Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning?

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That is so sad.
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It's hard enough watching it now, I couldn't imagine watching it live.
 
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Well we officially were in the same place! I was feeding the baby. Husband was sleeping after a midnight shift. I had gotten a positive result on a pregnancy test and was happy and excited. He was supposed to be off the next few days and we were planning on taking the baby to the beach for the first time. I planned on telling DH about the new baby at the beach.

After the third plane hit the pentagon I woke DH up and told him, "We're at war." Practically as I was telling him his pager went off.

He was ordered in to work. He told me to pack enough stuff for 3 days for me and the baby. We frantically packed and drove out to his parents. DH wanted me and the baby somewhere safe and away from what he knew were high profile military targets. He dropped us off at his parents and left for work.

I didn't see him for three days.

I didn't tell him about the coming baby because I didn't want him to be more distracted. I always wondered why women had babies during wars and here I was......
 
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Back when they first made it, it only aired once but apparently they have been showing it all day durring football games.. I think it might become a 9/11 tradition
 
I was home my neighbor called and said turn on the TV, I said what channel and he said, "any channel". I will never forget that as long as I live.
 
I was at home with my one-year-old son, preparing to go back to work that afternoon. My husband called from the school where he was teaching and told me to turn on the TV, that a plane had hit the WTC. My first thought was that it was a small plane that had been sightseeing or something. Being an air traffic controller, I am used to hearing stories of plane crashes. As I watched the news, the second plane hit and I knew it was something much more serious than I was imagining. I was totally perplexed. From my perspective, I just couldn't understand how this could happen in the world's safest airspace. My heart went out not only to people in those planes and the towers, but the controllers who had been working and tracking those planes. The contollers that day did an amazing job putting all the air traffic on the ground as quickly as possible in the face of such grief and confusion - some of them even had loved ones on those planes.

At the time, I worked at the Chicago TRACON. Needless to say, security was incredibly tight when I went to work that afternoon. I had never seen the radar scopes so empty and the TRACON so quiet. It was very eerie.
 
We (hubby and I both) worked in a mechanic shop in Kansas City, then as now, and one of the other mechanics had a news radio station tuned in. As soon as the first report of a plane hitting the first tower came in, we all sat down our noisy tools, and walked over to listen, or hollered at others, so they'd do the same. It started only minutes before our first break was scheduled, but we stopped, anyway. We couldn't NOT stop.

(Not to be weird, but the first thing that came to my mind was that it was Bin Laden. Even before the report of the 2nd tower being hit. Not sure why it did, but I guess my mind just put the puzzle pieces together right away, remembering the USS Cole attack not too long ago... I was pretty freaked out when it turned out I was right!)

I will never forget the almost shell-shocked looks on our faces as we looked at each other for support, and listened to the reports as the 2nd plane hit, the third hit the pentagon, and the 4th went down... every time we heard all there was to hear at the time, and went back to work, it seemed like there was a new report of another plane crashing, then another. One or another of us would start yelling, "there's another one!", and we'd drop things to go listen. ..very darn little got done that day.

As we would go outside that day, at lunch or 2nd break, and look up, to not see so much as a jet trail, many of us got goosebumps. Kansas City usually has some pretty busy airspace. That sensation, and the total silence from the skies, was to linger for awhile, yet.

I remember, in the following month, even beyond, watching a plane go across the sky, I would silently tell it to stay up there where it belonged, not to crash into anything or anyone, and arrive safely where it was going.

I remember my anger at having my entire world-view corrupted, torn apart, sullied. I remember my wishes for revenge, followed the next moment by my feelings of shame about such violent thoughts. I also remember shaking uncontrollably as I watched media coverage of it that evening, and the following days. The nearest thing that had ever done close to that much to me, emotionally, was watching the Challenger disaster (STS-51-L) live on tv. (I still can't see video of either incident without a renewed flood of emotion.) The same type of shock, only magnified a hundredfold.

I regret that we went to war with not only one country, but another that was unrelated to the attack, in the decade since. I regret that we've lost so many more soldiers over there since then than the number of souls that died that day. I regret that so many would hate an entire religion for the violence of a few radicals. I regret, too - suprisingly - the quick death of the mastermind, himself. I would have rather seen a trial - as bad a security nightmare as that would have been - instead, followed by an execution. darn glad he's dead, though.

It's been hard hearing Taps played many times today. I've seen the Budweiser commercial twice today. Averted my eyes from the tv multiple times today. I've gone through way too many tissues. Glad the day is over.
 

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