunned and amazed," says Richard Moller, who escaped from the 78th floor.

After the first jet crash, Port Authority police Officer David Lim took an escalator from the lobby of the north tower to the plaza level, one floor above. He saw a disfigured body near a stage where musical groups performed on the plaza. "I said, oh my God! I've got to call this in. 'I've got a DOA on the plaza.' The desk officer said, 'Are you sure he's dead?' As I'm retransmitting, another body falls."

To be sure, some who fell didn't jump. Witnesses say a few people seemed to have stumbled out of broken windows obscured by smoke. But most say those jumping appeared to make a conscious choice to die by falling rather than from smoke, heat or fire.

Ultimately, they were choosing not whether to die but how to die. Nobody survived on the floors from which people jumped.

Victims who jumped had a profound influence on the evacuation. Firefighters moved their command post away from the building to avoid them. A falling body killed a firefighter. Fire Commissioner Thomas Van Essen, rushing out of the north tower to meet Mayor Rudy Giuliani, was nearly killed when a body landed 15 feet away.

To safeguard people from falling bodies and debris, authorities blocked the main exits from the lobbies to the street. Instead, people escaping from both towers were sent through an underground shopping mall and under the outdoor plaza where bodies were falling.

The sight of people jumping saved lives, too. In the south tower, people had a close-up view of people plunging to their deaths from a building that was a mirror image of their own. "I looked at a couple of people jumping, and that was it. I'd seen enough. I said, 'We've got to get the hell out of here,' " says Jaede Barg, who worked for Aon on the south tower's 100th floor.

Many south tower survivors say the sight of people jumping created an urgency that caused them to leave immediately and ignore announcements that it was safe to return to their desks. About 1,400 people evacuated the upper floors before the second jet hit.

Eric Thompson, who worked on the 77th floor of the south tower, went to a conference room window after the first jet hit. He was shocked when a man came to a north tower window and leapt from a few floors above the fire. Thompson looked the man in the face. He saw his tie flapping in the wind. He watched the man's body strike the pavement below. "There was no human resemblance whatsoever," Thompson says.



-- Anonymous, September 03, 2002

Answers

September 3, 2002

Remembering lives of Pentagon's 'lost' By Frank J. Murray THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Five of the 184 persons killed at the Pentagon by the September 11 hijackers lost more than their lives: All trace of them was obliterated. Nothing identifiable was found to bury or to mourn over. Top Stories

• Iraq's stance seen as unchanged

• Pentagon fights on two fronts

• Terror, economy to weigh on voters

• Mugabe lashes out at Blair

• Blacks, Jews meet to mend relations

• Mornings win viewers

These are "the lost": four military-minded adults whose careers took them to the pinnacle of the nation's defense complex and a curly- haired 3-year-old girl clutching her cherished Lambie when terrorists slammed the hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 jetliner into the Pentagon.

What is left are their names, loving memories about their shortened time on earth and unfulfilled dreams:

•Dana Falkenberg, 3, planned to marry a prince, perhaps after starting preschool at the Silver Spring YMCA.

•Ronald Hemenway, 37, was considering higher-paying civilian work and a delayed honeymoon to his native Alaska if the Navy couldn't shift him to the White House communications staff.

•Rhonda Rasmussen, 44, and her husband were civilians on the Army payroll, transferring back to their native California, where they had married 27 years earlier.

•James Lynch, 55, a Navy technician, would continue his rounds as the "Pentagon Candy Man," a one-man morale team handing out Werther's Original toffees.

•Ronald Golinski, 60, escorted daughter Marcellia to the altar on her wedding day Sept. 2, figuring he still had lots more golf to play.

Instead, they became a new kind of "unknowns" from a new kind of war. Military unknowns have traditionally constituted battlefield bodies without names. These are battlefield names without a body.

This was not supposed to happen. A reference library with 3.7 million sealed "bloodstain cards" exists to match DNA from unidentified military personnel killed in war or a calamity. But heat reduces human tissue to ash or destroys DNA, so it could not be matched to Pentagon file cards or other reference samples for these five persons.

