Today is the 5th anniversary of 9-11. If you are like me, you know exactly where you were when you heard the news. (I was in bed listening to the radio.) Where were you? Leave a comment.9-11 split history down the middle - before and after. The '89 earthquake didn't do that. Five years later and I barely noticed that anniversary. But this was different. This was so completely foreign to my experiences. When I was a child and terrorists took over planes, they had the pilots land, and they would negotiate for the lives of the people on board. Sometimes a few died; sometimes all survived. But no terrorist took flying lessons to fly the planes into buildings, purposely killing themselves and all on board. It's indeed a new era we live in, and we've all settled into the "new normal." Now, everytime I see a plane in the sky I say a quick prayer of protection for America and her allies.
I want to share with you a political cartoon from the San Diego Union Tribune shortly after 9-11. Someone e-mailed this to me and I uploaded it to my Web space.
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Let's purpose to never forget the lives lost. Never before. Never again.
Technorati tagged: anniversary, WTC, World Trade Center, New York, terrorist, terrorism, 9-11
4 comments:
Where was I?
I was getting off the subway to go to work, and I saw some tourists looking up and pointing at the sky, but I didn't think anything of it.
When I got into the elevator at work, I heard someone say "some terrorists flew planes into the world trade center".
My response: "This means war".
I got up to the top floor to hear that the pentagon had been hit, too. I went onto google to pull up live video. One of my co-workers jerked his head in (I was in an interior office at that time) and said, "that's nothing, go look outside".
I stepped out to the window to see a massive cloud of smoke ...
... I almost took the rest of the day off. But I saw everyone else was hanging together, so I decided I could too. I put in a full day. I can't really say I was angry ... more like surprised.
The anger came later.
Respectfully,
Brian P.
I was at work, and did not know what had happened until about noon central time. I was teaching a science class to adults with developmental disabilities and we were discouraged from talking about it at work on day one because the powers that be wanted their family members to be able to explain it to them. I can understand. If some of the folks I work with had seen it live, they likely would have exhibited some serious behaviors. Some of the people who attend the agency I work for have little to no coping skills and might have taken their frustrations out physically on themselves and/or others. This way they were able to find out in their own home and process the information prior to returning the next day. After that, our counselor offered group sessions and individual counseling if anyone needed it. Still, I think it odd that when I look back on that day, I did not even know it was going on until I got back to my desk on my lunch break and had messages from my grandma and sister on my voice mail to call them. When I called my sister I was worried something had happened to someone in my family. It was strange when she told me what had happened. It was an odd combination of relief that no one in our family had died, then immediately followed by disbelief, then anger shortly thereafter. It was very difficult to work the rest of the day and act naturally.
I had just arrived at work and was waiting in the self-contained classroom for the special ed. teacher, who was teaching my assigned child, to arrive. When she walked in, she told me the Pentagon had been hit by a plane. I thought it was some kind of joke, but she said she was serious. The ladies in the school office pulled a television unit out of the school library and turned it on in the office on low volume so they could watch updates on the news all day. By the end of the day, I'd heard about the other hijackings--and that they were hijackings.
I was at work, and my ex AIM'd me the news. I didn't believe him at first, but tried to get some news on my computer. Site after site was jammed and I couldn't find a thing. I discovered one man had CNN up, and the office manager had a radio. We all stood around listening, then left for the local sports-bar and watched it on TV. They had all the major networks playing.
Before leaving for lunch, I called my son at school and found out they were all watching TV and wouldn't be getting dismissed early.
I also called my daughter. At the time she was working at RDU as a security checker. She was very diligent about her job, and says that most of the people she worked with did too. When I reached her she was at home, getting ready for work. She hadn't had the news on, so didin't know that anything was going on. She had to go to work....was told if she didn't she'd be fired. I begged her to stay home. She went in and over the next few days had to go in for a few hours at a time. They also got more training. I remember being terrified that she would be in danger.
I still cannot watch the footage and not cry.
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