9/11

September 11, 2001 is a day that will live in infamy. It was a day that will never be forgotten. America was attacked on its own soil. What was that day like for me?

I looked out from my covers to be greeted by a sunny fall day. I usually doze for a while and turn on the radio. Sometimes I turned on the cable news channels to get a start on today’s news stories.

At about 7:50 Central Daylight time I turned on the TV.  The first image was of dark gray smoke rising out of one of the Twin Towers at the foot of Manhattan.   It was the beginning of a new day in history. The TV reporter did not know what happened yet. They were reporting that they thought a small plane had crashed into the towers. Details were still sketchy. As I lay in bed watching the story develop, there was a huge explosion with a ball of flames shooting out of the side of the building.  Because of the camera angle, my first thought was that there was a second explosion in the same tower.  It was then reported that a second plane crashed into the second tower. Unbelievable! The pace of bad news accelerated.

A few minutes later there was a report of a plane had crashed into the Pentagon in Washington. It was still unbelievable. A little later it was reported that a plane had crashed in Central Pennsylvania. Unbelievable! The chain of events was surreal. What was happening in my country?  The smoke on the towers continued to grow. Black smoke against the bluest of God’s sky. Panic began to ensue in the buildings. Some people from above the floors where the flames raged jumped to their death. Office papers floated down like huge snow flakes. The street scenes were incredible. Finally the building themselves fell to earth. This was not a movie, it was real. It was a terrorist attack. The world is full of evil.

The rest of the day and much of the following days was spent watching history unfold.

Planes were ordered out of the skies. I later saw a screen at the FAA that showed hundreds of lights representing the position of all the planes in the air.  One by one the lights disappeared from the board as the planes found their emergency landing airport.  The screen finally showed no lights. America was dark.



Just Remember Forever!

Sam