After a unique ceremony Sept. 12 at Arlington National Cemetery's 5,000-seat amphitheater, those names will be inscribed with the other 179 Pentagon dead on a custom-designed five-sided Rock of Ages monument.

A horse-drawn caisson will carry unidentified remains from the attack in a single casket to that grave.

The special one

Tiny Dana Falkenberg is special in this group and not just because of her big brown eyes, soft blond curls and Shirley Temple face.

Seven weeks past her third birthday party, July 21, 2001, Dana was the youngest of five children aboard American Airlines Flight 77. She joined all the others in a 9:37 a.m. rendezvous with death at what Petty Officer Hemenway called the "safest place in the world."

Dana's parents and sister died with her. Friends say they certainly perished with their arms wrapped around each other. Their remains were buried in Colorado in June — except for Dana's.

Maternal grandmother Ruth Koch, an Athens, Ga., schoolteacher, recalled the eeriness of receiving a family postcard mailed from Dulles Airport that fateful morning.

"Dana was a clown — funny. But she was subdued about such a long trip when I spoke with her by phone just before the plane took off that day," Mrs. Koch said.

It was the first leg of a trip to Australia, where Dana's mother, Georgetown University economics professor Leslie A. Whittington, had a two-month fellowship at Australian National University. Also along were big sister, Zoe, 8 — music lover and aspiring ballerina — and their father, software engineer Charles S. Falkenberg, who like his wife was 45.

As always, Dana had her pink-and-white, stuffed animal she called Lambie.

"She always slept with Lambie, so they had three or four Lambies in case she might lose one or leave it somewhere, or we needed to toss one in the washing machine," said Gloria Henry, Dana's nanny from infancy.

"Now she'll always be 3," said the nanny, whom Dana called "Lolo." Mrs. Henry was so shattered after Dana's death that she did not work for six months.

She said Dana's daily routine began with a trip to Zoe's school, a two-block walk, with their dad, who usually had to carry Dana home on his shoulder. Lunch was often her favorite: celery sticks with peanut butter.

Dana often played with a dress-up box shared with her buddy Rose, also 3 and a neighbor on Tennyson Road in tiny University Park. "She liked to dress up in these pretty little dresses, like a princess. She had a crown and a wand. She always was talking that she's going to marry a prince someday," Mrs. Henry said.

Dana and Rose chalked countless hopscotch boxes on the sidewalk. "And they played in her sandbox, with her little people from the dollhouse," Mrs. Henry said.

When she went down for a nap, Dana chose from her stack of books "to read the pictures."

Through Mrs. Koch, the family was associated with the Unitarian Universalist church and attended its regional summer camp. Dana was "dedicated," a naming ceremony akin to christening, at Mrs. Koch's home fellowship in Athens.

The Rev. Barbara Wells of Paint Branch Unitarian Universalist Church called Dana the "toddler robusto who filled the room with her smile."

The man on horseback

Petty Officer 1st Class Ronald John Hemenway's journey began in Cordova, Alaska, on July 25, 1964. En route to the Chief of Naval Operations office, he passed through many jobs in places as varied as Georgia, Kansas and Italy.

For much of the way, Ron Hemenway was a man on horseback, even while romancing Marinella Folci, now 34, whom he met in October 1996 in Italy.

"I found the person of my life, even if just for a short time. Maybe God had it planned for everything to happen fast," Mrs. Hemenway says.

Fast was Ron Hemenway's way. He proposed 30 days after they met.

"This is not the right way; I am supposed to get a ring," she replied.

"Think about it," he said.

"I don't have to think about it. Yes," she said.

An Italian priest married them March 10, 1997. They planned to buy a house with lots of land and to visit his birthplace.

"He said someday we have to go to Alaska in the spring, when the pussy willows are out. Now we'll never go," Mrs. Hemenway said.

"He was very much a family man, a peacemaker," said Diana Arnold, a family friend in Lenexa, Kansas.

Growing up in Alaska, Ron attended Baptist Christian School and Wasilla High, where his 4-H projects included raising giant rabbits and showing horses. At age 20, he shifted to Meredith Manor International Equestrian Centre in Waverly, W.Va., to better learn how to train show and jumper horses.

