Nine Eleven

People alive in 1963 remember exactly where they were when they heard the news that President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas. People alive on September 11, 2001 feel the same way.

It was a Tuesday. I hadn't been in college that long. I was still living at home. My routine was to get up, eat breakfast, dress for school, then watch TV before I left for CBU. I was on a news kick at the time, so I turned on Fox News. They were already showing live pictures of the World Trade Center burning, and there were confused reports that a plane had struck the building. As reports started to come in that _something_ had happened at the Pentagon, I stood in my living room and watched the second plane fly into the Twin Towers. At first, I thought it was some footage they found of the first plane, but then I realized that you could see the first building on fire while the second plane struck.

Around this time, pictures started coming in from the Pentagon, then reports that it, too, had been struck by an airplane. In 2001, no one's first thought was "terrorist attack," not until we started to see how coordinated, how planned this was. The first tower to fall came down about the time I was leaving for school. 7 years removed, I don't remember if I saw it live or heard it on the radio then saw a video, but I still have that image in my mind. I drove to CBU with the news on every radio station. When I got to class, Dr. Brown was just putting a sign on the door that class was cancelled. I still had my peer counselling class that afternoon, but I emailed the PC that I wouldn't be there and then drove home. The news was still on the radio, but I had to turn it off. The news of another plane crash, somewhere in Pennsylvannia, was out there, but I was too drained to keep listening. I don't remember much else from that day. The next vivid memory of the events is when President Bush went down to Ground Zero. The now lampooned exchange where the President began speaking and someone shouted "we can't hear you." President Bush's reply, of course, was the "the people who knocked these buildings down will hear from all of us pretty soon" line. At that point, I think everyone was expecting another attack, and sooner rather than later.

It's been 7 years. There have been attacks elsewhere in the world. Domestic terrorists have attacked here at home. There has not been a single successful attack by foreign terrorists on American soil. Nearly 3,000 people were killed that day. Among them were heroes, fighting with their last breath to save just one more life. Also included were average people, doing nothing more than showing up for work. Buildings came down, symbols were damaged, but you don't poke a lion just because it's snoozing. As a nation, we came together in grief and sorrow and pain.
No politics today. No regular blog entry. More tomorrow.