America was attacked on 9-11-2001?
Would you share, briefly, where you were? I believe this is one of those pivotal moments. My mother's generation all remember where they were when they heard the news of Pearl Harbor or the news about President Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.. I remember some stark moments -- when President Reagan was shot, when John Lennon was shot, and 9-11.
We had just moved to Virginia and my husband wasn't finished in-processing at the Pentagon. However, he had been asked to come to a conference out in Maryland so was out of the building that day. My daughter was at school, my son was with me. We were sitting in the line to get the oil changed in my car. I had let him out of his car seat and he was bouncing around. I heard the news on the radio about the twin towers. Then I heard the news about the Pentagon. I ordered him into his chair, called the school and said, "I'm coming to get my daughter." I called my husband's widowed mother to tell her I absolutely KNEW that he wasn't in the building that day. I picked up my daughter, and we went home to wait. Praise God, we had just moved into our rental house and didn't have any TV service. My children never saw the footage until it was history.
My husband finally made it home about 8 hours later. Since then, we have a family plan, a meeting place, and a family member not on the East Coast who is the "check in" person.
We explained in simple terms to our children what had happened. The very next morning my 4 year old son prayed, "Dear God, please change the terrorists' hearts."
What about you? Where were you? How are you changed? This is not a place to rant, but to share some of the grief that many have carried since then.
6 comments:
I have posted this to my Google+ account. If you don't see it this is what I wrote:
When this happened I remember waking up in the middle of the night and turning on the news. CNN of course. I saw the first Tower on fire and thought I must be on a SciFi Channel. I went channel surfing and it was all over the place. I was horrified. i woke up everyone in the house to tell them and called my mom in Nevada...it was horrific. I have never felt so horrible in all my life and as the day went on I went on and got angry and always proud to be an American. It was something I will never forget as I know hardly anyone else will either. Have I changed No. I HATE those people who did this to our country, in our borders, to my country. I don't ever think it will end, but you attack my country, you deserve and are going to get whatever my country sees fit as retribution. And do I care that it's revenge. HELL no! Should it be revenge. Maybe not. Should it be punishment. HELL yes!. Don't mess with The United States of America. My home. Your home. Our home.
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I was getting my kids ready for school. they were about to leave for the bus and we all stood there watching the 2nd plane hit the tower. I could not believe it was real. my youngest son would run into the house for months afterwards anytime a plane flew over our house!
I also remember vividly the moment I found out that my good friend, who worked in one of the towers, had overslept that day and missed the train to work. I had been frantic all day trying to find her. Still makes me cry.
I'm writing a post about this for Sunday, but we were in DC doing research for Mike's dissertation. We had spent the previous day in the National Archives & were heading back into town to finish up. We had not turned on the TV in the hotel room, or the news in the car (we were listening to a CD) & couldn't understand the traffic jam. Finally, we stopped at a local park (off of George Washington Pkwy?) so I could go to the bathroom & the ranger there searched the trunk of our car. When I asked why he kept saying just listen to the radio, listen to the radio. So I did.
We were kind of in shock & decided to check out of the hotel since it wasn't likely we'd be going back to the National Archive that week, & instead of heading home to Ohio we went HOME to NC to be with our families. It was the most eerie experience - no planes in the sky.
I was at work in my office in Tel Aviv. My father called from NY to let me know that something was going on, the first reports were quite confused, some said a small private plane had crashed. In the earliest moments, before the news crews even got there, NPR was the only one saying anything about it at all so I listened to that online until they stopped broadcasting, while someone else ran to get a tv up and working. Several of us in the office were from NY originally and we just stood there horrified and helpless, hands over our mouths, watching it all unfold.
10 years on it's still unfathomable, and the NYC skyline still looks empty and wrong.
I was at work and had gone up to the office to check on something. They had the tv on; it was right after the planes hit the towers. I absolutely couldn't believe it. We also had a family plan, along with iodine tablets for radiation (we lived very close to a nuclear station). Unfortunately, since we moved, we don't have a plan. We really need to sit down and have one since we're a bit scattered right now.
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