"I've had a lot of western [saddle] training and very little English or jumping," he wrote on his incoming-student questionnaire in March 1985.

"Instructors said he worked really hard to improve his riding, sometimes so hard it worked against him, but he graduated," school operator Faith Meredith said.

He worked for a chemical firm in Atlanta and on a Georgia ranch, where he bred horses. He owned three horses when he died. He delivered the stallion, Bar None, himself. Sweet Doublecross and Katinga remain at the Shawnee, Kansas, home of parents Robert and Shirley Hemenway, who have two other sons and three daughters.

It was there in November 1994 — unemployed after driving horse carriages at the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City — that he vowed to his mother, "I'm going to find a job today."

He joined the Navy that day, finished basic training at Great Lakes, Ill., and graduated first in electronics class.

"Ron spent a good part of his life trying to find his niche in life. When he entered the military, he found it," said the Rev. Paul Hoppe, senior pastor of Hope Lutheran Church in Shawnee. "His dad, in particular, is extremely patriotic, very proud of his son's service in the military."

In May 1995, the new sailor shipped out on the USS LaSalle, the Sixth Fleet flagship, to its home port in Gaeta, Italy. There he met the woman he called Marina.

"What a strange person," Mrs. Hemenway said after being introduced over cappuccino to a drenched sailor with a mustache, bushy hair and glasses held together with black tape. "He looked like a baby chick just come out of the egg and said his name was Zeke. I didn't want anything to do with him."

During the next 30 days, she learned that Ron cleaned up real well, looked good in uniform and shared her affinity for horses.

"We rode together in Gaeta, on the beach, but not often enough," Mrs. Hemenway said. "He knew how to jump. Not me. I'm afraid to jump."

She was eager to rank her husband's love for horses second, behind his love for her and their two bouncy children, Stefan and Desiree. Desiree will be 2 Nov. 6, and Stefan turns 4 a week later.

On their first Christmas together, she gave Ron a porcelain statue of romping horses. Their favorite film was "The Horse Whisperer. I bought him the book," Mrs. Hemenway said.

She talked with her husband twice by phone September 11 at his post in the National Command Center, where 30 persons died. They discussed his hopes for a transfer to the White House communications staff at about 9:05 a.m., moments after the second airliner slammed into the World Trade Center.

"He was getting background security information about my family for his transfer application," Mrs. Hemenway said. "If he didn't get that job, he would be bound for sea duty, and he didn't want to go on an aircraft carrier."

They spoke again briefly about 9:30 a.m.

"Good morning, beautiful," he said, before talk turned to the terrorist attacks on New York. Mrs. Hemenway asked whether he was fine.

"Don't worry. The Pentagon is the safest place in the world," he replied.

"Less than 10 minutes later, my house shook and I could see the smoke from our military housing at Bolling," she said referring to the Air Force Base. Three times she called his number. Twice his recorded voice answered, and she left messages like, "I wanted to tell you I love you and call me." The third time there was no answer.

Bright blue eyes

Rhonda Sue Rasmussen lived — and taught — her Mormon religion so scrupulously that it seemed natural for Floyd Rasmussen to spend his first evening as a widower planning to see her again in the hereafter. He looks forward to the reunion.

"In our church you are sealed to your partner for time and all eternity, if you are worthy. When you die you will be greeted by that partner, and you'll recognize them and be together again," Mr. Rasmussen said.

Their marriage was sealed Nov. 23, 1974, in the Los Angeles temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She was 18; he was 32.

"I met her at a church dance in San Bernardino on New Year's Eve 1973-74. She was wearing a mid-calf purple knit dress with long red hair past her shoulders. I went up to ask her to dance," he said. "That dance went on until September 11, 2001. I was just as excited to go home to her after 27 years as I was after 27 days. We went together like carrots and peas."

Their storybook love affair almost ended right away, when Floyd's dancing partner ignored his whispered compliments.

"Gee, this is falling on its face," he thought. "But it turns out she was deaf in her right ear from a bout with rubella at 3 months old."

