Remember September 11th
Monday, March 29, 2004
My September 11th
This is how I remember September 11th.
I was at my desk, right around 8:00 a.m. (central time), when a coworker, our engineer, poked his head into my office. Oddly, he was the only other person in the office that morning. “World Trade Center towers are exploding.” He told me this with his quirky sense of humor. I didn’t quite understand what he was telling me, so I got up and went to the break-room.
For the next hour or so I was dumbfounded by what I saw. The first image I saw when walking into the break-room was, quite literally, a giant fireball erupting from what I now know as tower #2. A thick cloud of black-smoke was billowing from tower #1. They showed the explosion a few times, as they talked about reports that a small plane had hit the first tower.
Then they showed the moments just before the explosion, and behind the tower you could see a small image, one that could be a plane, veer out of view behind the tower. They were now saying a plane had hit tower #2 as well.
After showing this a few times, they showed a new view of the explosion---a stunning view. As I stood there watching, a big passenger plane flew straight and deliberate right into tower #2. I could feel a lump begin to form in my throat. They began showing this repeatedly.
How could such a horrible thing happen? I was still shocked enough by what I was seeing that I didn’t even stop to think it might be happening on purpose.
As other people arrived at our small office building, they walked in and went right to the break-room, to see what was happening. Things began to blur together. The emotions in the room were raw and hard to describe. One guy, a veteran, was hollering that this was an act of war, and that it was time for us to go kick some ass. I couldn’t find any reason to disagree with him. One of the women who worked there was stunned, like I was, and I will always remember how upset she looked. Our computer programmer was an immigrant from Cypress, and he was noticeably quite. My boss kept remarking about how unbelievable this was. I remember our engineer leaving to pick up his kids from school, and on his way out mentioning “I wonder how long those towers will stand?”
On T.V., they were showing the giant holes in the towers, and the thick black smoke billowing out from both of them. Paper was falling to the street like confetti. They were also showing streets full of people staring at the towers. The people were standing in the middle of the street and lining the sidewalks, staring in stunned silence. Close-ups of the upper levels showed people hanging their heads out, waving things to get attention. Some of their faces were darkened with soot.
As I watched this, I didn’t feel like I was a thousand miles away. I felt like I was right next door.
Then the TV announcers started talking about people jumping from the towers.
We kept switching channels to get more news on what was happening.
They were now talking about the terrorist angle. Osama Bin Laden had tried to bomb these towers before, and he had tried to bomb the space needle in Seattle at the turn of the century. Reports started coming in about hijacked planes. Who would do such a terrible thing? What kind of monsters were these people, that they could purposefully kill so many innocent people.
On T.V., a plane flew overhead, and everyone started ducking for cover in fear-another one was coming. I could hear it roaring through the air. Then somebody called out that it was a national guard plane, and felt relieved. I could see the relief of the people on T.V. as well.
Then came a report that the Pentagon was on fire. Was this related?
Soon, a picture of the Pentagon on fire was shown. A few minutes later, they came back to the pentagon to show people running away, across an empty highway, over the highway barriers. The report was that another plane was heading towards the capital. Another view, from the capital building, showed people running from the capital. At the White House, people were being told to run from the building.
The images and emotions blurred together again. Then I looked up and noticed that one of the towers (tower #2) appeared to be completely engulfed---you couldn’t see the structure at all, just a giant pillar of dark smoke. As the column of smoke began to thin, I realized that it was thinner than the tower #1, even though they were supposed to be identical. “I think the tower collapsed.” I remarked. “No, it’s still there” my boss reassured me. Then the announcers reported that it had fallen. We were all stunned.
The images blurred together again. People running from the towers, tower #1 collapsing, a plane down in Pennsylvania, all planes were being grounded. Bridges covered with pedestrians walking home, away from ground zero. Scattered reports came in of stray flights… Small planes flying towards the Sears tower in Chicago, a hijacking out of Detroit, Another plane racing towards the Capital. Most of these turned out later to be false, but we didn’t know. Who else would be attacked?
Pretty soon we all went back to our desks, but found ourselves stopping in the break-room every few minutes to see if anything new had happened.
The lady who does our payroll called-she wasn’t coming in. She had not heard from her husband yet-he was flying out of Charlotte on US Air (the stations had been reporting that one of the hijacked planes may have been a US air flight out of Charlotte). I could hear how worried she was. I told her the airports were a mess, and that there were probably long lines for the pay phones. Sometime later her husband called her and checked in.
I later found out that our Corporate Benefits Manager, who I work closely with, had a friend who worked in Tower #1 but got out okay. I also found our that one of our employees in West Bend, a lady who I worked closely with, lost her niece in the initial impact in Tower #1. I also found out that my brother-in-law was flying through Detroit, but was okay. Way out here in Wisconsin I am so close to this tragedy.
I left work early, and got a haircut. The lady who cut my hair had no idea what was going on, and asked humorously “do you think there will be a war?” I felt a desire to shake her and shout at her “Watch the TV for a few minutes and then tell me if your question wasn’t completely stupid!” I did no such thing, but knew that of course there would be a war.
When I got home, I watched the news, anxiously waiting for my wife to get home. When she did, all I could do was hug her for several minutes. I knew she was okay all day long, but something about having her there in my arms was so reassuring.
How has September 11th changed my view of the world?
I no longer think of terrorism as a threat, but instead as a reality. I know that someday I will turn on the T.V. and see the next attack. I strongly believe we need to get them before they get us. Idly minding our business doesn’t work anymore. I think that once Iraq stabilizes, we need to zero in on nations like Syria and Iran, who boldly harbor terrorists. The threat of war with us may be enough to get them to kick the terrorists out.
These Islamic fanatics (and I know they do not represent all Muslims) are people who don’t see a difference between a civilian and a soldier. In their minds, the only good American is a dead American. These are people who don’t see accidental civilian casualties in war-zones like Afghanistan or Iraq as collateral damage, but instead as intentional war atrocities. These are people who think the crusades happened yesterday, and that we share the same mentality as the 12th century Christian crusaders who attacked them so long ago. These are people who see a McDonalds opening in Saudi Arabia and think it is a deliberate act of the American government to subvert their culture, rather than as a business trying to expand into new markets.
I watch the news a lot more than I ever did, and view politics as something important, rather than as trivial non-sense. I view our role in fighting terrorism as attacking them. I can’t fathom how people opposed the war in Afghanistan (and there were a few who did).
I focus so much more on what’s important. My wife, my new son, my parents, my sister, my in-laws. I spend more time thinking about God. I bought a flag and kept in out as much as I could since then, replacing it when it was too tattered to hang out there any more. I use my right to free speech a lot more, and frequently have to remind myself that other people have differing opinions.
