I watched the movie, "Titanic", and I could feel the pain and the anguish that those passengers were going through.

Never has a movie touched me so. It pulled at a part of me, deep inside, that made me cry, made me hurt, and made me scared that I too would lose those around me.

I knew that no one in the movie died, but just watching the actors and the computer graphics made me picture this actually happening to the real life passengers some 86 years ago.

I cannot fully describe how this movie touched me, other than the fact that each time I hear the movie's theme, I suddenly feel the pain of countless souls that have lost their lives on the Titanic.

Even though the Titanic was 175 feet tall, 900 feet long, had four-story tall engines, and three props that were each the size of a house, the show "Titanic: Anatomy of a Disaster" (on the Discovery Channel) tells us that, with Sonar Imaging, the total damage to the Titanic's hull was not this mythological 300 foot gaping wound under the water line, but rather less total square feet than a human body. The poor quality of the rivit heads caused them to be sheered off by the Iceberg and most of the water entered through the bolt holes and scrapes in the hull, no thicker than a human pinky.

Many things could have been changed:
• The fact that the Titanic's Rudder was too small for it's mass.
• She was running at full speed.
• The Radio Operator not giving out the last Iceberg Warning that they recieved.
• No Binoculars in the crow's nest.
• Enough Lifeboats for less than ½ the crew and passengers.
• Lifeboats went out less then full (one left with 12 people in it).
• Or even the fact that the bulkheads did not go from floor to ceiling (like planned - that was later changed), so that the water could flow over from one compartment to the next.

But the fact remains when the Titanic's Captain E.J. Smith said, "I can't imagine any condition that would cause a ship to founder. Modern ship building has gone beyond that.", I belive that the Ocean decided to show the world that it's Spirt and Will was stronger than Human Technology would ever be. And it remains still to this day.

1523 Souls Were Lost! In this tragedy, I am thankful for one thing: the sinking took from about 11:40pm until 2:20am. This gave time to evacuate many lives that would have also been lost had the ship sank faster.

Maybe this could have been prevented, maybe it couldn't have. But it did happen and the pain of those souls haunts me more and more with each passing day.

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You Can E-Mail Me At: camelot_knight@hotmail.com

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Requiem is Latin for Eternal Peace.