FanPost

A Time To Remember - 9/11

I slept in on 9/11/2001 and felt lucky to miss a lot of traffic on my drive to work that morning.  I worked in Southeast Washington D.C. (across from the new Nationals stadium now), and recall how beautiful a day it was.  Sunny.  Warm.  Peaceful. 

Like most of you, the first thing I do when I get to work is grab my cup of morning joe.  As I slowly enjoyed my coffee, coworkers started congregating in my boss' office.  Rumors spread quickly, the World Trade Center was bomb...no, worst, a plane crashed into it.  We had radio blaring and cell phones were flipped.  Not long after that someone pointed to smoke over by the Pentagon.  From our office building you can see across the river to where the Pentagon sits.  Smoke billowed up like some ungodly trash fire. Stunned.  I felt stunned.  Some coworkers were starting to panic, others were calling loved ones and all I could think of was "damn, we just got attacked."  Stunned. Having served in the U.S. Army, the next thing that crossed my mind was to remain calm and figure out how we're going to get everyone home safely.  Sadly, my company, along with every other company in our building had no plan for evacuations of this sort.  Management simply told us to go home.  People funneled out the building, stood in disarray outside and grew frustrated as cell phone calls couldn't go through because the network was tied up. 

Since I drove in that day (many people take the Metro/train), I called out for people in need of a ride.  I drove 3 strangers home that day in traffic that seemed fitting, as if we needed time to reflect...pause.  I eventually got in touch with my wife who was caring for our 3 month old son.  I made it home and I watched the news.  I watched and watched and watched.  Stunned. 

There are many other memories and feelings the I could recount here, but I won't . All I want to say is that we live in a great country.  A remarkable country.  I know we're not perfect country, seriously who is and why are we surprised when people act like people? But, like our own families, it's special, unique, and full of incredible people and their stories.  Mindless deaths are so difficult to understand, hence why 9/11 hurts as it does.  Death, though gut wretchingly painful, reminds me and I hope you of how awesome life is.  So today I'm going to remember, reflect and live. 

9-11-01_medium

via icemandel.tripod.com

I don't think I can say this enough.  Thanks for this site, Guru. 

 

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