Life, Loss and Other Important Things

I was getting ready for work, it was September 11, 2001. As usual I had the TV on the Today Show in the background. When I was finished getting ready I sat down in front of the TV. The first plane had hit, at first I thought, "What the heck, how did the channel get changed." I thought I was watching a movie. Then I saw the second plane hit and realized this was no movie, this was happening right now. Like everyone when I saw the pictures of the first plane I thought it had to be some kind of a freak accident, but when the second plane hit it was obvious this was no accident. We were under attack. How is that possible?

Before anyone really knew what was going on, it was feared there could be as many as 30,000 to 50,000 people in those buildings on any given day. Thank God all those people were not there at the time it happened. It was bad enough through all four planned attacks close to 3,000 people were murdered. 

I had to get to work, once I arrived it was obvious everyone was afraid and many of us were in tears at what we had been witnessing on the news. One of the guys pulled a TV used for training videos out and we were able to get one of the local channels to come it. It was then we heard a plane had flown into the Pentagon and shortly later heard of yet another plane  that had gone down in rural southwest Pennsylvania.

Seeing the destruction, learning this had been a terrorist attack, yes I said terrorist, call it what it was please. Our government seems to now have decided it is policitally incorrect to say terrorist. My heart broke along with every other American in our country. To this day I cannot watch anything about that day without breaking down in tears. I did not know anyone personally who died that day so I can only imagine how those families and friends must feel even to this day over such a tragic and great loss.