Mrs. Rasmussen canceled her plans to enlist in the Army because of her first pregnancy. Mr. Rasmussen joined from 1965 to '72, served in Vietnam and retired in 1988 as an Army Reserve captain.

Both were civilian career employees living in Woodbridge when they were told Sept. 10 that their transfers to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, Calif., were approved. They toyed with the idea of taking September 11 off to celebrate.

Mrs. Rasmussen died in an office about 100 feet closer to the crash site than her husband's. Mr. Rasmussen still has moments of anger.

"Please put in that the American people should remember that our country was invaded and our citizens killed. The last time that happened, in 1812 and 1941, we fought decisive wars through to victory. We owe it to our national sovereignty and to the patriots who died on that date and to the heroes that served that we should not relent until we have that decisive victory," Mr. Rasmussen said.

Rhonda was the youngest of five children. Her name was Rhonda Ridge prior to her marriage. She graduated in 1974 from San Gorgonio Senior High School in San Bernardino, Calif.

Adding to her business degree, she received a master's of business administration from Syracuse University and was a program analyst in the office of the Administrative Secretary of the Army.

As the couple traveled during three European postings, they emphasized the anniversary of the New Year's night they met. Their Y2K New Year's Eve was in London, and the 2000-01 party was at the Hard Rock Cafe and Admiralty Hotel in Copenhagen.

Mr. Rasmussen will carry one memory forever: "Her looking across the altar as we were sealed, grinning ear to ear with bright blue eyes, wearing that white silk gown and veil. Except for the wedding gown, she looked that same way each time she told me she was pregnant."

The Rasmussen children are scattered. Rebekkah, 20, is in college at St. George, in Utah. Their sons are Nathan, 26, Jeremiah, 25, and Thaddaus, 23.

The Candy Man

James Thomas Lynch Jr., a patriot born on the Fourth of July, 1946, spent much of his life celebrating the American flag. His second career constituted spreading happiness in wholesale lots. When jokes didn't work, he gave candy.

"Life's too short to take it seriously," he said at every opportunity, noting one drawback regarding his Pentagon job. "Everybody celebrates my birthday, but I don't get the day off."

For security reasons and with a touch of humility, Mr. Lynch told friends: "I keep the Pentagon clocks running."

But his job was a serious one: servicing video displays and switches of the "C3I" tactical Naval systems and "C4I" Copernicus strategy system inside the command center.

Brenda Lynch regrets her response in July 2001, when her husband suggested retiring after 34 years of service and a bout with melanoma.

"I wasn't ready to retire. We took a cruise to Bermuda for our 15th anniversary in 2000 and wanted to go to Hawaii but decided to wait for our 20th anniversary," she said.

As a kid in Connecticut, Jimmy was a Boy Scout and rose early in the morning to deliver his Hartford Courant route. He studied electronics at A.I. Prince Technical High School.

"He would walk around the house making sparks and shocking us," said younger sister, Maureen MacDonald of Enfield, Conn.

After seven years in the Air Force, Mr. Lynch took a better- paying job in the Navy. He spent 19 years with the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command.

"Who would have thought? He never believed that danger was going to work at NCC," said Mrs. Lynch, a CIA employee at the National Reconnaissance Office.

Mr. Lynch — a fan of Rush Limbaugh, Pink Floyd and NASCAR racing — had many interests. He rode motorcycles, tended roses in his back yard, photographed butterflies and hummingbirds, pampered two cats and two dogs, and each day raised the flag on the 15-foot flagpole in front of his home.

"He was patriotic before it was cool," Mrs. MacDonald said.

During breaks at the command center, the Candy Man roamed the halls to hand out Werther's Originals. He bought those expensive "little pieces of gold" by the case and gave them to everybody.

"I think the total cost for the candy would have put me through college," said his son, Paul Lynch.

Liam Killeen, president and chief executive of Storck USA, which calls Originals the world's most popular hard candy, said he received many letters and e-mails about the Candy Man.

"We were really touched," he said.

Carolyn Derosier of Enfield, Conn., believes her brother chose the butter and cream toffees because he loved homemade butterscotch from their grandmother's candy store.

The Lynches met during walks in the hallways of the Pentagon when Brenda worked there. They eventually married, the second time for both. Mrs. Lynch said their partings from both first spouses was so civilized that holiday gatherings usually included his ex-wife, Carol's, new family and her ex-husband's family.

"We're all still friends. It really helps with the kids," Mrs. Lynch said.

Mr. Lynch's five brothers and sisters, including Kathleen Zetscher of Silver Spring, donated to the Pentagon a memorial quilt Maureen made. She quilted 60 of his neckties with a portrait of Jimmy's bearded face surrounded by Werther's Originals. The quilt is one of six displayed at the Richard Nixon Library.

"I don't think Jim ever met anyone he did not like, and it would not take long for you to become the focus of his keen sense of humor," co-worker Harry Jackson said.

"Very much the jokester," agreed Mrs. Lynch, who added lights to the flagpole so that his flag may wave there 24 hours a day.

Staying the course

Retired Army Reserve Col. Ronald Franklin Golinski was sensitive about his age, perhaps because he fudged the year of his June 30 birth date to get into the Army National Guard and run off to Camp Drum at age 14.

With brothers Leon and Christopher, Ron attended military high school at LaSalle Institute in Troy, N.Y. But he transferred to Troy High School to escape sibling rivalry, said his mother, Marion "Mickey" Golinski, of Oakland Hills, Md.

"Ronnie was always of that military mind-set," said sister Michelle Mokrzecki of Hadley, Mass.

Mr. Golinski stayed the course, retiring in 1996 as a full colonel. His final job in uniform was as director of the St. Louis- based Army Reserve Personnel Command, which manages the Individual Ready Reserve's 300,000 enlisted soldiers.

His military awards include the Legion of Merit and the Meritorious Service Medal with two oak-leaf clusters.

In civilian life, he stretched his Army career to 36 years by taking a policy post with the deputy chief of staff for personnel, whose office lost 21 staff members September 11.

Col. Golinski lived on Paul Revere Ride in Columbia, Md., with Irene, his wife of 23 years and mother of his daughters, Marcellia, Sarah and Amanda.

Col. Golinski is remembered as a man who knew how to mix business and pleasure on the golf course. His first set of golf clubs was a birthday gift received at the age of 16. While a lieutenant colonel based at Fort Meade, he played with the "First Army group" there, doing equally well on the Applewood and Floyd L. Parks courses, said pro golfer Fred Heuvel, who often joined Col. Golinski's foursomes.

"He probably would have liked to be out here every day, and he was a good golfer. He had a single-digit handicap and shot in the mid- to upper-70s or low-80s," Mr. Heuvel said. "When he retired and went to the Pentagon as a civilian, his handicap went up because he wasn't able to play as much."



-- Anonymous, September 03, 2002


I get to start off the anniversary visiting my dentist instead of glued to the internet.

-- Anonymous, September 04, 2002

Did anyone else catch the newest footage from that fateful day? An Asian man was filming the area of the Pentagon just after the impact, and caught the swarms of people pouring out of the building.

He just recently got round to viewing the tape he made that day, the shock of it all has only just begun to ease.

It was on NBC news, I think I saw it.

-- Anonymous, September 04, 2002


I can't look at anymore pictures of that day right now . . . just too many emotions. They've also started to run footage of the planes crashing into the buildings on local TV stations, too, for upcoming tributes. I saw three blurbs while I was waiting for the weather segment to come on.

I dunno. I'm thinking about spending 9/11 well away from the inet and TV, perhaps attend a memorial service at some point. I don't know about what's going on in your areas, but I feel as though some of our local political candidates are using this anniversary as a staging ground for their campaigns, and that sickens me. One of the candidates dodged the draft, but now he's all wrapped in the flag, going on about how important our military is. I feel like smacking him whenever I see him.

-- Anonymous, September 04, 2002


Around here it seems far too many people have forgotten 9/11 and they are complaining about Bush being a warmonger. Probly the Duke/UNC influence. They need all the reminders we can throw at them. The Hungarian reports same thing with all the nurses and other medical personnel at work.

-- Anonymous, September 04, 2002


Moderation questions? read the FAQ